Chapter 32 ended with an explanation of a dietary taboo. In 32.31 Jacob was limping away from the ford at the Jabbok river. At the beginning of chapter 33 our attention is still on Jacob, who now sees Esau approaching. In order to pick up the thread of the story from 32.31, it may be necessary to open chapter 33 by saying, for example, “As Jacob was going out…” or “When Jacob was leaving that place….”

And Jacob lifted up his eyes and looked: for lifted up his eyes see 18.2.

And behold, Esau was coming: behold signals here something of surprise, or that something was noticed. No doubt Jacob expected to meet Esau in the open country and not so close to his camp. The element of surprise is well brought out in New International Version “Jacob looked up and there was Esau, coming with….”

It is possible to treat the first part of this verse as a time clause; for example, “When Jacob saw Esau coming … he divided….”

So he divided the children among Leah and Rachel and the two maids: words for divide in some languages may mean that Jacob divided the children so that each mother would have an equal number; but this is not the sense here. What Jacob did was to assign each child to accompany its own mother, as the next verse makes clear. We may translate, for example, “he placed the children with their mothers, who were Leah, Rachel, and the two servant mothers” or “he divided the children into three groups with their own mothers.” Taking this clause with the next verse, some translations say “he told the children to stand with their mothers; then he told the two servant women to go first with their children….”

Good News Translation calls the two maids “concubines.” For a discussion of this term, see 22.24.

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .