Maiden refers to a young woman of marriageable age. In verse 16 the word is repeated and the young woman is further described as a “virgin,” with an additional remark about her lack of sexual experience.

Pray let down your jar refers to lowering the water jar from the woman’s shoulder.

In the Revised Standard Version rendering of this verse, the request Let the maiden … let her be the one … is repeated as a frame around the imagined conversation. The Hebrew text does not actually use a request form; it is literally “and it will be [that] the girl, the one who I say to her … and she says…, you have chosen her….” Here is one way that may serve as a model:

• “… I will say to one of the young women, ‘Please let me have a drink.’ If she is the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac, she will then say to me ‘Yes, sir, have a drink.’ Then she will add, ‘I will also get water for your camels to drink.’ In this way I will know you have done a great kindness to my master.”

Another way of adjusting the structure of this difficult sentence is for the servant to give the whole of the imagined conversation before coming to the “if” element; in one translation this is developed as follows:

• “… I will say to one girl, ‘Give me some water.’ And she will say, ‘All right old man. I will give you some water. And I will get water for all your camels too.’ When that girl talks like that, well I will know that she is the right girl, the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac.”

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 .