Laban’s response on hearing Jacob’s account is Surely you are my bone and my flesh! Surely translates an emphatic particle that can also be rendered “Certainly,” “There is no question,” “Without doubt.”

My bone and my flesh has the same sense as the expression used by Adam in 2.23. By using this idiom Laban recognizes Jacob as his relative or close kinsman. Good News Translation and others employ an English equivalent, “my own flesh and blood.” Bible en français courant says “You certainly are of my family, the same blood as I,” and Biblia Dios Habla Hoy “Truly you are a person of my own blood.” We may also say, for example, “You are really part of my family” or “We-two are from the same ancestor.”

This part of the narrative closes with And he stayed with him a month; that is, “Jacob remained in Laban’s house for a month.”

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 .