Genesis 10:12

Summary

The verse continues the list of cities associated with Nimrod's building activity (from v.11), naming Resen as located between Nineveh and Calah. It closes with a nominal clause identifying "the great city," though the pronoun's precise referent remains grammatically open.

Key words

• Resen ("Resen", H7449) — proper name, third city named in the list, introduced by the direct object marker 'et (H0853), which marks it as a further object of the building verb from the previous verse.
• bein ("between", H0996G) — construct-state cardinal used twice (bein...uvein) to form the correlative "between X and between Y," marking Resen's geographic position relative to two other cities.
• hi' ("she/that", H1931) — third-person feminine singular pronoun, functioning as the subject of a nominal (verbless) clause; its feminine gender matches multiple possible antecedents (Resen, Kalach, or ha'ir), creating referential ambiguity.
• ha'ir ("the city", H5892B) — feminine singular noun with definite article, forming the predicate of the nominal clause.
• hagedolah ("the great", H1419A) — feminine singular adjective with definite article, agreeing with ha'ir to form the definite phrase "the great city."

What the text says

The clause structure is paratactic: a conjunction plus object marker (ve...'et) attaches Resen as a third city to the list begun in the preceding verse, followed by a prepositional phrase using the doubled construct bein...uvein ("between... and between...") to locate Resen relative to Nineveh and Kalach. The final segment, hi ha'ir hagedolah, is a verbless (nominal) clause: the pronoun hi' stands as subject, and ha'ir hagedolah ("the great city") as predicate, joined without a copular verb, as is standard in Hebrew nominal clauses.

The grammatical difficulty lies in identifying the antecedent of hi'. Because Hebrew pronouns agree in gender and number but not in proximity rules as fixed as in some languages, hi' (feminine singular) could refer to Resen, to Kalach, or — more distantly — to Nineveh, all of which are grammatically feminine-compatible city names in this context. The Hebrew text itself does not disambiguate which city receives the description "the great city."

Differences between versions

The versions resolve the pronoun's referent differently. The BSB attaches "the great city" to Calah ("the great city of Calah"), treating the final clause as modifying the nearest-mentioned city. The SBLIBRE instead applies "the great city" to Resén, restructuring the verse so Resen becomes the subject described as great. The RV1909 and Vulgate preserve a more neutral relative clause ("la cual es ciudad grande" / "haec est civitas magna"), leaving the antecedent unspecified, consistent with the Hebrew's own grammatical openness. The LXX (Swete) similarly renders a bare demonstrative, "αὕτη ἡ πόλις ἡ μεγάλη" ("this is the great city"), without clarifying which named city is intended.