Genesis 10:26

וְיָקְטָן יָלַד אֶת־אַלְמוֹדָד וְאֶת־שָׁלֶף וְאֶת־חֲצַרְמָוֶת וְאֶת־יָֽרַח׃

✦ Hebrew interlinear

Tap a word to see its entry

✦ The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

וְיָקְטָ֣ן יָלַ֔ד אֶת־אַלְמוֹדָ֖ד וְאֶת־שָׁ֑לֶף וְאֶת־חֲצַרְמָ֖וֶת וְאֶת־יָֽרַח׃

Greek (Septuagint)

Ἰεκτὰν δὲ ἐγέννησεν τὸν Ἐλμωδὰδ καὶ τὸν Σάλεφ καὶ τὸν Ἁσαρμὼθ καὶ Ἰάραδ

Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0

Latin (Vulgate)

Qui Jectan genuit Elmodad, et Saleph, et Asarmoth, Jare,

Spanish

Joctán fue el padre de Almodad, Sélef, Jazarmávet, Jera,

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

Y Joctán engendró á Almodad, y á Sheleph, y Hazarmaveth, y á Jera,

English

And Joktan was the father of Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah,

✦ What the text says

Summary

The verse lists four sons of Joktan: Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, and Jerah. It continues the genealogical record of Shem's descendants through Joktan, using the standard Hebrew formula of fathering.

Key words

ya.ke.Tan ("Joktan", H3355) — proper name, subject of the verb; identified elsewhere in Genesis 10 as a son of Eber.
ya.Lad ("he fathered", H3205) — qal perfect, third person masculine singular; denotes a single completed act of begetting, governing all four names that follow.
'et- (untranslated object marker, H0853) — appears four times (positions 4, 7, 10, 13), each time marking the following proper name as the direct object of ya.Lad.
'al.mo.Dad ("Almodad", H0486) — proper name, first object of the verb, first son listed.
cha.tzar.Ma.vet ("Hazarmaveth", H2700) — proper name, third object; a compound name whose form incorporates the element "death" (mavet), though the text gives no explanation of the name's meaning.

What the text says

The verse follows a fixed syntactic pattern common in the Genesis 10 genealogy: subject + verb (ya.Lad) + a series of direct objects joined by the conjunction ve- ("and", H9002) and marked individually by the object marker 'et-. The single perfect verb ya.Lad covers all four sons; Hebrew does not repeat the verb for each name, so the four object markers function to keep each name grammatically distinct as a separate object of the one act of fathering, rather than as a compound subject or a loosely joined list.

The repetition of 'et- before each name (positions 4, 7, 10, 13) is a feature of Hebrew syntax that has no lexical translation — it does not appear in English, Spanish, Greek, or Latin renderings, all of which simply list the names with conjunctions. This structural marker is only visible in the Hebrew text itself.

Differences between versions

The Greek (LXX) renders ya.Lad with ἐγέννησεν, matching the sense of begetting, but spells the names differently: Ἐλμωδὰδ, Σάλεφ, Ἁσαρμὼθ, and Ἰάραδ ("Jarad") for the Hebrew Ya.rach ("Jerah", H3392) — the final consonant differs from the Hebrew form. The Vulgate similarly gives "Jare" for this name. The Hebrew ya.ke.Tan becomes Ἰεκτὰν in the LXX and "Jectan" in the Vulgate, reflecting standard transliteration shifts rather than differences in meaning.

This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.