Genesis 11:23

Summary

The verse states that Serug lived two hundred years after fathering Nahor, and that during this period he had other sons and daughters. It belongs to the genealogical chain of Genesis 11, following the pattern used for each patriarch listed between the flood and Abraham.

Key words

• va.Chi ("he lived", H2421) — qal narrative form; the vav-consecutive links this clause to the preceding genealogical statement, presenting it as the next event in sequence.
• 'a.cha.Rei ("after", H0310A) — construct form meaning "after [the event of]"; it introduces the temporal clause that follows.
• ho.li.D ("fathered", H3205) — hiphil infinitive construct, the causative stem indicating "to cause to be born"; combined with the suffix -o ("his"), it forms "after his fathering."
• ma.Ta.yim ("two hundred", H3967) — feminine dual form of the numeral, used because sha.Nah ("year", H8141) is grammatically feminine.
• i.Yo.led ("he fathered", H3205) — hiphil narrative form (same root as ho.li.D), repeating the causative verb to introduce the additional offspring.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence has two parts joined by the narrative vav chain typical of Genesis 11's genealogies. The first part, va.Chi... 'a.cha.Rei ho.li.D.o 'et-Na.chor ma.Ta.yim sha.Nah, states that Serug lived two hundred years after the event of fathering Nahor. The infinitive construct ho.li.D with the pronominal suffix -o ("his") functions almost like a subordinate clause: "after his fathering," rather than a finite verb, which is a common construction in Biblical Hebrew for expressing "after X did Y."

The second clause, va.yo.led ba.Nim u.va.Not, uses the same causative root as ho.li.D but now in the narrative (vayyiqtol) form, continuing the storyline: "and he fathered sons and daughters." The plural nouns ba.Nim ("sons", H1121A) and va.Not ("daughters", H1323G) are unspecified in number and unnamed, contrasting with the named individual Nahor mentioned earlier. The numeral ma.Ta.yim takes the dual feminine form because it modifies the feminine noun sha.Nah, an example of Hebrew's grammatical gender agreement between numerals and the nouns they count.

Differences between versions

The LXX adds καὶ ἀπέθανεν ("and he died"), a phrase not present in the Hebrew text of this verse, though such notices occur elsewhere in the chapter's parallel genealogies. The Vulgate and Hebrew both lack this closing statement of death, following the shorter form of the verse.