Genesis 12:20
וַיְצַו עָלָיו פַּרְעֹה אֲנָשִׁים וַֽיְשַׁלְּחוּ אֹתוֹ וְאֶת־אִשְׁתּוֹ וְאֶת־כָּל־אֲשֶׁר־לֽוֹ׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וַיְצַ֥ו עָלָ֛יו פַּרְעֹ֖ה אֲנָשִׁ֑ים וַֽיְשַׁלְּח֥וּ אֹת֛וֹ וְאֶת־אִשְׁתּ֖וֹ וְאֶת־כָּל־אֲשֶׁר־לֽוֹ׃
καὶ ἐνετείλατο Φαραὼ ἀωδράσιν περὶ Ἀβράμ, συνπροπέμψαι αὐτὸν καὶ τὴν γυναῖκα καὶ πάντα ὅσα ἦν αὐτῷ, καὶ Λὼτ μετ’ αὐτοῦ.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Præcepitque Pharao super Abram viris: et deduxerunt eum, et uxorem illius, et omnia quæ habebat.
Entonces el faraón les dio órdenes a sus hombres acerca de Abram, y ellos lo despidieron junto con su mujer y todo lo que tenía.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Entonces Faraón dió orden á sus gentes acerca de Abram; y le acompañaron, y á su mujer con todo lo que tenía.
Then Pharaoh gave his men orders concerning Abram, and they sent him away with his wife and all his possessions.
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse reports that Pharaoh gave orders to his men concerning Abram, and as a result those men sent Abram away together with his wife and everything belonging to him. The action moves from a royal command to its immediate execution.
Key words
- yeTzav ("he commanded", H6680) — piel narrative verb; the piel stem intensifies the act of commanding, marking Pharaoh as the one issuing a formal directive.
- par'Oh ("Pharaoh", H6547G) — the subject of the command, placed after the verb and prepositional phrase 'aLav ("upon him"), which specifies that the command concerned Abram.
- 'anaShim ("men", H0582) — plural noun designating the agents who receive Pharaoh's order; no article or further qualification is given about their identity or rank.
- yeshalleChu ("they sent away", H7971G) — piel narrative verb, third-person plural; the intensive stem here conveys a deliberate, formal act of dismissal or escort, not a casual departure.
- 'aSher-lo ("that [belonged] to him", H0834A + H9033) — relative clause with pronominal suffix, closing the list of what is included in the sending away: "all that was his."
What the text says
The Hebrew sentence opens with the narrative verb yeTzav ("he commanded", H6680) preceding its subject par'Oh ("Pharaoh", H6547G) — a verb-subject order typical of Hebrew narrative sequencing. The object of the command, 'anaShim ("men", H0582), appears without further description; the text does not specify who these men are beyond their grammatical role as recipients of Pharaoh's order. The preposition 'aLav ("upon/concerning him", H5921A) ties this command specifically to the matter of Abram, referenced earlier in the chapter though not named again in this verse.
The second clause is introduced by another narrative vav with yeshalleChu ("they sent away", H7971G), shifting the grammatical subject to "the men" who now act on Pharaoh's command. Three direct objects follow, each marked by the object marker 'et (H0853): "him" (Abram, via suffix on 'oto), "his wife" ('ishTo, H0802H, in construct form with suffix), and "all that was his" (kol-'asher-lo, H3605 + H0834A). This threefold structure lists what is sent away as a single coordinated unit — the man, his household, and his possessions — using repeated 'et markers to keep each item grammatically distinct while syntactically parallel.
Differences between versions
The LXX adds "Lot with him" (καὶ Λὼτ μετ' αὐτοῦ) at the end of the verse, an element not present in the Hebrew text as given. The LXX also renders "his possessions" as πάντα ὅσα ἦν αὐτῷ ("all that was his"), matching the Hebrew sense of kol-'asher-lo, but the mention of Lot has no corresponding word in the Hebrew word list provided. The Vulgate follows the Hebrew structure closely, rendering yeshalleChu as deduxerunt ("they led/escorted"), which carries a nuance of guiding or accompanying rather than simply "sending away."
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.