Genesis 13:2

Summary

The verse states that Abram was very wealthy, specifying that his wealth consisted of livestock, silver, and gold. It functions as a summary statement introducing Abram's material condition, using three coordinated prepositional phrases to enumerate the categories of his riches.

Key words

• ka.Ved ("[was] wealthy", H3515) — masculine singular adjective, predicative to 'av.Ram, describing Abram's state rather than an action; it denotes "heavy" or "weighty" in a base sense, here applied figuratively to material abundance.
• me.'Od ("very", H3966) — an intensifying adverb-like term following the adjective, strengthening ka.Ved to indicate a high degree of wealth.
• mik.Neh ("livestock", H4735) — masculine singular noun with the prefixed preposition-plus-article ba. ("in the", H9003), marking the first sphere in which Abram's wealth is located.
• Ke.sef ("silver", H3701G) — masculine singular noun, also prefixed by ba., forming the second item in the enumerated list of possessions.
• za.Hav ("gold", H2091) — masculine singular noun preceded by u. ("and", H9002) plus va. ("in the", H9003), closing the list as the third category, joined to the previous by the conjunction.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the conjunction ve. ("and", H9002) attached to the proper name 'av.Ram ("Abram", H0087), followed immediately by the predicate adjective ka.Ved ("[was] wealthy", H3515) intensified by me.'Od ("very", H3966). This adjective-plus-intensifier construction places the description of Abram's state before any specification of its content, a common pattern in Biblical Hebrew where the general quality precedes the particulars.

The three nouns that follow — mik.Neh ("livestock", H4735), Ke.sef ("silver", H3701G), and za.Hav ("gold", H2091) — are each governed by the preposition ba. ("in the", H9003), repeated before livestock and silver, while gold is joined to silver by the conjunction u. ("and", H9002) rather than a fresh repetition of the full prepositional phrase construction pattern seen with the first two. This creates a rhythmic triad: "in the livestock, in the silver, and in the gold," presenting wealth as located "in" these three domains rather than simply listing possessions without a preposition. The repeated preposition before each noun (except where conjunction substitutes) gives the list a formulaic, almost liturgical cadence in the Hebrew that a simple comma-separated list in translation does not fully preserve.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the three items with the dative case (κτήνεσιν, ἀργυρίῳ, χρυσίῳ) without repeating a preposition equivalent to Hebrew ba., using καί ("and") to link all three nouns evenly, unlike the Hebrew pattern where ba. precedes livestock and silver but u. plus va. precedes gold. The Vulgate condenses the list further, using a single prepositional phrase "in possessione auri et argenti" ("in possession of gold and silver") and notably omits any direct equivalent for mik.Neh ("livestock", H4735), which is present in both the Hebrew and the LXX (κτήνεσιν).