Genesis 14:16

Summary

Genesis 14:16 reports that Abram brought back all the possessions taken by the invading kings, and specifically recovered his kinsman Lot along with Lot's possessions, the women, and the rest of the captured people. The verse uses two forms of the same verb to frame the action as a single restorative act with two stages.

Key words

• va-Yashev ("he brought back", H7725G) — hiphil (causative) form with narrative vav, opening the verse; the causative stem indicates Abram caused the goods to return, not that they returned on their own.
• kol ("all", H3605) — construct singular, binding to ha-rekhush to form "all of the possession[s]," emphasizing totality of recovery.
• 'achi ("relative", H0251H) — construct singular with pronominal suffix (-o, "his"), producing "his relative/brother"; the construct form links Lot directly to Abram as the possessor of the relationship.
• heShiv ("he brought back", H7725G) — same root as word 2, but here in perfect (completed) form rather than narrative, marking a second, distinct completion of the "bringing back" action applied specifically to Lot and his goods.
• gam ("also", H1571) — appears twice (words 8 and 18), each time introducing an additional recovered item/person, structuring the verse as a cumulative list.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built around two occurrences of the causative verb from the root behind shuv ("to return"): first vayyashev (narrative form, "and he brought back"), governing "all the possessions" (kol ha-rekhush), and later heshiv (perfect form), governing specifically "Lot his relative and his possessions." Between these two verbal actions, the particle gam ("also") is used twice to append further recovered items: first Lot and his possessions, then the women and the people. This creates a layered structure — a general statement of recovery followed by specific named recoveries — rather than a single flat list, something not always visible in translations that render both instances of the verb identically as "he retrieved" or "recovered."

The word rendered "relative" ('achi, construct of 'ach, "brother," H0251H) is grammatically in construct with a pronominal suffix meaning "his," giving "his brother/relative" — the construct form ties Lot's identity to his relationship with Abram rather than naming him independently.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the first object as "πᾶσαν τὴν ἴππον Σοδόμων" ("all the cavalry/horses of Sodom") where the Hebrew has kol ha-rekhush ("all the possessions"), a substantive divergence in both noun and specification (adding "of Sodom," absent in the Hebrew clause). The Vulgate's substantiam ("substance/property") and the Spanish versions' "bienes/riquezas" ("goods/riches") align with the Hebrew rekhush rather than the LXX's "horses." The Hebrew 'achi ("his brother/relative") is rendered as "his relative" (BSB), "su hermano" (RV1909, "his brother"), and "su sobrino" (SBLIBRE, "his nephew") — reflecting different interpretive choices for the same construct term.