Genesis 14:7

Summary

The verse narrates a military campaign: a coalition of kings turns back and arrives at En-mishpat (identified as Kadesh), where they defeat the territory of the Amalekites and the Amorites who dwell at Hazezon-tamar. The verse is a sequence of narrative actions marked by consecutive verb forms, closing the geographic itinerary of the invaders before the next episode.

Key words

• yashuvu ("they turned back", H7725G) — qal narrative form (with narrative vav) indicating a sequential past action: "and then they turned back."
• yavo'u ("they came", H0935G) — qal narrative form continuing the sequence: "and then they came," marking arrival at a location.
• yakku ("they defeated", H5221) — hiphil (causative) narrative form: the causative stem here conveys "they struck/caused defeat," stronger than a simple qal action.
• kol ("all", H3605) — construct form, meaning "all of," binding to the following noun sedeh ("region/field of").
• ha-yoshev ("was dwelling", H3427) — qal participle with definite article, functioning as "the one who dwells," describing the Amorites by their habitual location rather than a single completed action.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a chain of narrative (vav-consecutive) verbs — yashuvu ("they turned back"), yavo'u ("they came"), yakku ("they defeated") — each introduced by the narrative va (H9001), which links clauses in temporal/logical sequence typical of Biblical Hebrew narrative prose. This chaining produces a continuous forward-moving account: turning back, arriving, then striking.

The place name 'Ein Mishpat ("En Mishpat") is clarified by an appositional clause using the pronoun hi' ("that", H1931) plus Kadesh — literally "En Mishpat, she [is] Kadesh" — a common Hebrew construction for identifying a place by an alternate or later name.

The object of the defeat is marked twice with the direct object marker 'et (H0853, untranslated), once for kol sedeh ha-'Amaleqi ("all the region of the Amalekite", construct chain built on kol, H3605, and sedeh, H7704G) and once for ha-'Emori ("the Amorite", H0567), joined by gam ("also", H1571), signaling a second distinct group struck in addition to the Amalekites. The Amorites are further specified not by a finite verb but by the participle ha-yoshev ("the one dwelling", H3427), which describes them by their settled location at Hazetzon Tamar rather than narrating a new action — a grammatical distinction between the narrated events (finite verbs) and the descriptive identification of the population (participle).

Differences between versions

The LXX renders sedeh ha-'Amaleqi ("region of the Amalekite") as πάντας τοὺς ἄρχοντας Ἀμαλήκ ("all the rulers of Amalek"), where the Hebrew speaks of a territorial "region" (sedeh, H7704G) rather than "rulers." The Vulgate follows the Hebrew sense with "omnem regionem Amalecitarum" ("the whole region of the Amalekites").