Genesis 16:3

Summary

Genesis 16:3 recounts that Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her maidservant, and gave her to Abram as a wife. The verse specifies this took place after ten years of Abram's dwelling in the land of Canaan.

Key words

• ti.Kach ("she took", H3947G) — qal verb in narrative form, marking the first main action of the sentence, with Sarai as subject.
• shif.cha.Ta + h ("maidservant" + "her", H8198 + H9024) — construct noun with pronominal suffix, identifying Hagar specifically as belonging to Sarai ("her maidservant"), not a general servant.
• le.She.vet ("of the dwelling of", H9005 + H3427) — preposition plus infinitive construct, forming a temporal clause ("at the dwelling of Abram") that anchors the ten-year notice to Abram's residence in Canaan.
• ti.Ten ("she gave", H5414G) — second qal narrative verb, parallel to ti.Kach, showing Sarai as the acting subject of both the taking and the giving.
• 'i.Sha + h ("husband" + "her", H0376H + H9024) — construct noun with suffix, identifying Abram explicitly as "her husband" at the moment of the transaction.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence structure places Sarai as the grammatical subject of two consecutive narrative verbs: ti.Kach ("she took", H3947G) and ti.Ten ("she gave", H5414G). Between these two actions, the text inserts a temporal clause using the infinitive construct She.vet ("dwelling of", H3427) governed by the preposition le. ("of", H9005), which specifies that ten years ('E.ser Sha.Nim, H6235/H8141) had passed since Abram's dwelling in the land of Canaan ('E.retz Ke.na.'an, H0776G/H3667A). This construction subordinates the time notice grammatically to the main narrative flow rather than presenting it as an independent clause.

The double use of the direct object marker 'et (H0853) — once for Hagar and once for the pronominal suffix 'o.Tah ("her", H0853+H9034) — marks both Hagar and later the referent "her" as grammatical objects of Sarai's actions, reinforcing that Sarai is the agent throughout. The repeated identification of Abram as 'i.Sha + h ("her husband") and later the phrase le.'i.Shah ("to a wife", H0802H) at the end creates a chiastic emphasis on relational roles: wife (Sarai) gives maidservant to husband (Abram) as wife.

Differences between versions

The LXX and Vulgate render the temporal clause differently in placement: the Hebrew places "at the end of ten years of Abram's dwelling" between the taking and giving verbs, while the BSB and SBLIBRE Spanish translations move this temporal information to the beginning or end of the English/Spanish sentence, restructuring the clause order without altering the Hebrew's core content. The Vulgate's tulit ("she took") begins the sentence without explicitly repeating Sarai's name at that point, relying on the previous verse's context, whereas the Hebrew explicitly names sa.Rai ("Sarai", H8297) as subject of ti.Kach.