Genesis 16:5

Summary

Sarai addresses Abram, declaring that the wrong done to her rests on him, since she gave her maidservant to him and now finds herself diminished in the maidservant's eyes. She closes by invoking Yehovah to judge between her and Abram.

Key words

• chamasi ("my injustice/wrong", H2555) — construct noun with 1st person suffix; literally "my wrong/violence," here functioning as the subject of the sentence with 'aleikha ("on you"), producing the idiom "my wrong is upon you."
• nathati ("I gave/put", H5414G) — qal perfect, 1st person, marking a completed past action; combined with the independent pronoun 'anokhi ("I", H0595) placed before it for emphasis, stressing Sarai's own agency in giving Hagar to Abram.
• heiqekha ("your bosom/lap", H2436G) — construct noun with 2nd masculine singular suffix, an idiom describing marital/sexual union, here referring to Hagar's placement with Abram.
• 'eqal ("I have become insignificant/light", H7043) — qal narrative verb, 1st person, describing Sarai's own change of status in another's perception, following the vav-consecutive chain of the narrative.
• yishpot ("may he judge", H8199) — qal imperfect, 3rd masculine singular, expressing a wish or jussive sense directed at YHWH (H3068G), asking for a future/ongoing act of judgment.

What the text says

The verse is built as a chain of narrative verbs (vatomer, "she said"; vattere', "she saw/perceived"; va'eqal, "I became light/insignificant") connected by the narrative vav, which in Biblical Hebrew signals sequential past action: Sarai speaks, then narrates what Hagar saw, then reports her own resulting state. Within this chain, Sarai's speech contains a shift from perfect verbs describing completed acts (nathati, "I gave") to an imperfect verb (yishpot) expressing a request directed toward the future — the grammatical difference between what already happened and what she asks to happen.

The phrase chamasi 'aleikha places the abstract noun "my wrong" as a grammatical subject with the preposition 'al ("upon") plus suffix, an idiomatic construction not literally "you have wronged me" but "my injury is upon you" — the responsibility is expressed spatially, as resting on Abram, rather than through a transitive verb of wronging. Similarly, 'eqal be'eineiha ("I became light/small in her eyes," H5869H, dual construct for "eyes") uses the noun for "eyes" to express perception/opinion, so the sentence describes a change in status as seen by another, not merely a feeling.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders chamasi 'aleikha as "Ἀδικοῦμαι ἐκ σοῦ" ("I am wronged by you"), turning the Hebrew's noun-based idiom of blame resting "upon" Abram into a passive verb construction, "from you." The Vulgate's "Inique agis contra me" ("You act unjustly against me") similarly converts the Hebrew nominal idiom into a verbal accusation. Where the Hebrew states 'eqal be'eineiha ("I have become insignificant in her eyes"), the LXX has "ἠτιμάσθην ἐναντίον αὐτῆς" ("I was dishonored before her"), and the Vulgate reads "despectui me habet" ("she holds me in contempt"), both shifting the grammatical subject from Sarai's own change of status (Hebrew, 1st person verb) to an action performed by Hagar against her (passive/active verb with Hagar as implied agent).