Genesis 16:9

Summary

Genesis 16:9 records the speech of mal'akh Yehovah ("angel/messenger of Yehovah", H4397/H3068) to Hagar, giving her two direct commands: to return to her mistress and to submit herself under her mistress's authority. The verse consists entirely of an introductory narrative clause followed by reported direct speech.

Key words

• mal'akh ("angel of / messenger of", H4397) — masculine singular construct noun, bound to Yehovah, forming the fixed phrase "messenger of Yehovah"; the construct state means this word cannot stand alone grammatically and depends on the following name.
• shuvi ("return", H7725) — qal imperative, 2nd person feminine singular; a direct command addressed to a female subject (Hagar), qal being the simple, non-derived verb stem.
• hit'anni ("humble yourself", H6031) — hithpael imperative, 2nd person feminine singular; the hithpael stem marks a reflexive or self-directed action, distinguishing it from a plain "be humbled" (which would use a passive stem) — here the action is presented as something Hagar is told to do to herself.
• gevirtekh ("your mistress", H1404 + H9022) — feminine singular construct noun with 2nd feminine singular pronominal suffix ("your"), naming Sarai's role relative to Hagar.
• yadeiha ("her hands", H3027 + H9024) — dual construct noun with 3rd feminine singular suffix; the dual form specifically denotes "two hands," used idiomatically with tachat ("under") to express being under someone's control.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative vav (H9001) attached to yomer ("he said", H0559), the standard Hebrew construction for introducing reported speech in sequence with prior narrative. The subject of the verb, mal'akh Yehovah, follows the verb — a normal verb-subject order in Hebrew narrative — and the indirect object lah ("to her", H9005+H9034) appears between the verb and its subject, a placement typical of Hebrew clause structure that does not carry special emphasis.

The speech itself contains two imperatives joined by the conjunction ve (H9002, "and"): shuvi ("return") and hit'anni ("humble yourself"). Both are second-person feminine singular forms, confirming Hagar as the addressee throughout. The first imperative uses the qal stem, indicating a straightforward action (returning), while the second uses the hithpael stem, which in Biblical Hebrew often marks reflexive or self-involved action — here rendered as Hagar humbling or submitting herself, rather than being described as passively humbled by another party. The phrase tachat yadeiha ("under her hands", H8478+H3027+H9024) uses the dual construct form of "hands" together with "under" to form an idiom describing subordination to another person's authority.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders hit'anni with tapeinōthēti ("be humbled"), an aorist passive imperative, where the Hebrew hithpael form (hit'anni) is grammatically reflexive/middle rather than passive. The Vulgate's humiliare similarly uses a passive/reflexive Latin imperative form. Modern translations (BSB "submit to her authority," RV1909 "ponte sumisa," SBLIBRE "sométete a su autoridad") render the idiom tachat yadeiha ("under her hands") with abstract terms like "authority" rather than the literal dual noun "hands" found in the Hebrew.