Genesis 18:1

Summary

Genesis 18:1 opens a new narrative scene by stating that Yehovah (H3068) "appeared" to a person (identified elsewhere in the chapter as Abraham) at the "great trees of Mamre" (H0436/H4471). The verse also sets the scene physically and temporally: the man was sitting at the tent's entrance during the heat of the day.

Key words

• va-yera' ("and he appeared", H7200) — niphal verb with narrative vav; the niphal stem gives a passive/reflexive sense, "he made himself seen" rather than an active seeing.
• Yehovah ("Yehovah", H3068) — the proper divine name, functioning as the grammatical subject of the appearing.
• 'eloney ("great trees of", H0436) — masculine plural noun in construct state, meaning it must be joined to the following name to form "great trees of Mamre."
• yoshev ("sitting", H3427) — qal participle, masculine singular; participles in Hebrew narrative describe an ongoing state or background action, here setting the scene rather than a completed event.
• chom ("heat of", H2527) — construct noun linked to ha-yom ("the day", H3117), forming the time-marker "in the heat of the day."

What the text says

The verse begins with the narrative vav attached to yera', a niphal form of the root meaning "to see." The niphal stem shifts the verb from active ("he saw") to a form describing the subject as the one who becomes visible or manifest — "he appeared." Yehovah is the grammatical subject, and the appearing occurs "to him" ('elav, H0413 + suffix), the referent being established by the surrounding narrative.

The second clause is built differently: it uses the independent pronoun hu' ("he", H1931) followed by the participle yoshev ("sitting"). This construction — pronoun + participle — is typical of Hebrew for describing a simultaneous background state: while the appearing happens, the man "is sitting" at the entrance of the tent. The construct chain petach ha-'ohel ("opening of the tent") specifies location, and ke-chom ha-yom ("as/when the heat of the day") specifies timing, using the preposition ke (H9004) to mark a temporal comparison ("about the time when...").

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the divine name as ho theos ("God") where the Hebrew text has the proper name Yehovah (H3068). The Vulgate uses Dominus ("the Lord"), matching the referential force of the name without transliterating it. Additionally, the Hebrew 'eloney Mamre ("great trees of Mamre") appears in the LXX as tē drui tē Mambrē ("the oak/oak-grove of Mambre," singular tree-term), while the Vulgate has in convalle Mambre ("in the valley of Mambre"), showing a divergence in how the plural construct noun for trees was understood or translated across versions.