Genesis 18:11

Summary

The verse states that Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in days, and that Sarah had ceased to have "the way of women" — an idiomatic expression for menstruation, indicating she was past the age of childbearing.

Key words

• zeqenim ("old", H2205H) — masculine plural adjective, describing both Abraham and Sarah jointly despite the grammatical masculine form covering the mixed pair.
• ba'im ("having come", H0935J) — qal participle, masculine plural, from the verb "to come/enter," used here in the idiom "coming in/advanced in the days," describing a state resulting from ongoing motion through time.
• chadal ("it had ceased", H2308) — qal perfect, third person, expressing a completed action: the ceasing had already occurred by the narrative moment.
• 'orach ("a way", H0734) — masculine singular noun, literally "path" or "way," used here as an idiom for the menstrual cycle.
• nashim ("women", H0802G) — masculine plural noun (though referring to females), used in the comparative phrase "like the women," i.e., the customary manner of women in general.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence divides into two parts joined without an explicit conjunction beyond the initial ve ("and", H9002). The first part names Abraham and Sarah together as subjects of the adjective zeqenim ("old", H2205H) and the participle ba'im ("having come", H0935J), followed by ba-yamim ("in the days", H3117I with article). This construction — adjective plus participle plus prepositional phrase — is a standard Hebrew idiom for advanced age, literally "old, come in days."

The second clause shifts focus to Sarah alone, using the verb chadal ("it had ceased", H2308) in the perfect aspect, marking this as an accomplished state rather than an ongoing process. The subject of the ceasing is introduced through the infinitive construct lihyot ("to be", H1961) with the preposition le ("to", H9005), forming the phrase "it had ceased to be." The indirect object is Sarah, marked again by le ("to", H9005) plus her name. What ceases to belong to her is 'orach ("a way", H0734) — a noun meaning "path" that functions idiomatically for a bodily cycle. The final comparative phrase ka-nnashim ("like the women", H9004 + H0802G) specifies this as the common pattern experienced by women generally, using the definite article on "women" within the comparative preposition ka.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the idiom differently, using τὰ γυνοίκια ("the things of women") rather than a literal "path/way," achieving a similar euphemistic effect through a distinct Greek expression. The Vulgate uses muliebria ("womanly things"), a neuter plural adjective functioning as a noun, which parallels the Greek approach more closely than the Hebrew's "way" ('orach, H0734) imagery. Both LXX and Vulgate merge the two Hebrew clauses about aging into a single descriptive statement before addressing Sarah's condition, whereas the Hebrew maintains a clearer syntactic separation between the couple's shared old age and Sarah's specific physical state.