Genesis 18:16

Summary

The verse narrates the transition from the scene at Abraham's tent to the journey toward Sodom: the three men rise and look toward Sodom, while Abraham walks with them to send them off. The Hebrew marks two sequential actions by the men and a simultaneous circumstantial action by Abraham.

Key words

• va-yyaqumu ("and they arose", H6965B) — qal narrative verb, opens the sequence with the standard "and then" chain.
• ha-'anashim ("the men", H0582) — definite plural noun, identifies the subjects as "the men" already known from the preceding narrative.
• va-yyashqifu ("and they looked down", H8259) — hiphil (causative stem) narrative verb; the hiphil form conveys an intensified or directed act of looking, "looking down/over" rather than a plain "seeing".
• holekh ("was walking", H1980G) — qal participle, marks continuous/simultaneous action ("the one walking"), distinguishing Abraham's ongoing accompaniment from the men's completed acts of rising and looking.
• le-shallecham ("to send them off", H7971G) — piel infinitive with pronominal suffix; the piel stem intensifies the basic sense of shalach ("to send"), yielding "to send off/escort", and the infinitive expresses purpose ("in order to see them off").

What the text says

The verse is built on a chain of three narrative verbs connected by the vav-consecutive: va-yyaqumu ("and they arose"), va-yyashqifu ("and they looked down"), forming the main sequence of the men's action, followed by a disjunctive clause introduced by ve- ("and") attached to 'Avraham, which shifts the syntax from narrative sequence to circumstantial description: "and Abraham [was] walking with them." This shift is marked by the participle holekh rather than a finite verb, signaling that Abraham's walking is not a new sequential event but a state overlapping with the men's departure.

The final infinitive clause le-shallecham ("to send them off") expresses the purpose of Abraham's accompanying action, using the piel stem of shalach, which in this form denotes escorting or seeing someone off, not merely "sending" in the sense of dispatching.

Differences between versions

The LXX adds "and Gomorrah" (Σοδόμων καὶ Γομόρρας) after "Sodom," an element not present in the Hebrew text, which names only Sedom ("Sodom", H5467). The LXX also renders the sequence with a participle (Ἐξαναστάντες, "having risen") followed by a finite verb (κατέβλεψαν, "they looked down"), differing from the Hebrew's two coordinated finite narrative verbs. The Vulgate's direxerunt oculos ("they directed their eyes") expresses the hiphil va-yyashqifu with a phrase about directing the eyes, differing from the more compact single-verb Hebrew form.