Genesis 18:28

Summary

Abraham continues bargaining with YHWH over the fate of the city, proposing a reduction from fifty to forty-five righteous people. He asks whether the city will be destroyed if the count of righteous falls short by five, and receives the answer that it will not be destroyed if forty-five are found there.

Key words

• 'U.lai ("perhaps", H0194) — adverb opening the hypothetical clause, signaling Abraham's tentative, exploratory tone rather than a firm claim.
• yach.se.Ru ("they will lack", H2637) with paragogic nun (H9013) — qal imperfect, third person masculine plural; the added nun is an emphatic verbal ending, giving weight to the verb without changing its basic meaning.
• ha.tash.Chit ("will you destroy", H7843) — hiphil (causative) imperfect, second person masculine singular, marked by the interrogative particle ha (H9008); the hiphil stem indicates causing destruction, and the interrogative frames it as a direct question to YHWH.
• 'ash.Chit ("I will destroy", H7843) — hiphil imperfect, first person singular, the same causative root repeated in YHWH's reply, creating a verbal echo between question and answer.
• 'em.Tza' ("I will find", H4672) — qal imperfect, first person singular, introduced by the conditional particle 'im (H0518A), setting the condition under which the destruction will not occur.

What the text says

The verse is built as two linked exchanges. First, Abraham poses a conditional scenario using 'U.lai ("perhaps") followed by yach.se.Ru ("they will lack") with the emphatic paragogic nun, suggesting a slight shortfall from the number cha.mi.Shim ("fifty", H2572) of ha.tza.di.Kim ("the righteous", H6662). He then reduces the count by cha.mi.Shah ("five", H2568), producing forty-five. The question itself, "will you destroy," uses the interrogative ha attached to the hiphil verb tash.Chit, directly addressing YHWH's potential action against kol ha.'Ir ("all the city", H3605 + H5892B), marked by the object marker 'et (H0853).

The narrative then shifts with the vav-consecutive verb va.yo.mer ("and he said", H0559), introducing YHWH's reply. The negation lo' ("not", H3808) precedes the same hiphil verb 'ash.Chit ("I will destroy"), now in first person, mirroring Abraham's question. The conditional particle 'im introduces the qal verb 'em.Tza' ("I will find"), setting the threshold at 'ar.ba.'Im va.cha.mi.Shah ("forty and five", H0705 + H2568). The repetition of the hiphil root shachat ("destroy") in both question and answer creates a tight grammatical parallel between the proposal and the response, a feature the English and Spanish translations preserve in sense but not in the shared root structure visible in the Hebrew.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders 'U.lai yach.se.Run ("perhaps they will lack") as a conditional clause "ἐὰν δὲ ἐλαττονωθῶσιν" ("but if they be diminished"), shifting the tentative adverb into a formal conditional construction. The Vulgate similarly restructures the opening as "Quid si minus... fuerint" ("What if there be less"), turning the Hebrew's adverbial hesitation into a direct hypothetical question, a structural choice not present in the Hebrew's use of 'U.lai.