Genesis 18:31

Summary

Abraham continues bargaining with the Lord over Sodom, acknowledging the boldness of his repeated requests and lowering the number of righteous people needed to twenty. The Lord responds that he will not destroy the city for the sake of that number.

Key words

• ho.'Al.ti ("I have undertaken", H2974) — hiphil perfect, first person. The hiphil (causative) stem here conveys a reflexive-causative sense of "taking upon oneself" the act of speaking; the perfect aspect marks it as a completed, self-initiated action, framing Abraham's boldness as already undertaken.
• da.Ber ("speak", H1696G) — piel infinitive construct. The piel (intensive) stem intensifies the verbal idea of speaking, and the infinitive form, governed by the preposition le ("to", H9005), expresses purpose: "to speak."
• yi.ma.tze.'U ("they will be found", H4672) — niphal imperfect, third person masculine plural. The niphal (passive) stem indicates that the subjects (the righteous) are the object of the finding rather than agents; the imperfect aspect marks this as a hypothetical, unfulfilled future action, matching the conditional 'u.Lai ("perhaps", H0194).
• n — paragogic nun (H9013) attached to yi.ma.tze.'U, an emphatic suffix adding rhetorical weight to the verb without changing its core meaning.
• 'ash.Chit ("I will destroy [it]", H7843) — hiphil imperfect, first person. The hiphil (causative) stem marks the subject as the direct cause of destruction; the imperfect aspect situates the action as future/potential, contingent on the finding described in the prior clause.

What the text says

The verse is structured as two paired speech units, each introduced by va.yYo.mer ("and he said", H0559), a narrative qal form used twice to mark alternating turns in dialogue — first Abraham, then the Lord — without naming the speakers explicitly, relying on context. Abraham's speech opens with the interjections hi.neh-na' ("here! please", H2009 + H4994), a combination that softens the request and signals continued deference, followed by ho.'Al.ti in the perfect, framing his persistence in speaking as an action he has already committed to, despite its boldness.

The conditional clause 'u.Lai yi.ma.tze.'U n sham 'es.Rim ("perhaps they will be found there, twenty") uses the niphal imperfect with paragogic nun to express uncertainty about a future discovery, the passive form leaving the agent of "finding" unspecified. The divine response, lo' 'ash.Chit ba.'a.Vur ha.'es.Rim ("I will not destroy for the sake of the twenty"), uses the hiphil imperfect negated by lo' ("not", H3808) to state a future refusal to act, conditioned on the construct phrase ba'avur ha'esrim ("for the sake of the twenty"), where the definite article on 'es.Rim ("twenty", H6242) points back to the number just introduced.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders the opening clause as "Quia semel... cœpi loquar" ("because once... I began to speak"), shifting the perfect ho.'Al.ti into a temporal/causal clause with "began," differing from the Hebrew's sense of "undertaking" or "venturing." The LXX's Ἐπειδὴ ἰχῶ λαλῆσαι similarly frames the clause causally ("since I have [begun]"), diverging from the direct volitional nuance of the Hebrew hiphil. The Hebrew text lacks an explicit reference to the city ("it" or "Sodom") in 'ash.Chit ("I will destroy"), while the BSB and SBLIBRE supply "it" or leave the object implicit, consistent with the elliptical Hebrew construction.