Genesis 18:6

Summary

Abraham hurries into the tent to Sarah and instructs her, with imperative urgency, to take a specific quantity of flour and prepare bread cakes. The verse combines narrative action (his hurrying) with direct speech (his command to her), both marked by the same intensive verbal root for "hurry."

Key words

• yemaher ("he hurried", H4116A) — piel narrative verb, intensive stem indicating rapid, deliberate action by Abraham himself.
• 'ohela ("the tent", H0168G + H9011) — the noun "tent" with a directional he suffix, marking motion "toward" the tent; this directional force is reinforced redundantly by the following preposition 'el ("to", H0413) before Sarah's name.
• mahari ("bring quickly", H4116A) — piel imperative, feminine singular, the same root as yemaher, now addressed to Sarah as a command.
• se'im ("seahs", H5429) — masculine plural noun, a unit of dry measure, in construct relation with qemach ("flour", H7058).
• lushi / 'asi ("knead", H3888 / "make", H6213H) — two qal feminine singular imperatives in sequence, outlining successive actions Sarah is told to perform.

What the text says

The verse opens with a narrative vav-consecutive chain: va-yemaher ("and he hurried") followed by va-yomer ("and he said"), both piel/qal narrative forms marking sequential past action — first Abraham's movement, then his speech. The directional element is doubled: the noun 'ohel ("tent") carries a directional he suffix ('ohela, "tent-ward"), and this is followed immediately by the preposition 'el ("to") before Sarah. This double marking of direction is a feature of the Hebrew construction not easily reproduced in translation, where most versions simply render "into the tent to Sarah" without preserving the doubled directional emphasis.

Abraham's speech shifts to direct imperative address, opening with mahari — the same root (H4116A) used for his own hurrying, now in feminine singular imperative form, creating a lexical echo between his action and his command to her. The measurement phrase shalosh se'im qemach solet ("three seahs of flour, fine flour") stacks a cardinal number in construct form with a plural noun of measure, followed by two nouns for flour in apposition — qemach ("flour") and solet ("fine flour") — specifying a particular quality of flour rather than two separate substances. The instructions conclude with two more feminine singular imperatives, lushi ("knead") and 'asi ("make"), joined by a simple conjunctive vav, outlining the sequence of kneading and then producing 'ugot ("cakes", plural).

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the measurement as "τρία μέτρα σεμιδάλεως" ("three measures of fine flour"), collapsing the Hebrew's two flour terms (qemach, solet) into a single noun, σεμιδάλεως. The Vulgate similarly uses "tria sata similæ" ("three sata of fine flour"), also merging the two Hebrew flour terms into one. The Hebrew's directional doubling ('ohela + 'el) is not distinctly marked in the LXX ("ἐπὶ τὴν σκηνὴν πρὸς Σάρραν") or the Vulgate ("in tabernaculum ad Saram"), both of which use single prepositional phrases for the movement toward the tent and toward Sarah.