Genesis 19:20

Summary

Lot describes the nearby city (Zoar) as small and asks permission to flee there instead of the mountains, framing his request with a rhetorical question about the city's smallness and a wish for his life to be preserved.

Key words

• hinneh-na (H2009 + H4994) — "here!" + "please": an attention-calling interjection paired with a politeness particle, opening the speech as an urgent appeal rather than a simple statement.
• qerovah (H7138) — "near", feminine singular adjective agreeing with ha-'ir ha-zot ("this city"), asserting proximity as the practical justification for the request.
• 'immaletah (H4422) — niphal form of "escape," carrying the passive/reflexive nuance of the niphal stem, so the action is framed as Lot "being brought to safety" rather than simply "escaping" by his own force; the na' attached again softens it into a plea.
• halo (H9008 + H3808) — the interrogative particle joined to the negation "not," producing the rhetorical question "is it not...?", used to reinforce the claim of smallness by inviting agreement rather than asserting it directly.
• techi naphshi (H2421 + H5315H + H9020) — a qal jussive verb ("let it live") governing "my life/soul," expressing a wish or purpose clause: survival is the goal tied to the preceding request.

What the text says

The verse is built from short clauses stacked around the double appearance of shammah ("there," H8033G) with the directional he suffix, marking the destination explicitly twice — once linked to the infinitive nus ("to flee") and once to the niphal 'immaletah ("let me escape/be delivered"). This repetition of "there" ties the entire speech to a single spatial goal, the nearby city, while the double use of na' (H4994) marks the request as polite rather than a demand.

The clause halo mits'ar hi repeats mits'ar (H4705, "small place") from earlier in the verse, but reframed as a question via halo. This creates an internal argument: the city is called small twice, first as a statement, then as a rhetorical question, functioning to strengthen the plea by presupposing agreement. The final clause, marked by the jussive techi, shifts from request to stated wish, connecting the outcome ("my life may live") to the granting of the request.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate drops the initial interjection hinneh-na ("here! please") entirely, opening simply with "est civitas haec" ("there is this city"), losing the emphatic/polite opening found in the Hebrew and LXX (ἰδοὺ). The LXX renders the infinitive lanus ("to flee") with an infinitive construction attached to a first-person pronoun (τοῦ καταφυγεῖν με), making explicit the subject "me" that in Hebrew is implicit in the infinitive form. Both LXX (οὐ μικρά ἐστιν) and the Vulgate (numquid non modica est) preserve the rhetorical question structure of halo mits'ar hi, matching the Hebrew's interrogative framing rather than converting it into a flat statement.