Genesis 19:21

Summary

The speaker (identified in context as the angel addressing Lot) responds to a prior request, stating that he has "lifted" the addressee's face and will not overthrow the city that had been mentioned. The verse confirms acceptance of a plea using an idiomatic Hebrew expression tied to a legal/social act of showing favor.

Key words

• nasati ("I lift up", H5375Q) — qal perfect, first person: a completed action, "I have lifted," forming with the next word an idiom of granting favor or accepting a petition.
• panekha ("your face", H6440N) — masculine plural noun in construct with the 2nd person suffix; combined with nasati, literally "I have lifted your face," an idiom rather than a physical description.
• levilti ("not to", H1115 + H9005) — a construct noun functioning with the preposition le and negation bilti to introduce a negative purpose clause: "so as not to..."
• hafki ("to overthrow", H2015) — qal infinitive with 1st person suffix, "in my overthrowing," expressing the action being withheld.
• dibbarta ("you have spoken", H1696G) — piel perfect, 2nd person masculine: an intensive verb form marking completed speech, referring back to what the addressee had said earlier.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative vav construction va-yomer ("and he said") + elav ("to him"), continuing the dialogue begun earlier in the chapter. The core statement is built on the idiom hinneh nasati panekha — "here, I have lifted your face" — using the qal perfect of nasa ("to lift", H5375Q) with the construct noun panim ("face", H6440N) and a second-person suffix. This idiom in Biblical Hebrew denotes acceptance or granting of a request, not a literal lifting of a face.

The phrase gam ladavar hazeh ("also to/regarding this matter") specifies that the favor extends to this particular request, marked by the demonstrative zeh ("this", H2088) modifying davar ("matter", H1697I). The clause of purpose follows: levilti hafki et-ha'ir — "so as not to overthrow the city" — where bilti (H1115) functions as a construct noun governing the infinitive hafki (H2015, qal infinitive with 1st-person suffix), producing a negated purpose construction. The city is further specified by the relative clause asher dibbarta ("which you have spoken"), using the piel perfect of dabar (H1696G), referring to an earlier statement by the addressee.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the idiom nasati panekha as ethaumasa sou to prosōpon ("I marveled at your face"), diverging from the Hebrew sense of "granting/accepting." The Vulgate instead interprets the idiom functionally as suscepi preces tuas ("I have received your prayers"), shifting from the literal "face" idiom to the underlying meaning of acceptance. The BSB and SBLIBRE translations follow this functional rendering ("I will grant," "te concedo"), reflecting the idiomatic sense rather than a literal translation of "face."