Genesis 19:27

Summary

The verse narrates that Abraham rose early in the morning and went to the place where he had previously stood before Yehovah. It functions as a narrative bridge, marking Abraham's return to the site referenced in the preceding episode (his intercession before Yehovah).

Key words

• yashkem ("he rose early", H7925) — Hiphil (causative) form of the root meaning "shoulder/early," here idiomatically meaning "to do something early"; the causative stem marks Abraham as the initiator of the action, opening the narrative sequence with the vav-consecutive.
• boqer ("morning", H1242) — masculine singular noun with the prefixed preposition-article ba- ("in the"), anchoring the action temporally.
• maqom ("place", H4725) — masculine singular noun with definite article, referring back to a specific location established earlier in the narrative.
• 'amad ("he had stood", H5975G) — Qal perfect, denoting a completed prior action ("had stood"), which the relative clause 'asher ("where", H0834A) attaches to maqom.
• penei ("[the] face of", H6440G) — masculine plural noun in construct state, forming the idiom "face of Yehovah," governed by the preposition 'et ("with", H0854).

What the text says

The sentence opens with the narrative vav on yashkem, a Hiphil form that in this context carries the idiomatic sense "he rose/acted early," setting the temporal frame before naming the subject 'Avraham. The prepositional phrase ba-boqer ("in the morning") specifies the time, while the following clause 'el-ha-maqom ("to the place") indicates motion toward a location previously introduced in the narrative.

The relative clause 'asher 'amad sham ("where he had stood there") uses the Qal perfect 'amad to mark an action anterior to the main narrative time, i.e., Abraham had already been standing at this location in an earlier scene. The final phrase, 'et-penei YHWH, literally combines the preposition 'et ("with") with the construct plural noun penei ("face of"), producing the standard Hebrew idiom for being "in the presence of" someone — here, Yehovah. The plural form penei is grammatically fixed in this idiomatic construction and does not indicate multiple faces.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders 'et-penei YHWH as cum Domino ("with the Lord"), following more literally the preposition 'et ("with"). The LXX instead uses ἐναντίον Κυρίου ("before/in front of the Lord"), reflecting the idiomatic sense of penei ("face of") as denoting presence rather than a literal "with." Modern translations (BSB "before the LORD," RV1909 "delante de Jehová," SBLIBRE "delante de Yehová") follow the LXX's interpretive rendering of the idiom rather than the Vulgate's more literal "cum."