Genesis 21:13

Summary

The verse records a statement (attributed to God in the surrounding narrative) declaring that the son of the slave woman will also become a nation, with the stated reason being that he is the offspring of the addressee (Abraham). The syntax gives special emphasis both to the inclusion of this son and to the causal link between his status as "nation" and his identity as offspring.

Key words

• gam ("also", H1571) — adverb placed at the very start of the clause, marking this statement as an addition to something already said, emphasizing inclusion.
• ben ("[the] son of", H1121A) — masculine singular noun in construct state, linking directly to "the slave woman" (ha-'amah) to form the phrase "the son of the slave woman."
• asimenu ("I will make him", H7760A) — qal imperfect, first person, with the pronominal suffix -nu ("him", H9033) attached, combining a future/ongoing action with its direct object in a single word.
• zar'akha ("your offspring", H2233H) — masculine singular noun in construct state with the second-person suffix -kha ("your", H9021), forming "offspring of you."
• hu ("he", H1931) — independent personal pronoun placed at the end of the clause, following the noun zar'akha, creating a nominal (verbless) predicate structure: "your offspring — he [is]."

What the text says

The clause opens with ve-gam ("and also"), an adverbial marker signaling that this statement extends or supplements a prior declaration, before naming its subject: et-ben-ha-'amah, "the son of the slave woman," where 'et marks the definite direct object. The verb asimenu ("I will make him") is a single Hebrew word combining subject (first person), tense (imperfect, indicating future or ongoing action), and object (the suffix -nu, "him") — a compactness typical of Hebrew verbal morphology that requires several words in translation. The destination of this "making" is le-goy, "into a nation," using the preposition le- ("into/for") with goy ("nation", H1471A) unqualified by any adjective.

The second half of the verse gives the reason (ki, "for/because") through a nominal clause without a finite verb: zar'akha hu, literally "your offspring — he." The pronoun hu at the end functions as the predicate of this equational sentence, identifying the subject (implied: "he," referring to the son just mentioned) with the predicate noun phrase zar'akha ("your offspring"). This word order — predicate noun before the pronoun — is a common Hebrew construction for identity statements.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew goy ("a nation") appears without any qualifying adjective. The LXX renders this as ethnos mega ("a great nation"), adding the adjective "great" (μέγα) not present in the Hebrew text given. The Vulgate follows this same pattern with gentem magnam ("a great nation"). The Hebrew text as provided contains no equivalent to "great" (which would be gadol, not present here).