Genesis 21:2

Summary

The verse reports that Sarah conceived and gave birth to a son for Abraham, specifying that this happened in Abraham's old age, at the precise time that God had previously spoken about it. The sentence uses two sequential narrative verbs to mark the conception and birth as connected story events.

Key words

• ta.Har ("she conceived", H2029) — qal narrative verb, marking the first event in the sequence introduced by the narrative vav.
• Te.led ("she bore", H3205) — qal narrative verb, chained to the previous verb by vav, presenting birth as the next event in sequence ("and then she bore").
• z.ku.Na ("old age", H2208) with the suffix -ו ("his") — masculine plural construct noun with a 3rd person masculine singular suffix; the masculine gender of the suffix points grammatically to Abraham rather than to Sarah.
• mo.'Ed ("appointed time", H4150G) — masculine singular noun with prefixed article la- ("to/at the"), marking a specific, previously designated time.
• di.Ber ("he had spoken", H1696G) — piel perfect verb, an intensive stem indicating completed speech prior to the narrated events, introduced by the relative particle 'a.Sher ("which", H0834A).

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with two verbs in narrative sequence, ta.Har ("she conceived") and Te.led ("she bore"), both attached to the subject sa.Rah ("Sarah", H8283) and directed le-'av.ra.Ham ("to Abraham", H0085) — literally "to/for Abraham," marking him as the one for whom the son is born. The noun ben ("a son", H1121A) is unmarked by any article, functioning simply as the object of the birth.

The phrase li-z.ku.Na-v ("of his old age") uses a construct plural noun with a masculine suffix. Since Sarah's name is feminine and would take a different suffix form, the masculine suffix here formally links "old age" back to Abraham rather than to Sarah, even though the surrounding sentence is focused on Sarah's actions. The clause closes with la-mo.'Ed 'a.Sher di.ber 'o.To 'E.lo.Him ("at the appointed time which God had spoken it"), where the piel perfect di.Ber denotes a completed prior act of speaking, and the object suffix -o ("it/him") attached to 'et refers back to the mo.'Ed ("appointed time") itself.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the divine name as Κύριος ("Lord") where the Hebrew has 'E.lo.Him ("God", H0430G). The LXX also uses a participial construction, συλλαβοῦσα ἔτεκεν ("having conceived, she bore"), collapsing the Hebrew's two sequential finite verbs into one main verb with an attached participle, whereas the Vulgate's Concepitque et peperit ("and she conceived and bore") preserves two coordinated verbs closer to the Hebrew structure.