Genesis 21:21

Summary

The verse narrates that the boy (implicitly Ishmael, continuing the preceding narrative) settled in the wilderness of Paran, and that his mother obtained a wife for him from Egypt. The two clauses are linked by consecutive narrative verbs describing sequential actions.

Key words

• va-yeshev ("and he dwelt", H3427) — qal verb with narrative vav, marking the first sequential action: settling in a location.
• midbar ("wilderness of", H4057B) — masculine singular noun in construct state, linking directly to the following place name Paran (H6290G).
• va-tiqqach ("and she took", H3947G) — qal verb with narrative vav, third person feminine, marking the second sequential action; the subject follows later in the clause (immo, "his mother").
• immo ("his mother", H0517 + suffix H9023) — feminine singular noun in construct with a pronominal suffix "his," identifying the subject who performs the action of "taking."
• eretz Mitzrayim ("land of Egypt", H0776G + H4714G) — construct chain specifying the geographic origin of the wife obtained.

What the text says

The verse is built from two clauses joined by the narrative vav, a construction that presents actions as sequential events in the story: first "he dwelt" (va-yeshev), then "she took" (va-tiqqach). The subject of the second verb, immo ("his mother"), appears only after the verb and the indirect object lo ("for him," H9005+H9033), a common word order in Biblical Hebrew narrative where the verb often precedes its subject.

The phrase midbar Paran uses the construct state (noun of noun) to specify a particular location — "wilderness of Paran" — rather than a generic wilderness. Similarly, eretz Mitzrayim uses the same construct pattern to specify the geographic origin of the wife: "land of Egypt." The grammatical structure clusters possessive relationships tightly: "his mother" (immo) is the one who "took... for him" (lo) "a wife" (ishah), a chain of pronominal references that in Hebrew relies on suffixes rather than separate possessive words.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text specifies the location as midbar Paran ("wilderness of Paran," H4057B + H6290G), naming the place explicitly. The Septuagint (LXXSWETE) renders this simply as ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ ("in the wilderness"), omitting the proper name "Paran" found in the Hebrew. The Vulgate (VULCLEM), by contrast, retains the place name: "in deserto Pharan," aligning with the Hebrew rather than the Greek in this detail.