Genesis 26:15

Summary

The verse states that the Philistines stopped up all the wells which the servants of Isaac's father had dug during the days of Abraham, and filled them with earth. The action is presented in two sequential steps: sealing the wells, then filling them with dirt.

Key words

• be'eRot ("wells", H0875) — feminine plural noun, definite (preceded by ha, "the"), marking these as a specific, known set of wells rather than wells in general.
• chafeRu ("they had dug", H2658) — qal perfect, third person plural; describes a completed action prior to the main narrative action, functioning within a relative clause introduced by 'asher ("which", H0834A).
• sitteMum ("they stopped them up", H5640A) — piel perfect, third person plural, with a third-person masculine plural pronominal suffix ("them", H9038) attached directly to the verb; the piel stem intensifies the basic action of stopping/sealing.
• yemal'Um ("and they filled them", H4390) — piel form with narrative vav (H9001) prefix, marking it as the next event in sequence after the sealing; also carries the "them" suffix (H9038).
• 'aFar ("earth/dirt", H6083) — masculine singular noun, unmarked by article or preposition, functioning as the material with which the wells were filled.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with ve-khol-ha-be'eRot ("and all the wells"), placing the object of the action at the front of the clause before naming the subject (peleshtim, "Philistines", H6430G), which appears only after the two perfect verbs chafeRu and later sitteMum. This front-loading of the object, followed by a relative clause ('asher chafeRu 'avdei 'avi... bi-yemei 'Avraham 'avi, "which the servants of his father had dug in the days of Abraham his father"), delays the subject "Philistines" until deep into the sentence, after the main verb sitteMum ("they stopped them up").

The two main verbs, sitteMum and yemal'Um, are both piel perfects with attached object suffixes ("them"), describing two distinct completed actions: first sealing the wells, then filling them with 'aFar ("earth"). The second verb is introduced with the narrative vav (H9001), which in Biblical Hebrew typically signals sequential action within a storyline — "and then they filled them" — marking this as the next step after the sealing rather than a simultaneous or overlapping action.

The double use of 'avi ("father of him", H0001G) — once for "his father" generically and once specifying "Abraham his father" — reinforces the genealogical link between the wells' original diggers (the servants) and their owner across two generations.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew presents two sequential verbs (sitteMum, "they stopped them up"; yemal'Um, "and they filled them") both governed by the subject peleshtim ("Philistines") appearing between them. The LXX mirrors this structure with two verbs, enephraxan ("they stopped up") and eplēsan ("they filled"), also placing οἱ Φυλιστιείμ between the two actions. The Vulgate compresses the two Hebrew verbs into one main verb, obstruxerunt ("they obstructed"), followed by a participial phrase, implentes humo ("filling with soil"), rather than two coordinated finite verbs — a syntactic simplification not present in the Hebrew's two independent perfect verb forms.