Genesis 26:21

Summary

The verse describes a second episode of well-digging: the group excavates be'er acheret ("another well", H0875/H0312), disputes arises over it as well, and the well receives the name Sitnah ("Sitnah", H7856). The action is narrated through a chain of three consecutive verbs describing digging, disputing, and naming.

Key words

• yachperu ("they dug", H2658) — qal verb with narrative vav, 3rd person masculine plural; the subject ("they") is not named in this verse but carried from prior context.
• be'er acheret ("another well", H0875 + H0312) — feminine singular noun with feminine singular adjective in agreement; marks this as a second, distinct well.
• yarivu ("they disputed", H7378) — qal narrative verb, 3rd masculine plural, parallel in form to yachperu, continuing the same unnamed subject.
• gam ("also", H1571) — adverb signaling that the dispute over this well repeats a prior dispute (implying an earlier conflict already occurred).
• shemah ("its name", H8034 + H9024) — construct noun with 3rd feminine singular suffix ("her name"), referring back to be'er ("well"), which is grammatically feminine.

What the text says

The verse is built on three sequential narrative verbs joined by the vav-consecutive construction: yachperu ("they dug"), yarivu ("they disputed"), and yiqra' ("he called"). The first two verbs share a plural subject that is not explicitly named in this verse — the Hebrew simply continues from whatever subject was established earlier in the narrative. The third verb, yiqra' ("he called", H7121H), shifts to a singular subject ("he"), distinct from the plural subjects of the first two verbs, and this singular actor is the one who assigns the name Sitnah to the well.

The adverb gam ("also") signals continuity with a previous, similar conflict, indicating that the dispute over this well repeats a pattern already established in the narrative. The well itself is grammatically feminine (be'er), which is reflected in the feminine suffix on shemah ("its name") — the -ah suffix on sitnah also echoes this grammatical gender, though Sitnah itself is treated as a proper name (H7856) rather than parsed as a common noun in this verse.

Differences between versions

The LXX explicitly names the singular subject as "Isaac" (Ἰσαὰκ) and adds that he "departed from there" (ἀπάρας... ἐκεῖθεν), details not present in the Hebrew text of this verse, where the subject of yiqra' is left implicit. Both the LXX (Ἐχθρία, "enmity") and the Vulgate (Inimicitias, "hostilities") translate the meaning of the name Sitnah rather than transliterating it as the Hebrew text and most modern versions (BSB, RV1909, SBLIBRE) do.