Genesis 26:33

Summary

The verse narrates that someone (subject implied as Isaac from context) named a well Shivah ("Shibah", H7656), and states that because of this naming, the city's name has been Be'er Sheva ("Beer-sheba", H0884) up to the narrator's present day.

Key words

• va ("and", H9001) — narrative vav, linking this clause to the preceding action as the next event in sequence.
• yiqra ("he called", H7121H) — qal verb in the narrative (vayyiqtol) form, indicating a completed act of naming performed by "he" (the subject established earlier in the chapter).
• Shivah ("Shibah", H7656) — proper name given to the well; grammatically the direct object of the naming, marked by the object marker 'oto (" it/her", H0853+H9034).
• shem ("name of", H8034) — masculine singular construct noun, opening the phrase "the name of the city," linking the well's name to the city's name.
• ha-yom ha-zeh ("this day", H3117L+H2088) — definite noun with demonstrative, forming the fixed formula "until this day," marking the naming's effect as still valid at the time of writing.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence has two linked clauses joined by 'al-ken ("therefore", H5921A+H3651C): first, "and he called it Shivah," then "therefore the name of the city [is] Be'er Sheva until this day." The verb yiqra is in the vayyiqtol narrative form, the standard way Biblical Hebrew advances a storyline, showing this naming as a discrete completed event following what precedes it in the chapter. The object of the naming is marked by 'oto ("it/her"), a pronominal suffix attached to the object marker, referring back to the well mentioned earlier in the narrative (not explicit in this verse alone).

The construct phrase shem-ha'ir ("name of the city", H8034+H9009+H5892B) syntactically binds "name" to "the city," a fixed construct chain characteristic of Hebrew genitive relationships. The closing formula 'ad hayyom hazzeh ("until this day", H5704+H3117L+H2088) uses the definite article twice (on "day" and implicitly reinforced by the demonstrative "this"), a recurring formula in Hebrew narrative marking that a name or state persists into the narrator's own time.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the well's name as Orkos ("oath") rather than transliterating Shivah, and repeats "he called the name" twice with a genitive construction ("τῇ πόλει Φρέαρ Φρέαρ," "well well") differing from the Hebrew's single construct phrase "name of the city." The Vulgate translates Shivah as Abundantiam ("abundance") rather than transliterating it, while rendering the city name as Bersabee, closer to the Hebrew Be'er Sheva.