Genesis 38:22

Summary

The verse reports the messenger's return to Judah with the news that he could not find the woman previously identified as a qedeshah (a cult prostitute or shrine attendant), a claim reinforced by the local men who deny that such a figure had ever been at that place.

Key words

• va-Yashov ("and he returned", H7725G) — qal narrative verb, third person masculine, continuing the story's action sequence with the vav-consecutive form typical of Hebrew narrative.
• matza'ti ("I found", H4672) — qal perfect, first person, marking a completed action; combined with the negation lo' ("not", H3808) it produces "I did not find."
• anshei ("men of", H0582) — masculine plural noun in construct state, meaning it must be followed by another noun to complete its meaning ("men of the place").
• ha-maqom ("the place", H4725) — masculine singular noun with definite article, anchoring the location referenced by the construct phrase before it.
• qedeshah ("cult prostitute", H6948) — feminine singular term; the same word used earlier in the chapter to describe the woman Judah's messenger sought, here echoed in the men's denial.

What the text says

The verse is built on two parallel reported speeches joined by ve-gam ("and also", H1571), a phrase that adds the testimony of the townspeople to the messenger's own statement. Structurally, both speeches use a negated perfect verb: lo' matza'ti ("I did not find [her]") and lo' hayetah ... qedeshah ("she was not ... a qedeshah"), producing a rhetorical doubling — first the messenger's failure to locate her, then the men's outright denial that any such woman had been present at all.

The word qedeshah (H6948) is grammatically an adjective functioning as a noun here, feminine singular, matching the implied subject "she." This is the same term applied to the woman earlier in the narrative, so the denial by the "men of the place" (anshei ha-maqom, H0582 + H4725) is phrased using identical vocabulary, reinforcing the negative testimony through repetition of terms rather than paraphrase.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders qedeshah as pornēn ("prostitute" in a general sense) rather than preserving any distinct cultic nuance, and it introduces a construction with mē einai ("not to be") rather than a completed-past negation, giving the men's statement a slightly more general or ongoing character than the Hebrew perfect hayetah ("she was"). The Vulgate uses scortum ("prostitute") and phrases the men's report as numquam sedisse ibi ("never sat there"), employing "never" where the Hebrew simply negates a past state without emphasizing repetition or totality. The BSB and SBLIBRE both translate qedeshah as "shrine prostitute" or "prostitute," options that reflect differing scholarly choices about the cultic connotation carried by the Hebrew term.