Genesis 5:32

Summary

Genesis 5:32 states that Noah was five hundred years old when he fathered three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The verse closes the genealogical chain of chapter 5 by marking Noah's age at the birth of his sons before the flood narrative begins.

Key words

• ben ("a son of", H1121L) — construct noun expressing age, literally "son of five hundred years," a Hebrew idiom for stating how old someone is.
• chamesh ("five", H2568) — cardinal number in construct state, linked grammatically to me'ot to form "five hundred."
• yoled ("he fathered", H3205) — hiphil (causative) verb form of the root meaning "to bear/give birth," here used causatively to mean "caused to be born," i.e., "fathered."
• 'et ("", H0853) — untranslated direct object marker, repeated before each son's name (Shem, Cham, Yafet) to mark them as objects of the verb yoled.
• va ("and", H9001) — narrative vav prefixed to verbs, structuring the verse as sequential narrative action ("and it was... and he fathered...").

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative formula va-yehi ("and he was," H1961), a standard construction in Hebrew genealogical and narrative texts marking a new statement about a subject — here, Noah's age. The age itself is expressed through the construct phrase ben-chamesh me'ot shanah, literally "son of five hundred years," where ben (H1121L) functions not literally as "son" but as a construct marker indicating age, a common idiom throughout Genesis 5.

The second clause begins with another narrative vav attached to yoled (H3205), a hiphil verb form. The hiphil stem here conveys the causative sense "he caused to be born" or "he fathered," distinguishing it from a simple qal form that would describe someone being born rather than causing a birth. The three sons — Shem (H8035), Cham (H2526G), and Yafet (H3315) — are each introduced by the direct object marker 'et (H0853), which has no independent translation but grammatically marks each name as the object of the fathering. The repetition of 'et before each name, with a simple conjunction ve (H9002) only before the last one, follows a common Hebrew listing pattern.

Differences between versions

The RV1909 and SBLIBRE render the construct phrase ben-chamesh me'ot shanah as "de quinientos años" / "tenía quinientos años," collapsing the idiomatic "son of five hundred years" into a standard age statement, as does BSB with "500 years old." None of the versions preserve the literal construct sense of ben ("son of") in translation, though this is a normal simplification rather than a divergence in meaning.