Genesis 6:1

Summary

Genesis 6:1 opens a new narrative unit stating that, at a certain point, humankind began to multiply across the surface of the ground, and that daughters were born to them. The verse sets a temporal and demographic condition for what follows in the passage.

Key words

• va-yhi ("and it was", H9001 + H1961) — the narrative vav plus the qal verb "to be" forms the standard formula opening a new episode in Hebrew narrative, roughly "and it happened."
• ki ("that", H3588A) — a subordinating particle here introducing the circumstance under which the main clause's action occurs; it links the opening formula to what began.
• heChel ("he began", H2490C) — hiphil (causative stem) perfect of the root for "begin"; the perfect aspect marks this as a completed, initiating action, and the hiphil frames "beginning" as something humankind actively undertook.
• ha-adam ("the humankind", H9009 + H0120G) — definite article plus a masculine singular collective noun, referring to humanity as a collective group rather than a specific individual.
• yulledu ("they were born", H3205) — pual (intensive passive) perfect; the passive stem indicates the daughters are the recipients of the action of birth, with no explicit agent named in the verb form itself.

What the text says

The verse is built as a subordinate temporal clause followed by two coordinated actions. The opening va-yhi ... ki construction ("and it was that...") is a common Hebrew narrative device that signals a shift in time or scene, setting up the condition introduced by ki ("when/that"). Inside this subordinate frame, the hiphil perfect heChel ("he began") governs an infinitive construction with la-rov ("to become numerous," H7231), producing the sense "began to multiply." The subject of this beginning is ha-adam, a definite singular collective noun that in Hebrew grammar takes a singular verb even though it refers to humanity as a whole — a grammatical point that translations naturally render with plural forms like "men" or "people."

The phrase al-penei ha-adamah ("on the surface of the ground") uses a construct chain: penei ("surface of," plural construct) governs ha-adamah ("the ground"), locating the multiplying spatially. The second clause, joined by the conjunction u- ("and"), shifts to the pual perfect yulledu ("they were born"), a passive form that reports the birth of daughters without naming who bore them; the dative-like prepositional phrase la-hem ("to them," H9005 + H9038) attaches the event back to the humankind introduced earlier. The perfect aspect in both heChel and yulledu marks these as completed actions that establish the background situation for the narrative that follows.

Differences between versions

The LXX (Swete) includes additional material not present in the Hebrew word list given here — a notice about Noah's age and the naming of his three sons — before rendering the "began to multiply" clause with ἤρξαντο ("they began") and πολλοὶ γίνεσθαι ("to become many"), using a plural verb for "the ἄνθρωποι" (humans), unlike the Hebrew's grammatically singular ha-adam. The LXX also omits any equivalent to al-penei ha-adamah ("on the surface of the ground"), rendering instead simply ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ("upon the earth"). The Vulgate (Cumque cœpissent homines multiplicari super terram) similarly uses a plural subject homines ("men") and drops the "surface of" construct phrase, paralleling the LXX's simplification of the Hebrew's construct chain penei ha-adamah.