Genesis 6:9

Summary

The verse opens the Noah narrative with a formulaic introduction, 'Eleh tolDot ("these are the accounts of", H0428/H8435), followed by a triple description of Noah's character and a statement that he "walked" with God. The name Noach (H5146) appears three times in the verse, structurally framing each clause.

Key words

• tolDot ("accounts of", H8435) — feminine plural construct noun, meaning it grammatically requires a following genitive ("accounts of X"); here it introduces the subsequent narrative section, a formula also used elsewhere in Genesis to mark new sections.
• tzaDik ("righteous", H6662) — masculine singular adjective describing Noah's moral standing, syntactically appositional to 'ish ("man", H0376G).
• taMim ("blameless", H8549H) — masculine singular adjective, paired with tzaDik to form a double qualification of Noah.
• doroTav ("his generations", H1755 + suffix H9023) — feminine plural construct noun with pronominal suffix, indicating the temporal scope ("in his generations") of Noah's righteousness.
• hithalekh ("he walked about", H1980I) — hithpael (reflexive/iterative) perfect verb, describing repeated or continuous action, here rendered with 'et-ha'Elohim ("with God", H0854 + H0430G) as its complement.

What the text says

The verse is built in three short clauses. The first, 'Eleh tolDot Noach ("these are the accounts of Noah"), uses the construct noun tolDot (H8435) to signal a transition, syntactically requiring the following name Noach as its genitive complement. The second clause names Noah again and attaches two adjectives, tzaDik ("righteous", H6662) and taMim ("blameless", H8549H), both in apposition to 'ish ("man", H0376G), followed by the qal perfect verb haYah ("he was", H1961) and the prepositional phrase bedoroTav ("in his generations", H1755 with suffix H9023), which limits the scope of the description.

The third clause places the object 'et-ha'Elohim ("with God", H0854 + H0430G) before the verb hithalekh ("he walked about", H1980I), a hithpael perfect form. The hithpael stem here conveys a reflexive or repeated sense of motion, distinct from a simple qal "walk"; this grammatical choice suggests ongoing or habitual action rather than a single event. The name Noach appears at the very end of the clause, after the verb, creating a chiastic effect within the verse since Noach also opens the second clause — the subject is stated, described, and then restated as the one performing the action.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders bedoroTav ("in his generations", H1755) as τῇ γενέσει αὐτοῦ ("in his generation," singular), narrowing the Hebrew plural construct to a singular noun. The LXX also translates hithalekh ("he walked about", H1980I) with εὐηρέστησεν ("he was well-pleasing"), a verb of a different semantic field than "walking," where the Vulgate's ambulavit ("he walked") and the Hebrew's hithpael form both preserve the motion imagery absent from the Greek.