Genesis 9:21

Summary

The verse narrates three consecutive actions of Noah: he drank from the wine, became drunk, and uncovered himself inside his tent. The three verbs form a rapid narrative chain marked by the vav-consecutive construction typical of Hebrew storytelling.

Key words

• yishet ("he drank", H8354) — qal narrative form; simple, non-reflexive action, first link in the narrative chain.
• yishkar ("he became drunk", H7937) — qal narrative form; describes the resulting state after drinking, second link in the sequence.
• yitgal ("he uncovered himself", H1540I) — hithpael narrative form; the hithpael stem is reflexive/middle voice, indicating the subject acts upon himself rather than being acted upon by another.
• tokh ("middle of", H8432) — construct noun, syntactically bound to the following word to form the phrase "middle of [his tent]".
• ohel...o ("his tent", H0168G + H9023) — construct noun with pronominal suffix, meaning "tent-of-him", locating the final action spatially.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built entirely on the vav-consecutive narrative chain: va-yishet ("and he drank"), va-yishkar ("and he became drunk"), va-yitgal ("and he uncovered himself"). Each verb is introduced by the same narrative vav (H9001), which in Biblical Hebrew signals sequential storytelling — "and then... and then... and then." This creates a tight, almost staccato rhythm in the original, presenting the three events as an unbroken sequence of cause and consequence.

The grammatical form of yitgal (H1540I) is significant: it is in the hithpael stem, which typically marks reflexive or self-directed action. This means the Hebrew verb itself encodes that Noah is the agent of his own uncovering, not merely the passive recipient of an external act. The phrase be-tokh ohel-o ("in the middle of his tent") uses a construct chain (tokh + ohel + suffix -o) to specify the exact location — the interior of the tent — rather than simply "in his tent."

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the Hebrew hithpael yitgal ("he uncovered himself") with the passive verb ἐγυμνώθη ("he was made naked" / "was exposed"), shifting the grammatical voice from reflexive to passive. The Vulgate similarly uses the passive participle nudatus ("having been stripped/exposed"), following the same passive framing as the LXX rather than the Hebrew's reflexive construction.

Additionally, the LXX translates ohel ("tent", H0168G) as οἴκῳ ("house"), where the Hebrew specifically indicates a tent-dwelling, and the Vulgate uses tabernaculo ("tent/tabernacle"), which more closely matches the Hebrew term.