What Does Genesis 18:21 Mean?
I will go down now, and see whether they have done it wholly, according to the outcry which has come to me. And if not, I will perceive it.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know.THE KEY
The cry reaches God, yet his response is to come down and see what was actually done before he knows.
THE MEANING
A cry that reaches God is heard, while the truth of what happened is still examined: God comes down to see whether the deeds match it. The verse holds hearing, examination, and knowing together, with knowledge following attention to the scene.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that an accusation and a proven verdict are the same thing: the cry reaches God, while the deeds are still examined.
THE ROOT
אֵרֲדָה
ʾērədāh
GROWS FROM
י־ר־ד
to descend, go down
English can make “go down” sound like a travel detail; the Hebrew makes descent an action directed into the scene. The verse’s sequence, go down, see, know, presents knowing as following attention to what is happening.
ALSO GROWS
yarad: descend, go down
יָרַד
This is the root verb behind the speaker’s stated movement toward the scene.
horid: bring or cause to descend
הוֹרִיד
This causative form carries the same seed of downward movement; here the speaker goes down personally.
צַעֲקָתָהּ
ṣaʿaqātāh
GROWS FROM
צ־ע־ק
to cry out, call aloud
English “cry” can blur a shout, a plea, and a report. The Hebrew צעק-family marks an outcry voiced into the open, and here that outcry is said to have come to God.
ALSO GROWS
tsa'aq: cry out, call aloud
צָעַק
The verb names the act behind the outcry that reaches God in this verse.
tse'aqah: outcry, cry for help
צְעָקָה
The noun form also appears in Exodus 3:7 for the cry that God hears, carrying a person’s condition into attention.
אֵדָעָה
ʾēḏāʿāh
GROWS FROM
י־ד־ע
to know, recognize
“perceive” in this verse is ʾēḏāʿāh. Yadaʿ can mean knowing or recognizing, and often carries the sense of personal acquaintance. Here it follows descent and seeing, so the verse frames knowledge as arriving through direct attention to the scene.
ALSO GROWS
yadaʿ: know, recognize
יָדַע
This verb is the seed of “I will know,” placed after the speaker goes down to see.
daʿat: knowledge, knowing
דַּעַת
The related noun shows the same root naming knowledge itself, not merely the act of receiving a report.
THE PATTERN
A cry that reaches God is met with attention to what is actually happening.
And the LORD said, I have surely seen the bending low of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their drivers. For I know their pains.The aligned cry out, and the LORD hears, and snatches them out of all their narrow places.Look, the wages of the workers who mowed your fields, stripped away by your fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have gone into the ears of the LORD of hosts.THE THREAD
And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men built.Both verses use ירד (yāraḏ, “descend”) for the LORD’s movement into a situation, paired with seeing. The repeated descent-and-seeing sequence makes divine attention concrete: the scene itself is examined before the outcome is stated.
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