What Does Genesis 18:3 Mean?
And he said, My lord, if I have now found favor in your eyes, please do not pass by your servant.
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
And said, My Lord, if now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant:THE KEY
Favor is more than being regarded kindly; it makes room to ask that the presence receiving you stay.
THE MEANING
Favor appears as being received in another’s sight, and the voice asks what that reception makes possible: continued presence. The verse speaks to you as a servant before the Lord, able to ask that the one addressed not pass away.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that favor is merely a verdict of approval: here, favor carries the intimacy of a request for the other to stay.
THE ROOT
חֵן
ḥēn
GROWS FROM
חנן
To show favor; to be gracious.
The noun חֵן names favor, while חָנַן names the act of showing it; תְּחִנָּה is a plea for favor. The verse joins being regarded kindly with a request for continued nearness: favor is relational enough that the one who receives it can ask the other to stay.
ALSO GROWS
ḥānan: To show favor; to be gracious.
חָנַן
This verb names the giving behind the favor the speaker says has been found.
teḥinnah: A plea or supplication for favor.
תְּחִנָּה
This related word makes the link between favor and asking explicit: the favor received here opens into a direct request.
תַעֲבֹר
taʿăvōr
GROWS FROM
עבר
To pass over, cross, or go through.
“pass by” in this verse is taʿăvōr. The verb names motion across or past. “Pass not away” is a plea that this encounter not become mere passage; the request for favor is joined to a request for presence to remain.
ALSO GROWS
ʿēver: The other side; beyond.
עֵבֶר
The same root can name what lies across or beyond, making the movement in “pass away” concrete.
maʿavār: A crossing or passage.
מַעֲבָר
This branch makes the passage itself visible: the speaker asks that the one addressed not simply cross by.
THE PATTERN
Favor is relational regard that opens a person to nearness and help.
But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.And the messenger said to her, Do not be seized by awe, Mary, for you have found favor with God.Let us therefore draw near, with open speech, to the throne of favor, that we may receive compassion, and find favor to help in the right moment.THE THREAD
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bath-sheba. Show me favor, O God, according to your faithful love; according to the abundance of your compassion, wipe away my rebellion.The Psalm’s opening “Have mercy upon me” draws on חָנַן (ḥānan), “to show favor,” the same root behind חֵן (ḥēn), “favor,” here. Genesis voices favor as something found in another’s sight; the Psalm voices it as a plea, showing both as movements within a relationship.
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