What Does Genesis 23:5 Mean?
And the sons of Heth answered Abraham, saying to him,
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 the children of Heth answered Abraham, saying unto him,THE KEY
Before the answer says yes or no, this verse reveals that Abraham has been heard.
THE MEANING
Abraham receives a response from the children of Heth, and the content of their words is just opening. This verse holds the pause between being heard and knowing what comes back.
THE ROOT
וַיַּעֲנוּ
vayyaʿanu
GROWS FROM
ענה
to answer, respond
“answered” in this verse is vayyaʿanu. The same root appears both as the act of responding and as the reply that shapes what follows. English marks the action as finished; the root keeps it joined to the exchange still unfolding.
ALSO GROWS
ʿanah: to answer, respond
עָנָה
This verb names the return of speech that begins the exchange here.
maʿaneh: answer, reply
מַעֲנֶה
The same word family appears in Proverbs 15:1, where the kind of answer turns the exchange toward calm or anger.
חֵת
Ḥet
GROWS FROM
חתת
to break down, dismay, terrify
Heth’s name is traditionally linked to a root of dismay, so the phrase children of Heth carries an echo of people named through dread. The next verse gives their actual words, letting the name’s shade and their response sit together without reducing them to one meaning.
ALSO GROWS
ḥathath: to be shattered or dismayed
חָתַת
This verb gives the name’s traditional echo of being shaken.
meḥittah: terror, ruin
מְחִתָּה
This related noun carries the same root’s sense of dread or collapse.
THE PATTERN
An answer turns a received request into a shared exchange that can reshape what happens next.
Then Laban and Bethuel answered and said, The word comes forth from the LORD; we cannot speak to you bad or good.A soft answer turns away the burning, but words of pain stir up the nostrils.Then Peter and the other sent ones answered and said, We must obey God rather than humankind.THE THREAD
Hear us, my lord. You are a lifted one of God among us. In the choicest of our graves bury your dead. None of us will hold back his grave from you, so that you may bury your dead.Verse 5 holds the answer at its threshold; the next verse reveals it as an offer of burial space. The pause becomes the moment a community makes room for Abraham’s grief.
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