What Does Genesis 24:17 Mean?
And the servant ran to meet her, and said, Let me drink, I pray you, a little of the waters from your jar.
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 servant ran to meet her, and said, Let me, I pray thee, drink a little water of thy pitcher.THE KEY
The encounter begins with someone moving toward her and asking for only a little of what she already carries.
THE MEANING
You are met by someone who moves toward you and makes a plain, modest request for what you carry. The encounter begins with a little water requested from the vessel at hand, before its larger meaning is visible.
THE ROOT
הַגְמִיאִינִי
hagmi'ini
GROWS FROM
גמא
g-m-ʾ
To sip, swallow, or draw liquid in.
The verb is unusually specific: it carries the sense of taking in a sip, while the phrase also asks for only a little. English smooths this precise request into “drink,” but the scene turns on how small and immediate it is.
ALSO GROWS
hagmi'ini: A form of the verb used in this verse.
הַגְמִיאִינִי
It makes the request personal and modest: a sip from the water she carries.
hagmi'i: A related form repeated in the servant’s account in Genesis 24:43.
הַגְמִיאִי
The same unusual verb carries the request into the retelling of the encounter.
לִקְרָאתָהּ
liqra'tah
GROWS FROM
קרא
q-r-ʾ
Call, summon, or proclaim; in this form, move toward someone to meet them.
“meet” in this verse is liqra'tah. The meeting is framed as movement toward her, with a word-form linked to calling and summoning. The verse makes the encounter directional: he runs toward her before asking for anything.
ALSO GROWS
qara: Call out, summon, or proclaim.
קָרָא
It reveals the call-related language beneath the word used for meeting her.
miqra: A calling together, reading, or gathered assembly.
מִקְרָא
This branch also carries the sense of people being called into an encounter.
הָעֶבֶד
ha'eved
GROWS FROM
עבד
ʿ-b-d
Work or serve.
The word for the servant belongs to the same root as service and work. His identity in this moment is bound to his action: he is moving and speaking as one who serves.
ALSO GROWS
eved: A servant or worker.
עֶבֶד
This is the word used for the person who runs toward her.
avodah: Labor, work, or service.
עֲבֹדָה
It shows the work-root carried inside the identity “servant.”
THE PATTERN
An ordinary request for water can open a consequential encounter.
And she said, Drink, my lord; and she hurried, and lowered her jar upon her hand, and gave him drink.A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, Give me a drink.And whoever gives one of these small ones only a cup of cold water in the nature of a disciple, truly I say to you, he will by no means lose his wage.THE THREAD
Behold, I stand beside the well of the waters; and it shall be, that when the young woman comes forth to draw the waters, and I say to her, Give me, I pray you, a little of the waters from your jar to drink.The servant repeats the same request in his account, including the rare verb for asking to sip. The encounter is remembered through that small request, spoken first to her and then again as he tells how it unfolded.
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