What Does Genesis 11:30 Mean in the King James?
But Sarai was barren; she had no child.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Hebrew holds barrenness beside uprooting and “child” beside “to bear,” so the verse names absence in the language of roots and birth.
THE MEANING
The absence is named plainly: Sarai is barren, and she has no child. The verse does not explain the cause or make the lack small; it leaves the future open without pretending the present absence is not real.
THE ROOT
עֲקָרָה
ʿăqārāh
GROWS FROM
עקר
ʿ-q-r
Uproot; be barren.
The word for a barren woman belongs to a root also used for uprooting. That shared root deepens the named absence, while the next clause makes it concrete: she has no child.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāqar: To uproot, pull up.
עָקַר
This branch places the word for barrenness beside the image of something uprooted.
ʿāqār: Barren (masculine form).
עָקָר
The masculine form shares the root with Sarai’s feminine designation, carrying the same condition across forms.
וָלָד
wālad
GROWS FROM
ילד
y-l-d
Bear, beget.
The word for child grows from the same root as the verb to bear and the word for generations. Hebrew gathers birth, offspring, and lineage into one word family, so “no child” reaches beyond a single absence toward the continuity that birth carries.
ALSO GROWS
yālad: To bear, beget.
יָלַד
The action of bearing shares its root with the absent child.
tôledôt: Generations, descendants.
תּוֹלְדוֹת
This branch extends the same root from a child to the generations that follow.
THE PATTERN
Scripture names childlessness plainly before revealing what follows.
And Isaac intreated the LORD for his wife, because she was barren: and the LORD was intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived.And he had two wives; the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah: and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children.And they had no child, because that Elisabeth was barren, and they both were now well stricken in years.THE THREAD
And Isaac intreated the LORD for his wife, because she was barren: and the LORD was intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived.The same Hebrew word, עֲקָרָה (ʿăqārāh, barren), names Rebekah’s condition. Here that word appears beside conception, showing that barrenness names a real condition without declaring the whole story.
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