What Does Genesis 13:13 Mean in the King James?
But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly.
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
The verse names two dimensions of wrongdoing, harm done and the mark missed, and places both fully before the LORD.
THE MEANING
The verse holds a community’s conduct plainly in view before the LORD: it is harmful and far from the mark. “Exceedingly” leaves no room to shrink its severity. A crowd does not make wrongdoing invisible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Wrongdoing does not disappear when it belongs to a whole community; the verse says it remains before the LORD exceedingly.
THE ROOT
רָעִים
ra’im
GROWS FROM
רָעַע
ra’a: to be bad, act wickedly, or do harm.
“wicked” in this verse is ra’im. This word carries more than a moral label: its root speaks of what is bad and harmful. Beside “sinners,” it names both the harm in the conduct and the way it misses what is right, all exposed before the LORD.
ALSO GROWS
ra: Bad, evil, harmful.
רַע
This adjective shares the root’s language of harm and shows the quality named in the verse.
hēraʿ: To do evil or cause harm.
הֵרֵעַ
This verb makes the root’s force active: the verse describes conduct, not merely a reputation.
חַטָּאִים
chatta’im
GROWS FROM
חטא
chata’: to miss, go wrong, or incur guilt.
The root holds “sinners” together with the idea of missing or going wrong. Here, paired with “wicked” and intensified by “exceedingly,” that language describes a grave shared condition, not a harmless mistake.
ALSO GROWS
chet: A missing, fault, or wrongdoing.
חֵטְא
This noun makes explicit the root’s sense of missing that remains inside the word “sinners.”
chatta’t: Sin; also an offering associated with sin.
חַטָּאת
This branch carries the same root into the language of sin and its addressing, showing how widely the idea of missing extends.
THE PATTERN
Wrongdoing remains visible before the LORD, even when it belongs to a whole community.
And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous;The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;THE THREAD
If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.The word חַטָּאִים (chatta’im, those marked by missing) here and חַטָּאת (chatta’t, sin) there share the root חטא (chata’, to miss or go wrong). Genesis 4:7 pictures that missing as lying at a door, opening “sinners” from a label into a condition already at the threshold.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us