What Does Genesis 18:29 Mean in the King James?
And he spake unto him yet again, and said, Peradventure there shall be forty found there. And he said, I will not do it for forty’s sake.
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
Forty lives found within the city can still change what happens to the whole city.
THE MEANING
When a place feels already judged, what is still found within it matters to the fate of everyone there. Forty lives are enough to keep the city’s outcome open.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A place already marked for destruction has nothing left in it that can alter its fate.
THE ROOT
יִמָּצְאוּן
yimmāṣəʾûn
GROWS FROM
מצא
māṣāʾ
to find, come upon, or encounter; in this form, to be found
The verb means “may be found,” so discovery and presence meet in one word: the question is whether forty are there to be encountered. The root makes the city’s fate turn on what is actually found within it.
ALSO GROWS
nimtsa: be found; be present
נִמְצָא
This form makes the question about whether the forty are actually present within the city.
metzi’ah: a finding; a found object
מְצִיאָה
The noun names the result of finding; here, what is found within the city has consequences for everyone there.
THE PATTERN
What is found, or missing, among a few can determine what happens to the whole.
Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man, if there be any that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth; and I will pardon it.And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none.For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.THE THREAD
Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man, if there be any that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth; and I will pardon it.Genesis asks whether forty יִמָּצְאוּן (yimmāṣəʾûn), “may be found,” in the city; Jeremiah asks whether one man can be found and ties that finding to pardon. Both use מָצָא (māṣāʾ), “find, come upon,” making visible how what is present within a community changes what may happen to the whole.
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