Genesis 14:9

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

against Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of Goiim, and Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar; four kings against the five.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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וְתִדְעָל֙

Tidʻâl

H8413

“and · Tidal”

Conjunction + Noun, Proper

Appears 2× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 14:1

Full BDB Definition

Origin: perhaps from H1763

TWOT: None

Tidal = "great son" - chief of various nomadic tribes and an ally of Chedorlaomer

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

17: words
12: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is וְתִדְעָל֙ Tidal H8413 — appearing just 2 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

וְתִדְעָל֙ Tidal H8413 occurs in 2 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Genesis 14:1

Grammatical profile

13 nouns
2 adjectives
2 prepositions

Repetition

Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

מֶ֣לֶךְ king H4428 ×5
אֵ֣ת with H854 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 25 words from the Hebrew and 26 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 17 Hebrew tokens and 22 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Genesis 14:9 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

אֵ֣ת כְּדָרְלָעֹ֜מֶר מֶ֣לֶךְ עֵילָ֗ם וְתִדְעָל֙ מֶ֣לֶךְ גּוֹיִ֔ם וְאַמְרָפֶל֙ מֶ֣לֶךְ שִׁנְעָ֔ר וְאַרְי֖וֹךְ מֶ֣לֶךְ אֶלָּסָ֑ר אַרְבָּעָ֥ה מְלָכִ֖ים אֶת הַחֲמִשָּֽׁה

against Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of Goiim, and Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar; four kings against the five.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Genesis 14:9 Septuagint · lemma form

πρός χοδολλογομορ βασιλεύς αιλαμ καί θαργαλ βασιλεύς ἔθνος καί αμαρφαλ βασιλεύς σεννααρ καί αριωχ βασιλεύς ελλασαρ ὁ τέσσαρες βασιλεύς πρός ὁ πέντε

against Chodollogomor king of Elam, and Thargal king of nations, and Amarphal king of Sennaar, and Arioch king of Ellasar, the four kings against the five.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Onkelos Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

עִם כְּדָרְלָעֹמֶר מַלְכָּא דְעֵילָם וְתִדְעָל מַלְכָּא דְעַמְמִין וְאַמְרָפֶל מַלְכָּא דְבָבֶל וְאַרְיוֹךְ מַלְכָּא דְאֶלָסָר אַרְבְּעָה מַלְכִין לָקֳבֵיל חַמְשָׁא

with Kedar‑laomer king of Elam, and Thidal, king of peoples, and Amraphel, king of Babel, and Ariok, king of Elasar; four kings against five.

Targum Onkelos — Aramaic: “Onkelos Genesis” (public domain); “Onkelos Exodus” (public domain); “Onkelos Leviticus” (public domain); “Onkelos Numbers” (public domain); “Onkelos Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “J.W. Etheridge. The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch. London: Longmans, Green, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

עִם כְּדָרְלָעוֹמֶר מַלְכָּא דְעֵילָם וְתִידְעָל מַלְכָּא דְעַמְמַיָא מִשְׁתַּמְעִין לֵיהּ וְאַמְרָפֶל מַלְכָּא דְפוּנְטוֹס וְאַרְיוֹךְ מַלְכָּא דִתְלָסַר אַרְבַּעַת מַלְכִין סַדָרוּ קְרָבָא לִקְבֵיל חַמְשָׁא

with Kedarlaomer king of Elam, and Thidal king of the nations obedient to him, and Amraphel king of Pontos, and Ariok king of Thelasar; four kings arrayed in battle against five.

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan — Aramaic: “Targum Jonathan on Genesis” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Exodus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Leviticus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Numbers” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, trans. J. W. Etheridge, London, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Genesis 14:9 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Gen 14:9 With Chedorlaomer the king of Elam, and with Tidal king of nations, and Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar; four kings with five.

Ver. 9. Four kings with five.] These five were but free princes of cities, petty kings, such as we had here of old in this island; which is therefore said, by Jerome, to be tyrannorum fertilis , fertile of tyrants.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

9. four kings against the five] After Gen_14:8 we should expect the “five kings against the four.” Notice the impressive repetition of the names of the kings, and the variation in the order of the names or the eastern kings, Chedorlaomer coming first, as the over-lord against whom the rebellion had been made.

The description of the battle itself has most unfortunately not been preserved.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

With Chedorlaomer king of Elam,.... Who is here mentioned first, being the principal in the war, and against whom the kings of Sodom, &c. had rebelled:

and with Tidal king of nations, and Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar; who were his allies, confederates, and auxiliaries:

four kings with five; those four last mentioned, with the other five before spoken of, that is, they fought with them; or rather four kings against five, as the Vulgate Latin and Tigurine versions, and some others.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

Daniel D. Whedon

9. Four kings with five — And the four, flushed with many victories and grown fierce by war, conquered the five. What were the weapons and what the modes of warfare used by these ancient kings we have no means of knowing. Their principal arms were probably the sword, the bow, and the spear.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

'ארבעה מלכים וגו FOUR KINGS [AGAINST THE FIVE]— and yet the fewer were victorious; this statement is expressly made to tell you how powerful they were, and yet Abraham did not refrain from pursuing them.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Genesis, in the Pentateuch, opens this verse with 17 words (12 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is Tidʻâl (“Tidal”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word Tidʻâl carries the sense “Tidal.” How does it shape the verse?
Genesis 14:1 shares the word «Tidal» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
“king” occurs 5× in this one verse. What is the effect of the repetition?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

This verse counts 17 Hebrew ↔ 22 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 3 words in this verse.
“king” occurs 5× in this single verse.
12 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 17 words in this verse.