Abimelech said to Abraham, "What do these seven ewe lambs which you have set by themselves mean?"
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Abimelech said to Abraham, "What do these seven ewe lambs which you have set by themselves mean?"
And Abimelech said unto Abraham, What mean these seven ewe lambs which thou hast set by themselves?
So Abimelech said to Abraham, “What they, these seven ewe lambs that you have set apart by themselves?”
unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult).
Every available English version of this verse, each an independent rendering of the whole verse.
Abimelech said to Abraham, "What do these seven ewe lambs which you have set by themselves mean?"
and Abimelech asked him, “Why have you set apart these seven ewe lambs?”
and Abimelech asked him, “Why have you set apart these seven ewe lambs?”
And Abimelech said unto Abraham, What mean these seven ewe lambs which thou hast set by themselves?
And Abimelech said unto Abraham, What mean these seven ewe lambs which thou hast set by themselves?
And Abimelech said unto Abraham, What mean these seven ewe lambs which thou hast set by themselves?
Then Abimelech said vnto Abraham, What meane these seuen lambes, which thou hast set by themselues?
And Abimelech said to him: What mean these seven ewe lambs which thou hast set apart?
And Abimelech saith unto Abraham, `What `are' they -- these seven lambs which thou hast set by themselves?'
And Abimelech says to Abraham, “What [are] they—these seven lambs which you have set by themselves?”
Abimelech said to Abraham, “What is the meaning of these seven female lambs that you have set by themselves?”
So Abimelech said to Abraham, “What they, these seven ewe lambs that you have set apart by themselves?”
And Abimelech said to Abraham, What [mean] these seven ewe-lambs, these which thou hast set by themselves?
Abimelech said to Abraham, “What do these seven ewe lambs, which you have set by themselves, mean?”
And Abimelech said to Abraham, What mean these seven ewe-lambs, which thou hast set by themselves?
“What are these seven female lambs for that you've separated from the flock?” Abimelech asked.
Then Abimelech said, What are these seven lambs which you have put on one side?
And Abimelech said unto Abraham: 'What mean these seven ewe-lambs which thou hast set by themselves?'
Literal Standard Version (2020), Covenant Press — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). Unlocked Literal Bible (unfoldingWord) — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult). Free Bible Version, Dr. Jonathan Gallagher — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org).
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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 →
Notable vocabulary
The rarest word here is כְּבָשֹׂת֙ ewe H3535 — appearing just 8 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.
Shared distinctive vocabulary
כְּבָשֹׂת֙ ewe H3535 occurs in 8 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:
Grammatical profile
Verb forms
Hebrew & Septuagint length
In English translation the verse runs 17 words from the Hebrew and 15 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 12 Hebrew tokens and 16 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.
Topical passages linked to Genesis 21:29 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.
Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).
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.
וַיֹּ֥אמֶר אֲבִימֶ֖לֶךְ אֶל אַבְרָהָ֑ם מָ֣ה הֵ֗נָּה שֶׁ֤בַע כְּבָשֹׂת֙ הָאֵ֔לֶּה אֲשֶׁ֥ר הִצַּ֖בְתָּ לְבַדָּֽנָה
Abimelech said to Abraham, "What do these seven ewe lambs which you have set by themselves mean?"
World English Bible · Public Domain
καί εἶπον αβιμελεχ ὁ αβρααμ τίς εἰμί ὁ ἑπτά ἀμνάς ὁ πρόβατον οὗτος ὅς ἵστημι μόνος
And Abimelech said to Abraam, What are these seven ewe-lambs which you have set alone?
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 →
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.
וַאֲמַר אֲבִימֶלֶךְ לְאַבְרָהָם מָה אִנּוּן שְׁבַע חוּרְפַן אִלֵּין דַּאֲקֵמְתָּא בִּלְחוֹדֵיהֶן
(no public-domain English translation for this verse)
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.
וַאֲמַר אֲבִימֶלֶךְ לְאַבְרָהָם מָה הִינוּן שְׁבַע חוּרְפַן הָאִלֵין דַאֲקֵמְתָּא בִּלְחוֹדֵיהוֹן
And Abimelek said to Abraham, What are these seven lambs which thou hast set apart?
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.
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 12 words (12 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is kibsâh (“ewe”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.
Commentary
Notes on Genesis 21:29 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
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.
John Gill's Exposition
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.