Genesis 38:4

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

She conceived again, and bore a son; and she named him Onan.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

1 first appearance in the Hebrew Bible

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Word by word

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אוֹנָֽן

ʼÔwnân

H209

“Onan”

Noun, Proper

Appears 8× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears here

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a variation of H207

TWOT: None

Onan = "strong" - second son of Judah, slain by God for not fulfilling the levitical requirement to beget a child with the wife of a dead, childless brother

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 →

8: words
8: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is אוֹנָֽן Onan H209 — appearing just 8 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

First appearance in Scripture

This word makes its first canonical appearance in the Hebrew Bible here:

אוֹנָֽן Onan H209

Shared distinctive vocabulary

אוֹנָֽן Onan H209 occurs in 6 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

3 verbs
3 nouns
1 adverb
1 particle

Verb forms

וַתַּ֥הַר Qal · Sequential Imperfect
וַתֵּ֣לֶד Qal · Sequential Imperfect
וַתִּקְרָ֥א Qal · Sequential Imperfect

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 12 words from the Hebrew and 13 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 8 Hebrew tokens and 11 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.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Genesis 38:4 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Genesis 46:12 The sons of Judah: Er, Onan, Shelah, Perez, and Zerah; but Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan. The sons of Perez were Hezron and Hamul.
Numbers 26:19 The sons of Judah: Er and Onan; and Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

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 38:4 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַתַּ֥הַר ע֖וֹד וַתֵּ֣לֶד בֵּ֑ן וַתִּקְרָ֥א אֶת שְׁמ֖וֹ אוֹנָֽן

She conceived again, and bore a son; and she named him Onan.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Genesis 38:4 Septuagint · lemma form

καί συνλαμβάνω ἔτι τίκτω υἱός καί καλέω ὁ ὄνομα αὐτός αυναν

And she conceived and bore a son again; and called his name, Aunan.

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)

וְעַדִּיאַת עוֹד וִילִידַת בָּר וּקְרַת יָת שְׁמֵהּ אוֹנָן

(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.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וְאִתְעַבָּרַת תּוּב וִילֵידַת בַּר וּקְרַת יַת שְׁמֵיהּ אוֹנָן אֲרוּם בְּרַם עֲלוֹי עָתִיד אָבוֹי לְאִתְאַבְּלָא

And she conceived again, and bare a son, and called his name Onan, because his father would have to mourn for him.

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 38:4 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 38:4 And she conceived again, and bare a son; and she called his name Onan.

Ver. 4. She called.] Shush named her two latter children; the one it is like by the licence, the other by the absence of her husband.

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

And she conceived, and bare a son,.... A third son:

and called his name Shelah; which signifies tranquil, quiet, peaceable and prosperous, and is a word that comes from the same root as Shiloh, that famous son of Judah that should spring from him, Gen 49:10 the reason of the name, as given by the Targum, is,"because her husband forgot her:"

and she was at Chezib when she bare him; Chezib is the name of a place, by some taken to be the same with Achzib or Ecdippe, now Zib, see Mic 1:14; it seems to be a city in the tribe of Judah; and Jerom (n) says, in his time there was a desert place of this name near Adullam, on the borders of Eleutheropolis; the reason of her being here at the time of her delivery, and of this circumstance being related, is not certain.

(n) De loc. Heb. fol. 90. E.

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

The Pulpit Commentary

And she conceived again, and bare a son; and she called his name Onan (Gesenius). The naming of a child by its mother a peculiarity of the so-called Jehovist; but vide Gen_16:15.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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 8 words (8 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is ʼÔwnân (“Onan”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word ʼÔwnân carries the sense “Onan.” How does it shape the verse?
This is the first place “Onan” appears in Scripture (first appears here). What does its debut here establish?
How does Genesis 38:8, which shares the word «Onan», read alongside this verse?
These translations render this verse differently. What is at stake in choosing one wording over another?
«וַתַּ֥הַר» is a Qal Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and John Gill's Exposition read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

1 word makes its first canonical appearance in Scripture here.
This verse counts 8 Hebrew ↔ 11 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 6 words in this verse.
8 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 8 words in this verse.