Genesis 9:19

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

These three were the sons of Noah, and from these, the whole earth was populated.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

1 first appearance in the Hebrew Bible

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נָֽפְצָ֥ה

nâphats

H5310

“to shatter”

Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular

Appears 22× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears here

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root

TWOT: 1394

to shatter, break, dash, beat in pieces - (Qal) - to shatter - shattering (infinitive) - (Piel) to dash to pieces - (Pual) to pulverise - to scatter, disperse, overspread, be scattered - (Qal) - to be scattered - dispersed (participle)

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
7: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is נָֽפְצָ֥ה to shatter H5310 — appearing just 22 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

First appearance in Scripture

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

נָֽפְצָ֥ה to shatter H5310

Shared distinctive vocabulary

נָֽפְצָ֥ה to shatter H5310 occurs in 17 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

1 verb
4 nouns
1 adjective
2 pronouns

Verb forms

נָֽפְצָ֥ה Qal · Perfect

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

אֵ֖לֶּה these H428 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 15 words from the Hebrew and 16 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 13 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 9:19 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Genesis 5:32 Noah was five hundred years old, and Noah became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
Genesis 8:17 Bring forth with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh, including birds, cattle, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply on the earth."
Genesis 10:2–32 The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras.
1 Chronicles 1:4–28 Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

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 9:19 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

שְׁלֹשָׁ֥ה אֵ֖לֶּה בְּנֵי נֹ֑חַ וּמֵאֵ֖לֶּה נָֽפְצָ֥ה כָל הָאָֽרֶץ

These three were the sons of Noah, and from these, the whole earth was populated.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Genesis 9:19 Septuagint · lemma form

τρεῖς οὗτος εἰμί ὁ υἱός νωε ἀπό οὗτος διασπείρω ἐπί πᾶς ὁ γῆ

These three are the sons of Noe, of these were men scattered over all the earth.

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)

תְּלָתָא אִלֵּין בְּנֵי נֹחַ וּמֵאִלֵּין אִתְבַּדָּרוּ כָּל אַרְעָא

These three are the sons of Noach and from them was the whole earth overspread.

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)

תְּלָתָא אִלֵין בְּנוֹי דְנחַ וּמֵאִילֵין אִתְבְּדָרוּ לְמֵיתַב בְּכָל אַרְעָא

These are the three sons of Noah, and from them they were spread abroad to dwell in all the earth.

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 9:19 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 9:19 These [are] the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread.

Ver. 19. And of them was the whole earth overspread.] So that we need not add to them (as some have done), Jonitus, a fourth son of Noah (begotten by him after the flood), to replenish a fourth part of the world, with his posterity. Berosus and Nauclerus talk of Tuisco, another son of Noah, whom they make the father and founder of the Germans: but this is too great boldness.

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.

Geneva Bible (1599)

Geneva Bible translators

This declareth what was the virtue of God’s blessing, when he said, increase and bring forth, Gen. 1:28.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

John Gill's Exposition

These are the three sons of Noah,.... And his only ones; and if he had any more, they left no posterity behind them, since it follows:

and of them was the whole earth overspread, with inhabitants, by them and their posterity only: Berozus (z) indeed says, that Noah, after the flood, begat more sons, and giants; and his commentator, Annius, talks of seventeen of them, among whom was Tuiscon, the father of the Germans; and the author of Juchasin (a) ascribes a fourth son to Noah, whose name he calls Joniko, who taught astronomy in the world, and taught Nimrod the art of war; but these are fabulous stories, and contrary to the sacred Scriptures, which speak of three sons of Noah, and no more, and say that by these the earth was replenished after the flood: hence, among the Heathen writers, we read of Saturn and his three children, who by many circumstances appears to be the same with Noah, as Bochart (b) hath proved at large.

(z) Antiqu. l. 2. fol. 13. 2. (a) Fol. 135. 1. (b) Phaleg. l. 1. c. 1.

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

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

A truth which the old heathens were not ignorant of, though they changed the names, and mixed their fables with it; for they tell us that Saturn and his three sons divided the world among themselves. And it is apparent that their Saturn was no other than our Noah, because they tell us he was the common parent and prince of all mankind, also a husbandman and vinedresser, all which Noah was. They say he was born of the sea, because Noah came out of the waters; that he devoured all his children except three, because Noah condemned and foretold the destruction of all the rest of the world.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Radak

Rabbi David Kimhi (Radak)

שלשה...נפצה, the root of the word is נפץ, an intransitive verb appearing also in Samuel I 13,11 כי נפץ העם מעלי, “the people were leaving me.” The word is used in this sense also in respect of the people dispersing over the earth on the occasion of the tower of Babylon and its collapse.

Radak on the Tanakh — English translations: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash” (CC BY 4.0); “Rabbi Mike Feuer, Jerusalem Anthology” (CC BY 4.0); and “R. David Kimhi on the first book of Psalms, Translated by R.G. Finch, London, 1919” (public domain). 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 8 words (7 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is nâphats (“to shatter”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word nâphats carries the sense “to shatter.” How does it shape the verse?
This is the first place “to shatter” appears in Scripture (first appears here). What does its debut here establish?
How does Judges 7:19, which shares the word «to shatter», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “these” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
«נָֽפְצָ֥ה» is a Qal Perfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Geneva Bible (1599) 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 ↔ 13 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 2 words in this verse.
“these” occurs 2× in this single verse.
7 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 8 words in this verse.