Tool Beta
Hebrew and Greek Without Learning Either
A walk through Genesis, the Psalms, and John, plus the key Hebrew and Greek words worth knowing. Each card is a place the English Bibles part company, and what in the Hebrew or Greek made them.
Genesis 22:14
The LORD will provide. The Hebrew verb is see, and the chapter has been using it all along.
Genesis 22:14, in every translation this tool compares.
A story where a character keeps saying we'll see and then names the place Seen is a story with a spine. Translate half the occurrences as we'll sort it out and the spine disappears while every sentence stays accurate.
Because the name Abraham gives the place is a pun on a verb the chapter has already used three times, and the pun is the resolution of the whole story. English prints two different words and the chapter stops rhyming.
And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovahjireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the LORD it shall be seen.
All versions read provide in verse 8 and in the name, and most read seen or provided at the end of verse 14. The King James keeps seen at the end, which preserves half the pun.
רָאָה ra'ah · H7200
Ra'ah means to see. In certain forms it extends to see to something, and from there to provide, the same way English see to it works. Verse 8 has God will see to it for himself a lamb, verse 13 has Abraham lifting his eyes and seeing a ram, and verse 14 names the place on that verb twice.
English see and provide are different words. The chapter's repetition of one verb across seeing, being seen and providing cannot survive into English without a footnote.
Hebrew narrative builds by repeating a single root across a passage. When a chapter feels like it is circling something, look for the root rather than the theme.
Provide is clearer and breaks the pattern. See is opaque in English and keeps it. Every version compromises somewhere in the chapter, and none keeps all four occurrences visible.
- The verb at Genesis 22:4, 8, 13, 14 twice
- ra'ah extended to provide: 1 Samuel 16:1, I have provided me a king, literally seen
- The name Yahweh-yireh preserves the imperfect form of the same verb
