בְּנֵ֣י

Alphabet Analysis

The word

1. word🔊 בְּנֵ֣י

   be-NEI

   sons of
2. phraseyour reading level🔊 בְּנֵ֣י רְעוּאֵ֔ל

   be-NEI re-u-EL

   sons of Reuel
3. clause🔊 וְאֵ֙לֶּה֙ בְּנֵ֣י רְעוּאֵ֔ל נַ֥חַת וָזֶ֖רַח שַׁמָּ֣ה וּמִזָּ֑ה

   ve-EL-leh be-NEI re-u-EL NA-khat va-ZE-rakh sha-MAH u-miz-ZAH

   and these sons of Reuel Nahath and Zerah Shammah and Mizzah
4. sentence🔊 וְאֵ֙לֶּה֙ בְּנֵ֣י רְעוּאֵ֔ל נַ֥חַת וָזֶ֖רַח שַׁמָּ֣ה וּמִזָּ֑ה אֵ֣לֶּ֣ה הָי֔וּ בְּנֵ֥י בָשְׂמַ֖ת אֵ֥שֶׁת עֵשָֽׂו׃

   ve-EL-leh be-NEI re-u-EL NA-khat va-ZE-rakh sha-MAH u-miz-ZAH EL-leh ha-YU be-NEI bas-MAT E-shet e-SAV

   and these sons of Reuel Nahath and Zerah Shammah and Mizzah these were sons of Basemath wife of Esau

Exegesis

This is immediately followed by the construct chain benei reuel {בְּנֵי רְעוּאֵל | bə-nê rə-ʿû-ʾēl} ‘sons of Reuel’, which syntactically establishes Reuel as the father of the following list of names. The four names (Nahath, Zerah, Shammah, Mizzah) are coordinated by waw in typical Hebrew list style, with no verb inside the first clause; the nominal clause “these are the sons of Reuel” is understood from context.

The predicate nominal is another construct chain, benei basemat eshet esav {בְּנֵי בָשְׂמַת אֵשֶׁת עֵשָׂו | bə-nê bāś-maṯ ʾē-šeṯ ʿē-śāw}, literally ‘sons of Basemath, wife of Esau’. This chain links the four men not only to their father Reuel but also to their grandmother Basemath and grandfather Esau, underscoring their place in Esau’s line. In English, the two Hebrew clauses are rendered as coordinated sentences (or clauses divided by a semicolon) to preserve the parallelism created by the repetition of eleh ‘these’ while making the implied copular relationships explicit.

Root and etymology

b-n-h🔊 ב־נ־הBet–Nun–Heh

“to build, produce offspring”

• 🔊 בֵּןbensonGenesis 5:4