Exodus 6:8

Summary

YHWH declares that he will bring the Israelites into the land which he had sworn by a raised hand to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and that he will give it to them as a possession, closing with the self-identification formula "I am Yehovah."

Key words

• he.veTi ("I will bring", H0935P) — hiphil (causative) sequential perfect: the causative stem marks that the subject actively causes the people's entry into the land, and the sequential perfect continues a chain of promised future actions begun earlier in the passage.
• na.Sati ("I lifted up", H5375P) — qal perfect, paired with yaDi ("my hand", H3027S, construct + 1st-person suffix): together they form the idiom "to lift the hand," referring to a solemn gesture accompanying a sworn commitment.
• moraShah ("a possession", H4181) — feminine singular noun without article, functioning as a predicate complement describing the status of the land once given.
• na.taTi ("I will give", H5414G) — qal sequential perfect, parallel in form to he.veTi, reinforcing the pattern of successive divine actions.
• 'a.Ni Yah.weh ("I [am] Yehovah", H0589 + H3068G) — independent pronoun followed by the divine name, forming a closing self-identification formula without a copula verb.

What the text says

The verse is built on a chain of sequential perfect verbs (ve-he.veTi, ve-na.taTi) that continue a narrative sequence begun in prior verses, each carrying vav plus perfect to express future action in Hebrew's narrative-future construction. The direct object marker 'et (H0853) appears repeatedly (with pronominal suffixes -khem, -ah) without independent translation, simply marking the grammatical objects "you" and "it" (the land). The relative clause 'a.Sher na.Sati 'et-yaDi ("which I lifted my hand") uses the idiom of raising the hand as the grammatical vehicle for an oath-like declaration, with no separate verb for "swear" in the Hebrew text itself — the sense of oath-taking is carried by the idiom, not by a distinct lexical item.

The final clause places moraShah ("a possession") as an unmarked predicate noun after the verb na.taTi ("I will give"), describing the manner or status of the land's transfer rather than functioning as a second direct object. The closing formula 'a.Ni Yah.weh has no verb "to be" in Hebrew; the copula is implied by simple juxtaposition of pronoun and name.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew idiom na.Sati 'et-yaDi ("I lifted up my hand") is rendered in the Vulgate literally as "levavi manum meam" ("I raised my hand"), while the LXX uses ἐξέτεινα ("I stretched out") for the same clause, describing the same gesture with a different verb. The Hebrew noun moraShah ("a possession") corresponds to LXX ἐν κλήρῳ ("by lot/inheritance") and Vulgate "possidendam" ("to be possessed"), each choosing a different nuance — allotment, inheritance, or possession — for the same underlying term.