Genesis 12:2

Summary

Genesis 12:2 records a series of first-person divine declarations to Abram: to make him into a great nation, to bless him, and to make his name great. The verse closes with a shift to a second-person command, telling Abram himself to "be" a blessing.

Key words

• 'e'esekha ("I may make you", H6213) — qal imperfect with prefixed vav, 1st person; expresses continued divine action ("and let me make...").
• 'avarekhkha ("I will bless you", H1288) — piel imperfect with vav, 1st person; the piel stem intensifies the verbal action of blessing.
• 'agaddelah ("I will make great", H1431) — piel form of the root for "great," attached to sheme-kha ("your name", H8034/H9021) in construct, producing "your name" as the object made great.
• heyeh ("you be", H1961) — qal imperative, 2nd person masculine singular; a direct command, not a further first-person promise.
• berakhah ("a blessing", H1293) — feminine singular noun, the predicate complement of the imperative heyeh.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a chain of four clauses joined by the conjunction ve ("and", H9002). The first three clauses all use imperfect verb forms with prefixed vav in the first person: 'e'esekha ("I may make you"), 'avarekhkha ("I will bless you"), and 'agaddelah ("I will make great"). This chain keeps the grammatical subject as the speaker (first person) acting upon Abram, marked by the pronominal suffix -kha ("you", H9031) attached to the first two verbs, and by the construct form sheme-kha ("your name") as object of the third.

The final clause breaks this pattern: instead of continuing with another first-person imperfect, the text uses the imperative heyeh ("be", H1961), shifting the grammatical role of Abram from recipient of action to agent of a command. The complement of this imperative is the noun berakhah ("a blessing", H1293), feminine singular — not a verb of becoming, but a static noun predicate. The grammatical structure therefore moves from "I will do X to you" (three times) to "you: be Y," changing both the person and the mood of the sentence in its last segment.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the final clause as καὶ ἔσῃ εὐλογητός ("and you will be blessed"), using a future indicative verb (ἔσῃ) with the adjective εὐλογητός ("blessed"), rather than an imperative with a noun. The Vulgate follows this pattern with erisque benedictus ("and you will be blessed"), also a future indicative with an adjective. The Hebrew text, by contrast, uses the imperative heyeh ("be") governing the noun berakhah ("a blessing"), producing "be a blessing" rather than "you will be blessed." This reflects a difference in verbal mood (imperative vs. future indicative) and in word class of the predicate (noun "blessing" vs. adjective "blessed") across the Hebrew, LXX, and Vulgate.