Genesis 13:16

Summary

The verse reports a statement in which the speaker promises to make the addressee's offspring as numerous as the dust of the earth, using a comparison of countability: just as no one could count the earth's dust grains, so the offspring could not be counted.

Key words

• sam.Ti ("I will make", H7760A) — qal sequential perfect, first person; continues a preceding narrative sequence with the sense "and I will set/make."
• zar.'a.kha ("your offspring", H2233H + H9021) — masculine singular noun in construct form with second-person suffix, appearing twice, framing both halves of the comparison.
• 'a.Far ("dust of", H6083) — masculine singular construct noun, also repeated twice, anchoring the image of innumerability.
• yu.Khal ("he will be able", H3201) — qal imperfect, sets up the hypothetical condition ("if anyone is able to...").
• yi.ma.Neh ("it will be numbered", H4487) — niphal (passive) imperfect, matching the active infinitive m.nOt ("count", H4487) from the same root, producing a word-play between the ability to count and the offspring being counted.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the narrative vav on sam.Ti, marking continuation from a prior clause, followed by the object marker 'et before zar.'a.kha ("your offspring"), the direct object of "I will make/set." The comparison particle ka ("like", H9004) introduces 'a.Far ha'Aretz ("the dust of the earth"), a construct chain with the definite article attached to "earth" rather than "dust," a common construct-state pattern in Hebrew.

The second half of the verse is built as a conditional clause introduced by 'a.Sher... 'im ("which... if"), a combination functioning as "if" or "in the case that." The condition itself uses yu.Khal ("he will be able," imperfect) governing the infinitive li-m.nOt ("to count"), with 'ish ("anyone," H0376I) as the hypothetical subject. This clause repeats 'et 'a.Far ha'Aretz ("the dust of the earth") verbatim from the first half, creating a structural mirroring.

The conclusion uses gam ("also," H1571) to introduce the second occurrence of zar.'a.kha ("your offspring") as the subject of yi.ma.Neh, a niphal (passive) imperfect from the same root as m.nOt. The shift from qal infinitive (active "to count") to niphal imperfect (passive "will be numbered") creates a grammatical echo linking the impossibility of counting the dust to the impossibility of numbering the offspring.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders 'a.Far ("dust", H6083) as ἄμμον ("sand") rather than a dust-equivalent, differing from the Hebrew image; the Vulgate follows the Hebrew more closely with pulverem ("dust"). The Vulgate also adds hominum ("of men") after quis ("anyone"), specifying the hypothetical counter as a human being, a detail not explicit in the Hebrew 'ish ("anyone/a man", H0376I) alone, though 'ish itself can carry that sense.