Genesis 15:10

Summary

Abram takes all the animals designated in the preceding verses, cuts each one in half, and arranges the halves facing each other; the birds, however, he leaves uncut. The verse closes the preparation of the covenant ritual before the vision described in the following verses.

Key words

• yikach ("he brought/took", H3947) — qal narrative verb, opening the sequence of actions Abram performs on the animals.
• yevatter ("he cut in pieces", H1334) — piel (intensive) narrative verb, describing the act of dividing the animals into halves.
• ish...likrat re'ehu (H0376 / H7122) — construct expression literally "each toward the meeting of his companion," describing the spatial arrangement of the halves facing one another.
• tzippor ("bird[s]", H6833) — singular common-gender noun with definite article, referring collectively to the bird(s) mentioned earlier in the passage.
• batar ("he cut in two", H1334) — same root as yevatter, but in the qal perfect, used in the final negated clause.

What the text says

The verse is built from three sequential narrative verbs joined by the vav consecutive: yikach ("he brought"), yevatter ("he cut in pieces"), and yitten ("he set"), each advancing the action step by step — taking, dividing, and positioning. The phrase ish bitro likrat re'ehu uses two construct nouns with possessive suffixes, bitro ("its piece") and re'ehu ("its companion"), to express a reciprocal spatial relation: each half is placed opposite its corresponding half, an idiom the Hebrew renders through construct chains rather than a separate adjective.

A notable feature is the repetition of the root H1334 in two different verbal stems: the piel yevatter ("he cut in pieces," intensive aspect) describing what Abram does to the animals, and the qal vatar ("he cut in two," simple aspect) in the final clause stating what he does not do to the bird. The shift from piel to qal marks a grammatical distinction between the completed, intensive division of the animals and the simple, negated action regarding the bird, a nuance not visible in translations that render both instances with a single verb such as "divide" or "cut."

Differences between versions

The LXX uses the same Greek verb, διαιρέω ("to divide"), for both instances of the Hebrew root H1334, and thus does not distinguish the piel/qal stem shift present in the Hebrew. The Vulgate similarly repeats "divisit" for both occurrences. Additionally, the LXX renders tzippor (singular, H6833) as the plural τὰ ὄρνεα ("the birds"), while the Hebrew noun is singular and collective in form.