Genesis 15:13

Summary

The verse records an unattributed statement to Abram declaring with emphasis that his descendants will live as resident foreigners in a land not their own, where they will be enslaved and oppressed for four hundred years. The sentence uses a doubled verb form to stress the certainty of this knowledge before detailing the servitude.

Key words

• yado'a ("certainly ", H3045) — infinitive absolute placed before the finite verb tedа ("you will know", H3045) from the same root; this doubling intensifies the verb, functioning like "you shall surely know."
• ger ("a sojourner", H1616) — masculine singular noun describing the legal/social status of the offspring: a resident alien, not a citizen, in the land they will inhabit.
• zar'akha ("your offspring", H2233H + H9021) — construct noun with pronominal suffix, referring collectively to Abram's descendants as a single unit (grammatically singular).
• va'avadum ("they will serve/enslave them", H5647G) — sequential (vav-consecutive) perfect, continuing the future timeline set by the preceding imperfect yihyeh ("it will be", H1961).
• 'inu 'otam ("they will afflict them", H6031B) — piel (intensive) stem sequential perfect, marking the affliction as a deliberate, forceful action rather than simple state.

What the text says

The Hebrew opens with vayomer ("and he said", H0559), a narrative-vav verb with no explicit subject stated in this clause; the speaker's identity depends on the preceding narrative context, not on this verse's grammar alone. The core announcement uses the infinitive absolute + imperfect pairing (yado'a tedа) — a common Biblical Hebrew device that intensifies certainty, roughly "you will surely know" rather than a plain future statement.

The clause structure moves from status (ger, "sojourner") to location ("in a land not belonging to them") to treatment. The verbs ya'vadum ("they will serve/enslave them") and 'inu 'otam ("they will afflict them") are sequential perfects, a form that in Biblical Hebrew narrative continues the temporal thread of a preceding imperfect (yihyeh, "it will be") — so grammatically these three verbs form one continuous future sequence: sojourning, enslavement, affliction. The final phrase, arba me'ot shanah ("four hundred years"), is a bare temporal noun phrase with no preposition, attached loosely to the preceding clause to specify duration.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew has two verbs of servitude/affliction ('avadu, 'inu), while the LXX renders three verbs (κακώσουσιν, δουλώσουσιν, ταπεινώσουσιν — "afflict," "enslave," "humble"), expanding the action described. Both the LXX (ἐρρέθη, "it was said") and the Vulgate (Dictumque est, "it was said") use passive constructions for the opening verb, whereas the Hebrew vayomer is active ("he said") without an expressed subject in this clause.