Genesis 15:14

Summary

The verse states that God will bring judgment on the nation that will enslave Abraham's descendants, and that afterward this enslaved people will leave with great possessions. The sentence structure emphasizes both the certainty of the judgment and the specific identity of the nation involved.

Key words

• gam ("also", H1571) — adverb signaling addition; here it links this statement to prior content, marking that this nation too (in addition to what precedes) will face the stated consequence.
• goy ("nation", H1471A) — masculine singular noun, marked by the definite article ha ("the", H9009) and preceded by the object marker 'et (H0853), identifying it as the specific object under discussion, fronted before the main clause.
• ya'avodu ("they will serve", H5647G) — qal imperfect, third person masculine plural, expressing ongoing or future action within the relative clause introduced by 'asher ("which", H0834A).
• dan ("judging", H1777) — qal participle, masculine singular, denoting an action in process or a settled disposition rather than a simple future tense.
• anokhi ("I", H0595) — independent personal pronoun paired with the participle dan, together forming a construction that presents the subject as actively engaged in the stated action.
• rekhush gadol ("great possession[s]", H7399 + H1419A) — noun-adjective pair, both masculine singular, describing the wealth accompanying the eventual departure.

What the text says

The clause 'et ha-goy 'asher ya'avodu ("the nation which they will serve") is placed before the main verb, a fronting pattern that gives prominence to the identity of the nation before stating what will happen to it. The core predicate, dan anokhi ("judging I"), pairs a qal participle with the independent pronoun anokhi rather than using a finite verb form. This participle-plus-pronoun structure is a common way in Biblical Hebrew to express an action treated as certain or already determined, distinct from a simple future conjugation.

The second half of the verse, introduced by ve-'acharei-khen ("and after thus/this"), shifts to the qal imperfect yetze'u ("they will come out"), describing a subsequent event. The noun phrase bi-rekhush gadol ("with great possession", using the preposition bi, H9003) specifies the manner of this departure — accompanied by substantial property, using the singular collective noun rekhush.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the participial construction dan anokhi with the future indicative κρινῶ ("I will judge"), shifting from a participle-based expression to a standard future tense. The LXX also adds ὧδε ("from here"), a locative detail not present in the Hebrew text. The Vulgate's "ego judicabo" similarly uses a future verb rather than reflecting the Hebrew participial form. For rekhush gadol, the LXX has ἀποσκευῆς πολλῆς ("much baggage/property"), while the Vulgate reads "magna substantia" ("great substance"), both differing slightly in connotation from the Hebrew's more general term "possession."