Genesis 15:18

Summary

Genesis 15:18 reports that Yehovah made a covenant with Abram on a specific day, promising Abram's offspring the land extending between two rivers: from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates. The verse marks the culmination of a covenant-making scene introduced in the preceding narrative.

Key words

• karat ("he made", H3772) — qal perfect of a verb whose literal meaning is "to cut," used here idiomatically with berit ("covenant") to describe covenant-making; the perfect aspect marks this as a completed, single action.
• berit ("a covenant", H1285) — feminine singular noun, the direct object of karat, together forming the fixed expression "to cut a covenant."
• natati ("I give", H5414) — qal perfect, first person, of the verb "to give." Though grammatically a completed action ("I have given"), it is spoken about future territory, producing a declarative/performative sense often rendered as present or future in translation.
• zar'akha ("your offspring", from zera' H2233 + suffix -kha H9021) — construct noun with second-person masculine singular suffix, meaning "your seed/offspring," the recipient of the land grant.
• nehar ("river of", H5104) — construct form used twice (with Egypt and with Euphrates), linking each river name directly to its proper noun in a construct chain.

What the text says

The verse opens with a temporal marker, ba-yom ha-hu ("on that day"), anchoring the covenant act to a specific narrative moment. The main clause follows a Subject-Verb-Object structure typical of Biblical Hebrew narrative: karat Yehovah et-Avram berit — "Yehovah cut a covenant with Abram." The verb karat ("to cut") combined with berit ("covenant") forms an idiom whose literal sense (cutting) may reflect the physical rite implied by the surrounding narrative context, though the text itself only states the idiomatic expression.

The covenant's content is introduced by the infinitive le'mor ("saying", H0559), which shifts into direct speech. Within this speech, natati ("I give/I have given") is a qal perfect verb describing land transfer to zar'akha ("your offspring"). The use of the perfect tense for a promise about future territory is a feature of Hebrew that does not map neatly onto English tense categories; translations vary between present ("I give," BSB) and past perfect ("I have given," SBLIBRE) to render this same verb form.

The territorial boundaries are expressed through two parallel construct phrases: minnehar Mitzrayim ("from the river of Egypt") and 'ad ha-nahar ha-gadol nehar-Perat ("to the great river, the river of Euphrates"). The second river receives additional specification through the adjective gadol ("great", H1419) and an appositional restatement of nehar before naming Perat explicitly.

Differences between versions

The LXX identifies the covenant-maker as ho theos ("God") rather than using the divine name, where the Hebrew has Yehovah (H3068). The LXX also renders natati with a future-tense Greek verb (dōsō, "I will give"), differing from the Hebrew perfect form and from the Vulgate's future dabo ("I will give"). The Vulgate similarly uses future tense (dabo) for this same verb, aligning with the LXX's temporal rendering rather than the Hebrew's perfect aspect.