Genesis 15:7

Summary

The verse records a divine self-identification followed by a declaration of past action and stated purpose: the speaker identifies himself as Yehovah ("Yehovah", H3068G), recalls having brought the addressee out of Ur Kasdim ("Ur of the Chaldeans", H0218B/H3778), and states the intended result — giving him "this land" to take possession of it.

Key words

• 'a.Ni ("I", H0589) — independent personal pronoun placed before the divine name, giving emphatic self-identification ("I, [I am] Yehovah").
• ho.tze.Ti ("I brought out", H3318H) — hiphil (causative) perfect, first person; the causative stem marks the subject as the direct cause of the "going out," and the perfect aspect presents it as a completed act prior to the speech moment.
• la.tet ("to give", H5414G) — qal infinitive with prefixed preposition le ("to"), expressing purpose or result ("in order to give").
• le.rish.Tah ("to take possession of it", H3423H) — qal infinitive with prefixed le and object suffix -ah ("it," referring to the land), forming a second purpose clause dependent on the first.
• ha.Zot ("this", H2063) — demonstrative modifying ha.'Aretz ("the land", H0776G), pointing to a specific, identified land rather than land in general.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative verb va.i.Yo.mer ("and he said", H0559), continuing the story sequence, followed by the preposition 'e.Lav ("to him", H0413+H9033) identifying the addressee. The speech itself begins with 'a.Ni Yehovah ("I [am] Yehovah"), a construction without a copula in Hebrew — the juxtaposition of pronoun and name itself functions as the identifying statement. This is followed by a relative clause introduced by 'a.Sher ("who/that", H0834A), which modifies "Yehovah" and supplies the action performed: ho.tze.Ti.kha me.'Ur Kas.Dim ("I brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans"), using the hiphil perfect to mark a completed, causative act attributed directly to the speaker.

The remainder of the verse is built on two chained infinitive-with-le constructions: la.Tet le.kha... ha.'Aretz ha.Zot ("to give to you this land") and le.rish.Tah ("to take possession of it"). Both infinitives depend on the preceding main clause and express sequential purpose — the "bringing out" occurred with the goal of "giving," and the "giving" occurred with the goal of "possessing." The object marker 'et (H0853) before ha.'Aretz ("the land") marks the land as the direct object of the infinitive la.Tet, a grammatical marker with no independent gloss in translation.

Differences between versions

The LXX (Swete text as given) renders the place name as "Χαλδαίαν" — locating the departure "ἐκ χώρας Χαλδαίαν" ("out of the region of the Chaldeans") without explicitly naming "Ur" as in the Hebrew 'Ur Kas.Dim. The Vulgate preserves "de Ur Chaldæorum," closer to the Hebrew place-name structure. The LXX also uses ὥστε ("so that") plus infinitive to express purpose, structurally paralleling the Hebrew's double infinitive-with-le construction, while the Vulgate uses "ut darem... et possideres," shifting the second purpose clause into a separate subjunctive verb ("et possideres eam") rather than a parallel infinitive.