Genesis 17:11

Summary

Genesis 17:11 instructs that the flesh of the foreskin ('orlah, H6190H) is to be circumcised, and states that this act will function as a sign of the covenant between God and the addressees. The verse uses two sequential perfect verbs to continue a chain of commands begun earlier in the passage.

Key words

• nemaltem ("you will be circumcised", H4135A) — niphal (passive/reflexive) verb, sequential perfect, 2nd person masculine plural; the niphal stem indicates the subject undergoes the action rather than performing it on another.
• 'orlatkhem ("your foreskin", H6190H) — feminine singular noun in construct with the following object marker chain, bound to the pronominal suffix -khem ("your", masculine plural).
• hayah ("it will become", H1961) — qal sequential perfect, 3rd person masculine singular; continues the same narrative chain as nemaltem, marking a result that follows from the circumcision.
• 'ot ("sign of", H0226H) — feminine singular noun in construct state, linking grammatically to berit ("covenant", H1285).
• beini... uveineikhem ("between me... and between you", H0996G) — the construct noun "between" is repeated with two different pronominal suffixes (1st singular, 2nd plural), explicitly naming the two parties.

What the text says

The verse is built on two verbs joined by the narrative vav (H9001), both in the sequential perfect: nemaltem ("you will be circumcised") and hayah ("it will become"). This chain structure ties the act of circumcision directly to its resulting status as 'ot berit ("sign of covenant"), a construct phrase meaning literally "a sign of a covenant" rather than "the sign," since Hebrew construct chains do not require a definite article on the first noun.

The phrase beini uveineikhem repeats the relational noun "between" (H0996G) twice, once with the first-person suffix ("between me") and once with the second-person plural suffix ("and between you"), which grammatically frames the sign as marking a boundary or relation between two distinct parties rather than a shared, undifferentiated group.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew le'ot (H9005 + H0226H) uses the preposition "to/for" (indicating purpose: "so as to become a sign"), while the LXX renders this as ἐν σημείῳ ("in a sign") and the Vulgate as in signum ("into/as a sign") — both using a different prepositional construction than the Hebrew's purposive "to."

The SBLIBRE Spanish translation renders the closing phrase as "entre nosotros" ("between us"), collapsing the Hebrew's explicit two-part construction beini uveineikhem ("between me and between you") into a single pronoun that does not preserve the grammatical repetition marking the two separate parties named in the Hebrew text.