Genesis 17:14

Summary

The verse states that an uncircumcised male who has not had the flesh of his foreskin circumcised will be cut off from his people, because he has broken the covenant. The Hebrew presents this as consequence for failing to perform the required circumcision.

Key words

• 'arel ("uncircumcised", H6189) — masculine singular adjective describing the male's physical state; it stands at the head of the sentence, before the verb clause even specifies the condition.
• yimmol ("he will be circumcised", H4135A) — niphal (passive) imperfect; the male is grammatically the subject, but the verb form shows the action as something done to him, not performed by him.
• nikhretah ("it will be cut off", H3772I) — niphal perfect with narrative vav, continuing the sequence; again passive, describing removal as something that happens to the person rather than an act the person carries out.
• nefesh ("person", H5315J) — feminine singular noun with the definite article and the demonstrative hi' ("that"), forming "that person"; this feminine noun becomes the formal grammatical subject of nikhretah, even though the sentence began with the masculine zakhar ("male", H2145).
• hefar ("he has broken", H6565A) — hiphil (causative) perfect, contrasting with the two preceding passive verbs; here the male is the active subject who breaks the covenant, described as beriti ("my covenant", H1285 + H9020), the covenant belonging to the speaker.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with a fronted description — ve'arel zakhar ("and an uncircumcised male") — followed by a relative clause, asher lo yimmol ("who will not be circumcised"), using the niphal form to mark the missing circumcision as an unperformed passive action rather than a personal failure of will. The consequence clause then shifts grammatical subject: instead of continuing with the masculine zakhar, it introduces the feminine ha-nefesh ha-hi ("that person") as the subject of nikhretah ("will be cut off"), also niphal. This grammatical shift from masculine to feminine subject is a feature of Hebrew usage where nefesh denotes the individual as a life or person, regardless of the physical sex of the referent. The final clause changes verbal voice again: et beriti hefar ("he has broken my covenant") uses the hiphil, an active causative form, making the male the agent who breaks the covenant, in contrast to the passive treatment he receives in the two previous clauses.

Differences between versions

The LXX adds "τῇ ἡμέρα τῇ ὀγδόῃ" ("on the eighth day"), a temporal detail not present in the Hebrew text provided. The LXX also renders the Hebrew me-'ammeha ("from her/its kinspeople", H5971B with feminine suffix) as "ἐκ τοῦ γένους" ("from the race/kin"), losing the feminine possessive suffix that in Hebrew agrees with nefesh. The Vulgate does not translate 'arel as a separate descriptive term but integrates the condition directly into the relative clause "cujus præputii caro circumcisa non fuerit," compressing the two-part Hebrew structure (adjective + relative clause) into one continuous clause.