Genesis 17:9

Summary

God addresses Abraham directly, instructing him that he himself must keep the covenant — not only Abraham but also his offspring after him, throughout their generations. The verse marks a shift from divine promise to human obligation within the covenant relationship.

Key words

• va.Yomer ("he said", H0559) — narrative vav-consecutive verb form; opens a new speech unit as continuation of the ongoing account.
• 'a.Tah ("you", H0859A) — independent personal pronoun, repeated twice in the verse (as subject of tishmor and again before ve.zar'akha); its use is grammatically unnecessary since the verb already marks person, so its presence signals emphasis on "you" as the one responsible.
• 'et-beriti (" covenant-my", H0853 + H1285) — the direct object marker plus construct noun with 1st-person suffix, placed before the verb tishmor; this word order (object before verb) is unusual in Hebrew clause structure and foregrounds "my covenant" as the focus of the sentence.
• tish.Mor ("you will keep", H8104G) — qal imperfect, denoting an action not yet completed or ongoing/habitual, here functioning as an instruction or duty rather than a simple future report.
• le.dorotam ("for their-generations", H9005 + H1755 + H9028) — preposition + construct noun + 3rd person plural suffix; "their" refers back to the offspring (zar'akha), extending the obligation across successive generations.

What the text says

The clause begins with the narrative verb va.Yomer ("he said", H0559) introducing God's speech to Abraham, marked by the preposition 'el ("to", H0413). The core instruction is built with the object marker 'et attached to beriti ("my covenant", H1285) placed before the verb tishmor ("you will keep", H8104G) — a fronted object construction that puts weight on "my covenant" as the item under discussion, while the independent pronoun 'atah ("you", H0859A) reinforces that the addressee, not another party, bears this responsibility.

The second half of the verse extends the scope of the instruction. The same pronoun 'atah reappears, followed by ve.zar'akha ("and your offspring", H2233H), a singular collective noun in construct form with a pronominal suffix, and 'acharekha ("after you", H0310A). The final phrase le.dorotam ("for their generations", H1755 + H9028) uses a plural suffix ("their") referring back to the offspring, so the obligation is projected forward temporally, from Abraham individually to the collective body of his descendants across future generations.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew zar'akha ("your offspring", H2233H) is a grammatically singular collective noun; the LXX renders it with the singular τὸ σπέρμα σου ("your seed") and the Vulgate similarly with semen tuum ("your seed"), matching the Hebrew number. Several modern translations (BSB, SBLIBRE) render this as a plural, "descendants," which reflects the collective sense but does not preserve the grammatical singular form found in the Hebrew, LXX, and Vulgate.