Genesis 18:10

Summary

The speaker declares an intensified promise of return "at the time of life" (a season marker, likely meaning next year or the proper season for birth), announcing that Sarah will have a son. The verse closes with a narrative aside: Sarah was listening at the tent entrance, positioned behind the speaker.

Key words

• Shov ("certainly ", H7725G) — infinitive absolute placed before the finite verb; it reinforces the verbal action, producing an emphatic "return, I will surely return" construction.
• 'aShuv ("I will return", H7725G) — qal imperfect, first person; paired with the infinitive absolute above to stress certainty of the future action.
• ka'Et chaiYah ("about the time" + "living", H6256/H2416A) — construct noun with adjective, forming an idiomatic time phrase ("at the time of life"), a temporal marker whose precise referent (season, year) is expressed idiomatically rather than with a specific calendar term.
• shoMa'at ("[was] listening", H8085G) — qal participle, feminine singular; describes Sarah's ongoing action (not a completed act) at the moment of speech, marking her as an active auditor of the preceding statement.
• 'achaRav ("[was] behind him", H0310A) — construct form with pronominal suffix, locating Sarah spatially relative to the speaker, explaining how she could overhear.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative va ("and", H9001) chaining to iYomer ("he said", H0559), continuing the speech sequence from the prior context. The promise itself uses a doubled verbal root: the infinitive absolute Shov followed by the imperfect 'aShuv, both from the same root (H7725G, "to return"). This doubling is a common Biblical Hebrew device for emphasis, here rendered in English translations as "surely return" or "I will surely return." The time reference ka'Et chaiYah is a construct phrase whose literal components are "time" and "living," an idiom whose exact temporal scope (a year, a season) is not spelled out lexically but conveyed through the fixed phrase.

The second half of the verse shifts to a narrative description introduced by ve.hiNeh ("and there!", H9002/H2009), presenting the coming birth as vivid or immediate. The final clause uses the participle shoMa'at to show Sarah's action as ongoing at the narrated moment, followed by a spatial clause with 'achaRav ("behind him") clarifying her position relative to the speaker, which explains her ability to overhear the statement without being seen.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew states that Sarah shoMa'at ("was listening", H8085G) at the tent entrance. The LXX renders this with ἤκουσεν ("she heard"), aligning with the Hebrew sense of auditory perception. The Vulgate, however, states "Sara risit" ("Sarah laughed"), a divergence from both the Hebrew and the LXX, which describe listening rather than laughing at this point in the narrative.