Genesis 2:10

Summary

The verse describes a river that flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from that point it divides into four separate heads or branches. The syntax marks this as a continuation of the garden description begun in the surrounding verses.

Key words

• naHar ("a river", H5104H) — masculine singular noun, the subject of the clause, introduced without the definite article.
• yoTze' ("going out", H3318L) — qal participle, describing the river's action as an ongoing state ("was going out") rather than a single completed event.
• hashKot ("to water", H8248G) — hiphil infinitive, causative form indicating the river's purpose: to cause the garden to be watered.
• yipaRed ("it divided", H6504) — niphal imperfect, passive/reflexive voice; the river does not divide itself actively but "is divided" or "divides itself," with imperfect aspect suggesting an ongoing or characteristic action.
• haYah ("it became", H1961) — qal sequential perfect (vayyiqtol pattern via the narrative vav), marking the next step in the narrative chain: the result of the dividing is that it "became" four heads.

What the text says

The clause opens with ve-naHar ("and a river"), placing the river as a new grammatical subject introduced by the conjunction ve (H9002). The participle yoTze' ("going out", H3318L) describes the river's motion from 'Eden ("Eden", H5731B) as a continuous or characteristic action, not a one-time event — Hebrew participles typically express ongoing or descriptive states. The purpose of this outflow is given by the hiphil infinitive hashKot ("to water", H8248G), a causative form: the river's flowing causes the garden (ha-Gan, H1588M) to be watered, with the direct object marker 'et (H0853) flagging ha-Gan as the object of the watering action.

The second half of the verse shifts location with mi-Sham ("from there", H8033G), followed by yipaRed ("it divided", H6504), a niphal (passive/reflexive) imperfect. The niphal stem means the river does not divide something else but undergoes division itself; the imperfect aspect can indicate an action viewed as incomplete, repeated, or general rather than a single past event. This is followed by the narrative vav-prefixed haYah ("it became", H1961), a sequential perfect that moves the narrative forward: the outcome of the division is that the river "became" (le-'arba'Ah raShim) "into four heads" — raShim (H7218J), plural of "head," used here for the sources or branch-points of the divided waters.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders yipaRed ("it divided", niphal) with the middle/passive Greek verb aphorizetai ("is divided/separated"), consistent with the passive sense of the Hebrew niphal. The Vulgate uses dividitur ("is divided"), a passive form, matching the same voice. All three traditions (Hebrew, LXX, Vulgate) preserve the passive/reflexive character of the division, though the Hebrew niphal imperfect's aspectual nuance (ongoing/general) is not distinctly marked in the Greek present or Latin present passive forms, which read as simple present-tense statements.