Genesis 2:17

Summary

The verse gives a prohibition against eating from 'Etz ha-Da'at Tov va-Ra' ("the tree of the knowledge of good and evil", H6086H/H1847/H2896B/H7451B) and states a consequence tied to the day of eating: death. The Hebrew closes with an emphatic construction stressing the certainty of that death.

Key words

• ha.Da'at ("knowledge", H1847) — feminine singular noun in construct form, linked to 'Etz ("tree", H6086H) to form the compound name "tree of the knowledge," itself further specified by the pair Tov ("good", H2896B) and Ra' ("evil", H7451B).
• to.Khal ("you must eat", H0398) — qal imperfect, second person masculine singular, preceded by the negation lo' ("not", H3808), producing a prohibitive statement about future/ongoing action.
• Ki ("for/if", H3588A) — a subordinating particle introducing the clause that states the consequence; it can function causally ("for") or conditionally ("if"), linking the prohibition to what follows.
• 'a.khal.Kha ("your eating", H0398) — qal infinitive with second person masculine singular suffix, used inside a construct phrase with Yom ("day", H3117G) to mean "the day of your eating," i.e., "when you eat."
• Mot ta.Mut ("certainly you will die", H4191 twice) — the qal absolute infinitive Mot placed before the qal imperfect ta.Mut of the same root; this infinitive-plus-finite-verb pattern intensifies the verbal idea, marking the action as certain or emphatic rather than merely possible.

What the text says

The sentence divides into two parts joined by Ki (H3588A). The first part is the prohibition: lo' to.Khal mi.Menu ("you must not eat from it", H3808 + H0398 + H4480A/H9033), governed by the compound object me-'Etz ha-Da'at Tov va-Ra' ("from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil"). The construct chain 'Etz... ha-Da'at (H6086H/H1847) treats "knowledge" as a possessed noun of "tree," and the adjectives Tov and Ra' (H2896B/H7451B) are joined by the conjunction va (H9002) to specify what kind of knowledge is meant.

The second part, introduced by Ki, states the consequence using the temporal construct phrase be-Yom 'a.khal.Kha mi.Menu ("in the day of your eating from it", H9003+H3117G+H0398+H9041+H4480A+H9033) — the infinitive 'a.khal.Kha with its pronominal suffix functions as a verbal noun meaning "your eating," tied to Yom ("day", H3117G) in a construct relation that yields "on the day you eat."

The final clause, Mot ta.Mut (H4191/H4191), repeats the root for "to die" twice: an absolute infinitive followed by the finite imperfect of the same verb. This doubling is a grammatical device that intensifies the verbal notion, marking the stated outcome as certain rather than merely likely.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the construct chain 'a.khal.Kha mi.Menu not as an infinitive-plus-suffix construction but as a subjunctive clause, ἡμέρᾳ φάγησθε ("[in] the day you eat"), and translates the doubled Hebrew verb Mot ta.Mut with a single verb intensified by a dative noun, θανάτῳ ἀποθανεῖσθε ("with death you will die"), preserving the emphatic sense through a different grammatical means. The Vulgate similarly renders the doubled construction as morte morieris ("by death you will die"), using a noun-plus-verb pairing rather than the Hebrew's infinitive-plus-finite-verb repetition.