Genesis 21:24

Summary

In this verse, Abraham responds to a preceding statement (from Abimelech, per context) with a short declaration: "And Abraham said, I will swear." The sentence consists of a narrative verb of speech followed by a first-person pronoun and a first-person verb of oath-taking.

Key words

• va ("and", H9001) — narrative vav prefixed to the verb, marking this clause as the next event in the sequence of the story.
• yomer ("he said", H0559) — qal imperfect with narrative function, introducing direct speech; the subject "he" is grammatically encoded in the verb form itself.
• Avraham ("Abraham", H0085) — proper noun, explicit subject of the verb of speech, naming the speaker.
• anokhi ("I", H0595) — independent first-person pronoun, not required by the verb morphology (since person is already marked on the verb ishavea) but placed before it for emphasis.
• ishavea ("I will swear", H7650) — niphal imperfect, first person. The niphal stem is the form regularly used for this verb when it means "to swear an oath"; the imperfect aspect signals an action not yet completed, pointing toward a future or intended act.

What the text says

The clause has two parts: a narrative introduction, va-yomer Avraham ("and Abraham said"), and the quoted speech itself, anokhi ishavea ("I will swear"). In the introduction, the verb yomer already carries third-person masculine singular marking, so no separate pronoun for "he" is needed — the proper noun Avraham simply specifies who that "he" is.

Inside the quoted speech, the structure is different: the independent pronoun anokhi ("I") stands before the verb ishavea, even though the verb's own imperfect first-person form already indicates "I will swear" without any additional pronoun. This placement of a free-standing pronoun before a finite verb that already marks person is a construction used for emphasis on the subject — here, on Abraham himself as the one swearing, rather than on the act of swearing as such.

The verb ishavea is built on the niphal stem of the root shava (H7650), which is the stem regularly used in Biblical Hebrew for the act of oath-taking, distinct from other stems of the same root. The imperfect form situates the swearing as an action projected forward from the moment of speaking, consistent with a declaration of intent rather than a report of a completed act.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the verb as ὀμοῦμαι ("I will swear," future middle), and the Vulgate as jurabo ("I will swear," future), both matching the forward-looking sense of the Hebrew imperfect. The BSB gives "I swear it" in a present-tense form, and SBLIBRE gives "Te lo juro" ("I swear it to you"), adding an explicit indirect object ("to you") that is not present in the Hebrew clause itself.