Genesis 22:17

Summary

Genesis 22:17 records part of the divine oath to Abraham, promising intensified blessing and numerous offspring compared to the stars and the sand, and stating that this offspring will take possession of "the gate" of its enemies.

Key words

• barekh ("bless", H1288) — infinitive absolute of the piel stem, paired with the following finite verb to intensify the action ("blessing I will bless" / "surely bless").
• avarekhekha ("I will bless you", H1288) — piel imperfect, 1st person, with 2nd-person masculine singular suffix; completes the infinitive-absolute construction begun by barekh.
• harbah ("increase", H7235A) — hiphil (causative) infinitive absolute, forming a second paronomastic pair with arbeh, intensifying the causative sense of multiplication.
• zar'akha ("your offspring/seed", H2233H) — masculine singular noun in construct with the 2nd-person suffix; grammatically singular though understood collectively.
• oyevav ("his enemies", H0341) — qal participle used substantively ("those who are hostile"), plural construct with a 3rd-person masculine singular suffix ("his"), referring back to the singular zera.

What the text says

The verse is built on two paronomastic constructions typical of Biblical Hebrew: an infinitive absolute followed by a finite verb of the same root. Ki-barekh avarekhekha ("for blessing I will bless you") and ve-harbah arbeh ("and increasing I will increase") both use this pattern to intensify the verbal action — a grammatical device that emphatic English translations render as "surely" or "greatly," though the underlying Hebrew doubles the root itself rather than adding an adverb.

The comparisons "like the stars of the heavens" (kekhokhvei ha-shamayim) and "like the sand that is on the shore of the sea" (vekhachol asher al-sefat ha-yam) both use construct chains governed by the preposition ke- ("like"), setting up two independent similes for abundance. The clause ve-yirash zar'akha et sha'ar oyevav ("and your offspring will possess the gate of his enemies") uses a qal imperfect with vav-conjunctive (yirash) expressing purpose or resulting consequence — "so that" or "and then" — following the preceding blessing and multiplication. The noun zera ("offspring") is grammatically singular throughout the verse, even though its sense is collective, which is why the pronominal suffix on oyevav ("his enemies") is also singular.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew sha'ar ("gate", H8179G) is singular, but the LXX renders it with the plural τὰς πόλεις ("the cities"), a divergence in both number and lexical choice from the Hebrew "gate." The Vulgate matches the Hebrew image with "portas" ("gates," plural in Latin but corresponding lexically to "gate/gates" rather than "cities"). Additionally, the Hebrew suffix on "enemies" (oyevav) is singular ("his enemies," matching the singular zera), while the Vulgate reads "inimicorum suorum" ("of their enemies"), reflecting the collective sense with a plural possessive not distinguished in Latin the same way as in Hebrew.