Genesis 24:8

Summary

Abraham's servant is told that if the woman is unwilling to follow him back to Canaan, he will be released from his oath to Abraham. The one condition attached to this release is that under no circumstances should he take Abraham's son back to that land.

Key words

• to.Veh ("she will be willing", H0014) — qal imperfect, expressing an open, future-oriented condition: the woman's willingness has not yet been determined.
• nikita ("you will be free", H5352) — niphal sequential perfect (weqatal), continuing the conditional chain; the niphal stem marks the servant as released from the obligation rather than acting on it.
• shevu'ati ("my oath", H7621) — feminine singular construct with 1st person suffix, tying the release explicitly to Abraham's own sworn oath.
• tashev ("you must take back", H7725) — hiphil jussive with negation lo', a causative form: the prohibition is not simply "do not go back" but "do not cause [him] to go back."
• rak ("only", H7535) — restrictive adverb isolating the single exception to the release: the prohibition concerning the son stands regardless of the woman's decision.

What the text says

The verse is built as a conditional sentence introduced by ve'im ("and if") plus the negated imperfect to.Veh, placing the woman's future consent as the pivot of the clause. The apodosis shifts to a sequential perfect, nikita, which in this narrative chain functions like a future/consequential form ("then you will be free"), governed by the preposition mi ("from") attached to shevu'ati zot ("this oath of mine") — the oath is grammatically marked as feminine and construct, bound tightly to the servant's obligation.

The second half of the verse begins with the restrictive adverb rak, which narrows the scope of the preceding release: whatever happens with the woman, one clause remains untouched. The direct object marker 'et introduces beni ("my son"), and the negated hiphil jussive tashev expresses a causative prohibition — not merely "he shall not return" but "you shall not cause him to return" — reinforced by the directional suffix -ah on shammah ("there" + "toward"), pointing back to the land just mentioned in the servant's journey.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the destination explicitly as "εἰς τὴν γῆν ταύτην" ("into this land"), where the Hebrew simply has 'achareikha ("after you", H0310A) without naming a land. The LXX also translates shevu'ati as "τοῦ ἕρκου τούτου" ("this fence/enclosure"), a metaphorical rendering of "oath" not present as such in the Hebrew noun. The Vulgate's "non teneberis juramento" closely mirrors the Hebrew's niphal release construction, while the LXX's "μὴ ἐκεῖ" ("not there") omits an explicit verb equivalent to the causative tashev, condensing the Hebrew's fuller causative prohibition into a shorter phrase.