Genesis 3:18

Summary

The verse states that the ground will produce thorns and thistles for the addressed man, and that he will eat the vegetation of the field. It continues a sequence of consequences directed at the man, using verbs describing future/ongoing sprouting and a following action of eating.

Key words

• kotz ("thorn[s]", H6975) — masculine singular noun, paired with the next term to form a fixed word pair denoting undesirable wild growth.
• dardar ("thistle[s]", H1863) — masculine singular noun; joined to kotz by the conjunction ve ("and", H9002), forming a set expression rather than two separately itemized plants.
• tatzmiach ("it will cause to sprout", H6779) — Hiphil (causative) imperfect, third person feminine singular. The causative stem means the subject makes something sprout, rather than simply "sprouting" itself; the imperfect aspect marks this as ongoing or future.
• 'akhalta ("you will eat", H0398) — Qal sequential perfect, second person masculine singular. The sequential perfect after the preceding imperfect verb continues the narrative chain, marking this eating as the next consequence following the sprouting.
• 'esev ("vegetation of", H6212) — masculine singular noun in construct state, meaning it is grammatically bound to the following noun ha-sadeh ("the field", H7704G) to form the phrase "vegetation of the field."

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence has two clauses linked by the narrative vav (H9001) on ve'akhalta, which chains this verb to the prior action as its sequel. The first clause fronts the object — kotz and dardar — before the verb tatzmiach, a construction that places emphasis on what is produced rather than on the act of producing. The verb itself is Hiphil, a causative stem: the grammatical subject (unstated but implied as feminine singular, consistent with "the ground" mentioned in the surrounding context) is not merely growing thorns but causing them to grow, directed "for you" (lakh, H9005+H9031) — the second-person masculine suffix marking the addressee as the beneficiary or recipient of this action.

The second clause shifts to a sequential perfect verb, 'akhalta, which in this narrative chain functions as a future action following the sprouting: eating comes after the thorns and thistles appear. The object of eating is not the thorns themselves but 'esev ha-sadeh, "vegetation of the field" — a construct phrase in which 'esev is bound to ha-sadeh, specifying a category of plant growth distinct from the thorns and thistles just mentioned.

Differences between versions

The LXX and Vulgate both render the verb tatzmiach with active verbs (ἀνατελεῖ, "it will spring up"; germinabit, "it will sprout") governing "thorns and thistles" as direct objects, matching the Hiphil causative sense of the Hebrew. The SBLIBRE Spanish translation explicitly supplies "la tierra" ("the earth") as the subject, making explicit what is grammatically only implied in the Hebrew verb's feminine singular form.