Genesis 49:7

Summary

Genesis 49:7 is part of Jacob's oracle concerning Simeon and Levi, pronouncing a curse on their anger and wrath, and declaring that they (or their descendants) will be divided and scattered among Jacob/Israel. The verse pairs two nouns of rage with two verbs of dispersal, structured as parallel poetic lines.

Key words

• 'a.Rur ("[be] cursed", H0779) — qal passive participle, functioning as a pronounced curse-formula placed at the head of the line.
• 'Az ("fierce", H5794) — masculine singular adjective describing the quality of the 'aph ("anger", H0639G), introduced by the causal/explanatory particle ki ("for", H3588A).
• ka.Sha.tah ("it is hard", H7185) — qal perfect, third feminine singular, agreeing with the feminine noun 'evrah ("wrath", H5678); the perfect aspect marks the harshness as an already-established fact.
• 'a.cha.le.Ke ("I will divide", H2505A) — piel imperfect, first person, intensive stem, expressing the speaker's future/intended action of splitting the group apart.
• 'a.fi.Tze ("I will scatter", H6327A) — hiphil imperfect with vav, first person, causative stem, continuing the action begun by the previous verb, expressing that the speaker will cause the scattering.

What the text says

The verse divides into two parallel halves. The first half is a curse formula: 'a.Rur ("cursed") stands first, followed by 'a.Pa-m ("their anger", H0639G + suffix H9028), then the causal clause ki 'Az ("for [it is] fierce"). The second line repeats this pattern with 'ev.ra.Ta-m ("their wrath", H5678 + suffix H9028) and ki ka.Sha.tah ("for it is hard/cruel"), using a finite qal perfect verb instead of an adjective, which gives the second clause a slightly different grammatical texture — the first describes a quality, the second reports a completed state.

The second part of the verse shifts from noun-based curse language to two first-person imperfect verbs, 'a.cha.le.Ke-m ("I will divide them") and 'a.fi.Tze-m ("and I will scatter them"), both carrying the third-person plural pronominal suffix -m ("them", H9038) referring back to the subjects whose anger and wrath were cursed. The piel stem of the first verb intensifies the action of dividing, while the hiphil of the second frames the scattering as something the speaker directly causes. Both actions are located "in Jacob" (be-Ya'aqob) and "in Israel" (be-Yisra'el), using the preposition be ("in", H9003) rather than any preposition of separation, so the Hebrew text presents the dispersal as happening within these two named entities rather than away from them.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders 'a.Rur with the adjectival ἐπικατάρατος ("accursed") applied to θυμὸς ("anger"), matching the Hebrew's parallel structure. The Vulgate's pertinax ("stubborn/persistent") for 'Az ("fierce") and dura ("hard") for ka.Sha.tah diverge slightly in nuance from a straightforward "fierce/harsh" reading, while English versions such as BSB use "strong" and "cruel," and SBLIBRE recasts the noun-curse construction as an explicit imperative-style exclamation ("¡Maldito sea...!") for both lines, where the Hebrew only states 'a.Rur once, at the head of the first clause, and the second clause depends on the same curse without repeating the participle.