Genesis 7:4

Summary

The verse announces a countdown: in seven more days, rain will fall on the earth for forty days and forty nights. It concludes with a declaration of intent to wipe out every living being that has been made from the surface of the ground.

Key words

• od ("yet", H5750) — construct-form cardinal indicating "still X [days]", combined with shiv'ah ("seven", H7651) to form the time span before the event.
• mamtir ("about to bring rain", H4305) — hiphil (causative) participle. The participle form marks imminent, ongoing action rather than a simple future tense: "I am the one bringing rain," not merely "I will bring rain."
• machiti ("I will wipe", H4229A) — qal sequential perfect, attached by the narrative vav (H9001) to the previous participle. This verb form continues the sequence begun by mamtir, presenting the wiping as the next linked action after the rain.
• yequm ("existence", H3351) — a rare noun denoting that which exists or stands upright; here it functions as the object of the wiping, modified by kol ("all", H3605) in construct.
• asiti ("I have made", H6213H) — qal perfect, completed action, introduced by the relative particle asher ("which", H0834A). It frames the yequm as something already brought into being prior to the announced destruction.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the subordinating particle ki ("for", H3588A), signaling that this verse gives the reason or content of a preceding statement. The time phrase le-yamim od shiv'ah ("to days, yet seven") places the cardinal shiv'ah in construct with od, producing a structure meaning "in seven more days" — a countdown formulation distinct from simply stating "after seven days."

The main verb of the first clause, mamtir, is a participle, which in Hebrew narrative often conveys imminent or certain future action tied to the speaker's present intention, rather than a flat prediction. This is followed by two matched phrases, arba'im yom ("forty days", H0705 + H3117G) and arba'im laylah ("forty nights", H0705 + H3915), each using the singular noun form after the plural numeral, a common Hebrew numeral-noun pairing.

The second clause is joined by the narrative vav to machiti, a sequential perfect that carries forward the temporal chain: first the rain, then the wiping. The object is marked by et (H0853) and consists of kol ha-yequm ("all the existence/all that exists"), further defined by the relative clause asher asiti ("which I have made"), a completed (perfect) action describing prior creation. The phrase closes with me-al penei ha-adamah ("from upon the face of the ground"), locating the object of destruction spatially relative to the ground's surface.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the Hebrew time phrase "yet seven days" simply as ἡμερῶν ἑπτὰ ("of seven days") without a separate word for "yet/still," and translates mamtir with ἐπάγω ὑετὸν ("I bring rain"), using a finite verb plus noun "rain" rather than a participle construction. The LXX text given also omits an explicit word for "nights" in the second forty-count, differing from both the Hebrew ve-arba'im laylah and the Vulgate's quadraginta noctibus. Where the Hebrew yequm ("existence") is a general term for what exists, the LXX uses ἀνάστεμα ("that which rises up/exists") and the Vulgate uses substantiam ("substance"), both attempting to render a rare Hebrew noun with broader terms in their respective languages.