Genesis 8:22
עֹד כָּל־יְמֵי הָאָרֶץ זֶרַע וְקָצִיר וְקֹר וָחֹם וְקַיִץ וָחֹרֶף וְיוֹם וָלַיְלָה לֹא יִשְׁבֹּֽתוּ׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
Tap a word to see its entry
✦ The same verse in five languages
עֹ֖ד כָּל־יְמֵ֣י הָאָ֑רֶץ זֶ֡רַע וְ֠קָצִיר וְקֹ֨ר וָחֹ֜ם וְקַ֧יִץ וָחֹ֛רֶף וְי֥וֹם וָלַ֖יְלָה לֹ֥א יִשְׁבֹּֽתוּ׃
πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας τῆς γῆς σπέρμα θερισμός, ψῦχος καὶ καῦμα, θέρος καὶ ἔαρ ἡμέραν καὶ νύκτα οὐ καταIX
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Cunctis diebus terræ, sementis et messis, frigus et æstus, æstas et hiems, nox et dies non requiescent.
Mientras la tierra exista, no faltarán la siembra ni la cosecha, ni el frío ni el calor, ni el verano ni el invierno, ni el día ni la noche”.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Todavía serán todos los tiempos de la tierra; la sementera y la siega, y el frío y calor, verano é invierno, y día y noche, no cesarán.
As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall never cease.”
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse states that as long as "the days of the earth" continue, a series of paired natural cycles — seed/harvest, cold/heat, summer/winter, day/night — will not cease. It closes the flood narrative with a statement about the ongoing rhythm of these cycles.
Key words
- 'od ("again/still", H5750) — an adverbial term indicating continuation; here it opens the clause to mean "as long as" or "for the duration of."
- ye.Mei ("days of", H3117G) — construct plural of "day," linked to ha'aretz ("the earth"), forming "the days of the earth," i.e., its duration or existence.
- Zera' ("seed", H2233G) and qatzir ("harvest", H7105A) — paired nouns without verbs, listed in construct-like sequence to name a recurring agricultural cycle.
- yishBotu ("they will cease", H7673A) — qal imperfect, third person masculine plural, negated by lo' ("not", H3808); the imperfect aspect conveys ongoing or repeated non-cessation rather than a single future event.
What the text says
The Hebrew sentence is built around a single verb at the very end, yishBotu ("they will cease," H7673A), negated by lo' ("not," H3808). Everything before it — six paired nouns (zera' "seed" H2233G, qatzir "harvest" H7105A, qor "cold" H7120, chom "heat" H2527, qayitz "summer" H7019, choref "winter" H2779, yom "day" H3117G, laylah "night" H3915) — functions as the compound subject of that single verb. Each pair is joined by the conjunction ve-/va- ("and," H9002), producing a rhythmic list of four opposites (seed/harvest, cold/heat, summer/winter, day/night) that together stand as the grammatical subject of "they will not cease."
The temporal frame is set by 'od kol-yeMei ha'aretz ("again/still, all the days of the earth," H5750 + H3605 + H3117G + H9009 + H0776G), a construct chain meaning literally "all the days of the earth," functioning adverbially to mark the extent of time during which the following cycles will not stop. The construct relationship (X of Y) between yeMei and ha'aretz ties the duration explicitly to "the earth" itself, rather than to any other measure of time. The imperfect form of yishBotu allows the clause to express a continuous, unbroken action extending into an open-ended future, rather than a single completed cessation.
Differences between versions
The Vulgate (VULCLEM) reorders the pairs, placing "summer and winter" (aestas et hiems) after "cold and heat," and lists "night and day" instead of "day and night," differing from the Hebrew order of yom ("day," H3117G) before laylah ("night," H3915). The Septuagint (LXXSWETE) uses ἔαρ ("spring") where the Hebrew has choref ("winter," H2779), showing a divergence in which season is paired with theros ("summer").
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.