Genesis 9:15

Summary

Genesis 9:15 states that God will remember the covenant established between himself, humanity, and every living creature, and that the waters will never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. The verse links a specific verbal act — "remembering" — to a concrete negative consequence — the waters not becoming a mabbul ("flood", H3999).

Key words

• za.khar.Ti ("I will remember", H2142) — qal verb, sequential perfect, 1st person. The sequential perfect continues the narrative sequence, indicating a future action tied to what precedes.
• be.ri.T ("covenant", H1285) — feminine singular noun in construct state ("covenant of"), followed by the suffix i ("my", H9020), forming "my covenant."
• Ne.fesh ("creature", H5315) — feminine singular noun, paired with the adjective chai.Yah ("living", H2416A), forming the phrase "living creature."
• yih.Yeh ("will become/will be", H1961) — qal imperfect, 3rd masculine singular, negated by lo' ("not", H3808), expressing a future action that will not occur.
• ma.Bul ("flood", H3999) — masculine singular noun, preceded by the preposition le ("into/for", H9005), indicating the water's not becoming "into a flood."

What the text says

The verse's structure divides into two parts joined by the conjunction ve ("and", H9002). The first part centers on the verb za.khar.Ti ("I will remember", H2142), whose direct object is be.ri.T-i ("my covenant", H1285+H9020). This covenant is defined by the relative clause introduced by 'a.Sher ("which", H0834A), which specifies its scope through three uses of the term bein ("between", H0996G): between "me" (bei-ni), between "you" (Vei.nei-Khem), and between "all living creature" (kol-Ne.fesh chai.Yah). This triple repetition of bein with different pronominal suffixes and nouns establishes multiple parties to the covenant, each connected through the same term.

The second part negates a future action with ve-lo' yih.Yeh ("and will not be/become", H9002+H3808+H1961), where the imperfect verb expresses continuous or repeated action in the future. The subject is ha-Ma.yim ("the water", H9009+H4325), and the phrase le-ma.Bul ("into a flood", H9005+H3999) uses the preposition le to indicate a transformation or purpose — literally "the water will not be/become into a flood." The final infinitive le-sha.Chet ("to destroy", H9005+H7843), a piel form (intensive), expresses the flood's intended purpose: "to destroy all flesh" (kol-ba.Sar, H3605+H1320), a phrase that also closes the covenant's earlier definition ("in all flesh," line 18-19).

Differences between versions

The LXX renders bein ("between", H0996G) with the Greek construction ἀνὰ μέσον ("in the middle of"), repeated for each party, paralleling the Hebrew triple structure. The Vulgate simplifies this into a single construction: fœderis mei vobiscum ("my covenant with you"), followed by et cum omni anima vivente ("and with every living soul"), collapsing the three-part Hebrew bein structure into two prepositional phrases with cum ("with"). Where the Hebrew states the water will not become le-ma.Bul ("into a flood", H3999) — implying a transformation — the Vulgate reads non erunt ultra aquae diluvii ("there will not be waters of a flood"), phrasing it as non-existence rather than non-transformation.