What Does Genesis 15:17 Mean in the King James?
And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The torch passes through the split: the covenant’s presence crosses the gap instead of standing outside it.
THE MEANING
The flame moves between the divided pieces in the darkness, making the space between them part of the covenant scene. The verse meets you in the gap: division does not make that space empty of presence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that division means the covenant’s presence has withdrawn.
THE ROOT
עָבַר
‘avar
GROWS FROM
עבר
To pass over, cross, or pass through.
“passed” in this verse is ‘avar. The flame’s movement is expressed with avar: it crosses through the space between the pieces. The root makes the gap a passage, not merely the setting where the sign appears.
ALSO GROWS
ever: Beyond; the other side.
עֵבֶר
This branch names the far side of a crossing, echoing the two sides the flame passes between.
ma‘avar: A passage or crossing.
מַעֲבָר
It gives the movement a name: the space between the pieces becomes a passage through which the sign moves.
הַגְּזָרִים
haggĕzārîm
GROWS FROM
גזר
To cut, divide, or sever.
The Hebrew word for the pieces comes from a root of cutting and division. It keeps the split visible: what the flame crosses is not an untouched whole, but portions held apart.
ALSO GROWS
gazar: To cut or divide.
גָּזַר
The pieces retain the act that formed them; their division is part of the scene the flame enters.
gezerah: Decree or decision, in Biblical Aramaic.
גְּזֵרָה
This related form can name a settled determination, adding an echo of decisiveness to the covenant scene without removing its visible division.
THE PATTERN
God’s presence becomes visible in the interval between divided sides, crossing it or standing within it.
And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these: so that the one came not near the other all the night.And I will give the men that have transgressed my covenant, which have not performed the words of the covenant which they had made before me, when they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts thereof,THE THREAD
And I will give the men that have transgressed my covenant, which have not performed the words of the covenant which they had made before me, when they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts thereof,Jeremiah uses the same Hebrew root, עבר (‘avar), for passing between the cut parts of a covenant animal. That shared crossing links the flame in Genesis with a covenant enacted by moving through the gap.
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