What Does Genesis 18:10 Mean in the King James?
And he said, I will certainly return unto thee according to the time of life; and, lo, Sarah thy wife shall have a son. And Sarah heard it in the tent door, which was behind him.
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 promise is spoken as a return, literally, “returning I will return”, and its timing is named with the word for life.
THE MEANING
You meet a promise at the threshold of sight: it is spoken before the son appears, yet his arrival already has a time. Sarah hears from behind him at the tent door as life is named where it is not yet visible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what has not yet appeared is already impossible: the promise names a son and gives his coming a time.
THE ROOT
שׁוֹב אָשׁוּב
shov ashuv
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
shuv
turn back, return
The Hebrew intensifies return by saying shov ashuv, literally, “returning I will return.” This root also names the return of the year, joining the promise’s return with the arrival of a recurring season.
ALSO GROWS
shov: returning; the infinitive absolute form of “return”
שׁוֹב
It precedes ashuv in the verse, intensifying the certainty of the return.
teshuvat ha-shanah: the return of the year
תְּשׁוּבַת הַשָּׁנָה
The same root describes a year turning back into its season in 2 Samuel 11:1, echoing the appointed time here.
חַיָּה
ḥayyāh
GROWS FROM
חיה
chayah
live, be alive
The Hebrew phrase keeps life inside the timing: chayyah belongs to the word family of being alive. The promised son is placed at a “time of life,” so the moment is described through life, not only as a date on a calendar.
ALSO GROWS
ḥay: alive, living
חַי
This related form makes the life-family in “the time of life” concrete: what is named is living existence.
ḥayyim: life, living
חַיִּים
This common noun from the same root keeps the phrase connected to life as a condition, not merely a future point in time.
THE PATTERN
What is appointed to come into life arrives in its season, even while its completion is not yet visible.
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.THE THREAD
And it came to pass, after the year was expired, at the time when kings go forth to battle, that David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the children of Ammon, and besieged Rabbah. But David tarried still at Jerusalem.The Hebrew phrase translated “after the year was expired” is literally “at the return of the year,” built from the same שׁוב root repeated as “return” here. The root ties return to a season coming around again, while this verse names the time as life.
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