Genesis 15:3
And Abram added: But to me thou hast not given seed: and lo my servant, born in my house, shall be my heir.
Open Genesis 15:3 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Addiditque Abram : Mihi autem non dedisti semen, et ecce vernaculus meus, hæres meus erit.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ εἶπεν Ἀβράμ Ἐπειδὴ ἐμοὶ οὐκ ἔδωκας σπέρμα, ὁ δὲ οἰκογενής μου κληρονομήσει με.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אַבְרָ֔ם הֵ֣ן לִ֔י לֹ֥א נָתַ֖תָּה זָ֑רַע וְהִנֵּ֥ה בֶן בֵּיתִ֖י יוֹרֵ֥שׁ אֹתִֽי
The Fathers on this verse
St Augustine Reply to Faustus the Manichæan, Faustus states his objections to the morality of the law and the prophets, and Augustin seeks by the application of the type and the allegory to explain away the moral difficulties of the Old Testament
32. Abraham, indeed, cannot be defended, if, as Faustus says, he wished to get children by Hagar, because he had no faith in God, who promised that he should have children by Sara. But this is an entire mistake: this promise had not yet been made. Any one who reads the preceding chapters will find that Abraham had already got the promise of the land with a countless number of inhabitants, but that it had not yet been made known to him how the seed spoken of was to be produced, whether by generation from his own body, or from his choice in the adoption of a son, or, in the case of its being from his own body, whether it would be by Sara or another. Whoever examines into this will find that Faustus has made either an imprudent mistake or an impudent misrepresentation. Abraham, then, when he saw that he had no children, though the promise was to his seed, thought first of adoption. …