Genesis 1:1
בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָֽרֶץ׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ׃
ΕΝ ΑΡΧΗ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
In principio creavit Deus cælum et terram.
EN el principio crió Dios los cielos y la tierra.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
✦ What the text says
Summary
The first verse of Genesis is a clause of simple structure: an opening prepositional phrase, a verb, a subject, and two coordinated direct objects. The morphological data show a qal perfect ("completed action") and a plural-form subject governing a third person singular verb.
Key words
- re.Shit ("beginning", H7225) — feminine singular noun; core of the opening phrase.
- ba.Ra' ("he created", H1254) — qal verb, perfect, third person singular ("he").
- 'E.lo.Him ("God", H0430) — masculine plural noun.
- 'et ("", H0853) — direct object marker; untranslated, used twice.
- sha.Ma.yim ("heavens", H8064) — masculine plural noun.
What the text says
The Hebrew sequence runs: the preposition be. ("in", H9003) + re.Shit ("beginning", H7225), then the verb ba.Ra' ("he created", H1254), the subject 'E.lo.Him ("God", H0430), and two objects, each introduced by the marker 'et ("", H0853) and the article ha. ("the", H9009): the heavens and the earth ('A.retz, "earth", H0776). The verb precedes its subject, and its morphology — qal perfect, "completed action" — presents the event as a closed fact, in contrast with the vav-linked narrative chains that dominate the following verses.
Two grammatical features stand out in the data. First, 'E.lo.Him is plural in form, yet the verb is marked as "he" (singular); the supplied versions all translate with a singular subject: ὁ θεός, Deus, Dios, God. Second, no definite article appears among the Hebrew words of the opening phrase — it is preposition + noun; the LXX (ΕΝ ΑΡΧΗ) likewise has none, while the RV1909 («EN el principio») and the BSB ("In the beginning") translate with a definite article. The doubled marker 'et neatly delimits the verb's two objects.
Differences between versions
The LXX translates ἐποίησεν ("made") where the Hebrew has ba.Ra' ("he created", H1254); the Vulgate uses creavit and the RV1909 «crió». In addition, sha.Ma.yim ("heavens", H8064) is plural in form: the LXX (τὸν οὐρανόν) and the Vulgate (cælum) translate with a singular, while the RV1909 («los cielos») and the BSB ("the heavens") keep the plural.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.