Genesis 15:10

Verse

RBT Translation:

And he is taking to him the את whole of these, and is cutting them in two in the middle, and is putting, a man his part to meet his friend,⁵⁶⁹ but the sparrow he has not divided.

RBT Paraphrase:
And he is taking to himself the eternal whole of these ones, and is cutting them in two in the middle, and is placing a man his part to meet his friend, but the sparrow he has not divided.

LITV Translation:
And he took all these for Him, and he divided them in the middle; and he laid each piece against one another, but he did not divide the bird.

ESV Translation:
And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half.

Brenton Septuagint Translation:
So he took to him all these, and divided them in the midst, and set them opposite to each other, but the birds he did not divide.

Footnotes

569

The Hebrew for middle is tavek (#8432) which comes from an unused root that means to sever; a bisection, i.e. (by implication) the centre, middle. The animals should be seen as being cut between head and tail along the middle just as the Jordan River and Red Sea are parted in half, top to bottom. Take note how Yahweh calls each piece a friend/neighbor (Hebrew rea, #7453) of the other half. The whole “ritual” says something about a great schism or division (divided Kingdom?). To meet each other is to say “opposite faces to faces” (compare Genesis 29:13). The nestling (gowzal #1469) is distinct from the word for turtledove (tor #8449) and bird (tsippor #6833), and is used of young eaglets in Deut. 32:11. The word bird is a singular noun and not plural yet is interpreted by all the translations as plural birds. There are plural forms of bird (i.e. tsipporim – see Isa. 31:5). So it is not clear whether both birds were uncut or only the one young one. Some commentators see seven pieces in this “ritual,” some see four. Accounting for the threefold of the animals, there could be 20 parts. If the turtle-dove is cut in half there could be 21. It is after this that the “ravenous birds” descend upon the corpses. The ravenous birds are birds of prey (language for religious rulers, powers of the air?) who take (have taken) the queen of heaven by violence? The word is ayit (#5861) which comes from the verb iyt (5860) which means to scream, shriek. Maybe fanatics?