Genesis43:1–15

Where the English smooths the original

• כָּבֵ֥ד The adjective is kā·ḇêḏ — literally “heavy,” the same root (kāḇaḏ) that gives the word for “glory” (weight). The BSB’s “severe” is accurate but loses the tactile sense: the famine is a weight pressing down on the land, not merely an intensity.
• וְהָרָעָ֖ב Hebrew opens with the conjunction and the article — wə·hā·rā·‘āḇ, “and-the-famine” — resuming the narrative thread from chapter 42 with “and.” The BSB’s “Now” turns a running clause into a fresh paragraph; the Hebrew keeps the two journeys as one continuous account.
• בָּאָֽרֶץ׃ bā·’ā·reṣ is simply “in-the-land,” with the article and no qualifier. The commentators supply “of Canaan” (Gill, the Pulpit Commentary), but the bare Hebrew leaves it unnamed — the land of promise, unblessed, lying under the same dearth as Egypt.

Where the English smooths the original

• כִּלּוּ֙ kil·lū is a Piel perfect of kālāh — not merely “had eaten” but “had finished / consumed to an end.” The Pulpit Commentary insists the sense is “entirely consumed,” not “nearly”; the grain is gone, and only then does Jacob move. English “had eaten all” captures the result but not the verb’s force of completion.
• הַשֶּׁ֔בֶר haš·še·ḇer, the keyword of the Joseph famine, is grain named for its breaking — a noun from šābar, “to break in pieces” (the crushed kernel). The same root drives the verbs “buy grain” in v. 4. The BSB’s plain “grain” loses the wordplay that knits buying, breaking, and bread together.
• שֻׁ֖בוּ Jacob’s first imperative is šu·ḇū, “return / turn back” (root šûḇ) — the verb of repentance and homecoming that will recur through the chapter (v. 10, v. 13). He does not say “go”; he says “go back,” acknowledging the road already walked.
• מְעַט־ mə·‘aṭ, “a-little.” Matthew Henry hears self-restraint in it — “in time of dearth, a little must suffice”; Poole, a quiet faith that God will provide hereafter so they “should not need to go so far for corn any more.” The single word frames the request as modest necessity, not appetite.

Where the English smooths the original

• הָעֵ֣ד The Hebrew doubles the verb — hā·‘êḏ hê·‘iḏ, infinitive absolute plus finite verb (root ‘ûḏ, “to testify / bear witness, to warn repeatedly”). The Pulpit Commentary renders it “protesting did protest,” the Cambridge Bible “simply emphasizes the force of the verb.” The BSB’s single adverb “solemnly warned” flattens a Hebrew intensifier that hammers twice.
• פָנַ֔י p̄ā·nay, “my face” — an idiom for personal access and favor. Poole cross-lists 2 Samuel 14:24, 32: “you shall not be admitted into my presence.” To “not see the face” of the ruler is to be barred from his court entirely; English keeps the idiom but a reader may miss its courtly weight.
• הָאִ֤ישׁ hā·’îš, “the man” — Joseph, named throughout the chapter only by this veiled title (vv. 3, 5, 6, 7, 11, 13, 14). Gill notes it is no contempt but reverence, “the great man, the lord of the land.” The Hebrew keeps Joseph’s identity in shadow exactly as the brothers experience it: a man, not yet a brother.

Where the English smooths the original

• יֶשְׁךָ֛ Hebrew uses the existential particle yeš with a suffix — yeš·ḵā mə·šal·lê·aḥ, literally “there-is-you sending,” a participial idiom the Pulpit Commentary explains as “if thou art agreeable to send.” It is conditional present, not future; the BSB’s “if you will send” reads as a promise where the Hebrew states a present disposition.
• נֵרְדָ֕ה nê·rə·ḏāh is a cohortative — “let-us-go-down / we-will-surely-go-down” (root yārad). The same downward verb runs through the Joseph story: every approach to Egypt is a descent. English “we will go down” keeps the direction but loses the volitional resolve of the cohortative.
• וְנִשְׁבְּרָ֥ה wə·niš·bə·rāh, “and-let-us-buy-grain” — a denominative verb from the same root as sheber (grain). Hebrew literally says “let us grain-deal”; the act of buying and the thing bought share one root. The BSB’s neutral “buy” severs that tie.

Where the English smooths the original

• אֵינְךָ֥ ’ê·nə·ḵā is the negative existential particle ’ayin (“there-is-not”) with a suffix — literally “there-is-not-you sending.” It mirrors the positive yeš·ḵā of v. 4 exactly; Hebrew sets the two conditions as a balanced pair of being and non-being. The BSB’s “if you will not” loses the symmetry of yeš/’ayin.
• נֵרֵ֑ד Here the verb is plain imperfect nê·rêḏ, “we-will-go-down,” without the cohortative ending of v. 4’s nê·rə·ḏāh. The volition has cooled to flat refusal: in v. 4 “let us eagerly go down,” in v. 5 a bare “we will not go.” The English uses identical words and cannot show the grammatical drop in resolve.
• כִּֽי־ kî, “for / because” — Judah grounds the refusal not in stubbornness but in the man’s own word. Gill is careful: this is said “not as undutiful… but because they durst not go.” The causal particle frames the whole as obedience to a binding condition, not defiance of a father.

Where the English smooths the original

• יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל The narrator names him Israel here, not Jacob — the covenant name, not the personal one. The Pulpit Commentary marks it: this is only the second time the name “Israel” returns in the Joseph story, the first being the breach of chapter 37. Cambridge sees the man slowly accepting the inevitable. English keeps the name but a reader may miss the deliberate switch.
• הֲרֵעֹתֶ֖ם hă·rê·‘ō·ṯem is a Hifil of rā‘a‘ — literally “why did-you-cause-evil / bring-harm to me,” the causative of “to be bad, to spoil.” It is stronger than “dealt ill”: Jacob accuses his sons of inflicting the trouble on him, the same verb’s family that names the famine (rā·‘āḇ) lurking over the chapter.
• הַע֥וֹד ha·‘ōḏ, “whether-still / yet” — the interrogative particle on ‘ôḏ, “continuance.” The literal runs “whether yet to you a brother,” an existential question about Benjamin’s very existence. The BSB’s smooth “you had another brother” supplies words the terse Hebrew only implies.

Where the English smooths the original

• שָׁא֣וֹל Again the doubled verb — šā·’ō·wl šā·’al, infinitive absolute plus finite (root šā’al, “to ask, inquire”). Cambridge glosses the resulting adverb “straitly,” i.e. “strictly, closely,” quoting Shakespeare’s “straitly given in charge.” The BSB’s “questioned us in detail” is faithful in sense but loses the Hebrew’s emphatic reduplication.
• וּלְמֽוֹלַדְתֵּ֜נוּ mô·w·laḏ·tê·nū is “our birthplace / kindred / nativity” (root yālaḏ, “to bear”) — the very word God used to Abram, “out of your môledet” (Genesis 12:1; 24:4). The BSB’s “our family” is thin; Ellicott renders it “our birthplace,” the place and stock from which one is born.
• הֲיָד֣וֹעַ A third infinitive-absolute construction closes the verse — hă·yā·ḏō·w·a‘ nê·ḏa‘, “knowing, could-we-know” (root yāḏa‘). Three doubled verbs stack across vv. 3–7 (warn, ask, know), a drumbeat of intensity the smooth English “How could we possibly know” muffles to a single phrase.

Where the English smooths the original

• הַנַּ֛עַר han·na·‘ar, “the boy / lad” — a term of affection, not a statement of age. Ellicott is emphatic: Benjamin “was between twenty and thirty,” and the same word names Rebekah (24:16) and Shechem (34:19); Keil reckons Benjamin twenty-three. The English “boy” risks the very error Ellicott corrects — that Benjamin was a mere child.
• וְנִֽחְיֶה֙ wə·niḥ·yeh, “that-we-may-live” (root ḥāyāh) — set against nā·mūṯ, “die.” Judah frames the journey as the choice of life over death, the same antithesis the famine forces. The cohortative carries purpose: not merely a result but a plea — “so that we may go on living.”
• שִׁלְחָ֥ה šil·ḥāh is the imperative of šālaḥ, “send / release” — the same verb used in vv. 4–5 of Jacob’s sending Benjamin, and again in v. 14 of God moving the man to release the brothers. Judah turns the family’s verb back on the father: send him, and we shall be sent home.

Where the English smooths the original

• אָֽנֹכִי֙ Judah opens with the long, emphatic pronoun ’ā·nō·ḵî, “I-myself” — fronted before the verb for weight. The whole pledge rests on his own person. The BSB’s “I will guarantee” cannot carry the stress of the independent pronoun thrown to the front; Hebrew puts Judah himself on the line before he names the deed.
• אֶֽעֶרְבֶ֔נּוּ ’e·‘er·ḇen·nū is the verb ‘āraḇ, “to go surety, pledge oneself, stand bond” (root sense: to braid / interweave one’s life with another’s). The Pulpit Commentary: “the verb conveys the idea of changing places with another.” The BSB’s “guarantee his safety” is a commercial gloss on a word that means Judah binds his own fate to Benjamin’s — substitution language.
• וְחָטָ֥אתִֽי wə·ḥā·ṭā·ṯî, “then-I-shall-have-sinned” (root ḥāṭā’, “to miss the mark, to be guilty”). Cambridge gives the literal: “I shall have sinned against thee for ever,” and Poole: “be an offender to thee.” The BSB’s “bear the guilt” names the penalty; the Hebrew names the sin itself — Judah accepts the status of offender, not merely its cost.

Where the English smooths the original

• הִתְמַהְמָ֑הְנוּ hiṯ·mah·mā·hə·nū is a Hitpael of a reduplicated root māhahh — “to delay, hesitate, dawdle.” The doubled, reflexive form mimics the dithering it describes: a stammering verb for a stalling. The BSB’s tidy “had not delayed” loses the verb’s own hesitation built into its shape.
• שַׁ֖בְנוּ šaḇ·nū, “we-had-returned” (root šûḇ, picking up Jacob’s imperative šu·ḇū in v. 2) — a complete round trip. The BSB’s “come and gone” paraphrases a single Hebrew verb of turning back; Judah’s point is that the whole journey, out and home, could already have been done.
• פַעֲמָֽיִם׃ p̄a·‘ă·mā·yim is the dual of pa‘am, “two-times / twice,” literally “this pair of times.” Keil renders the close “we should already have returned a second time.” English “twice by now” is right, but the dual form — Hebrew’s special number for pairs — quietly underscores it.

Where the English smooths the original

• מִזִּמְרַ֤ת zim·raṯ is a rare word — its first sense is “song / melody” (root zāmar, behind mizmôr, “psalm”). Ellicott renders it literally “the song… whatever in the land is most celebrated in song”; Cambridge notes it occurs only here in the Pentateuch. The BSB’s “best products” gives the meaning but silences the music: the land’s praised, sung-of produce.
• מִנְחָ֑ה min·ḥāh is the word for a gift / tribute offered to a superior — and, in the cult, the “grain offering” presented to God. JFB notes the Oriental custom: “never to approach a man of power without a present.” The BSB’s “gift” is right, but the word carries the freight of homage, even of offering; Jacob sends tribute to a ruler he does not know is his son.
• צֳרִי֙ ṣo·rî, “balm” (balsam) — the very commodity the Ishmaelite caravan carried when they bought Joseph (Genesis 37:25). With nᵉkō’ṯ (gum) and lōṭ (ladanum), three of these rare spice-words appear together in only two verses of all Scripture: here and at Joseph’s sale. Hebrew quietly rhymes the gift with the crime.

Where the English smooths the original

• מִשְׁנֶ֖ה miš·neh means “a-second / repetition,” and here, with kesep̄ uncompounded, “second money” — a fresh sum for the new purchase. Ellicott and Barnes prefer this literal reading over “double”; Keil distinguishes it from the compound miš·neh-kesep̄ (“double money”) in v. 15. The BSB’s “double the silver” reaches forward to v. 15’s phrase and may overstate v. 12’s plainer “a second sum.”
• תָּשִׁ֣יבוּ tā·šî·ḇū is a Hifil of šûḇ, “cause-to-return / bring-back” — the chapter’s return-verb now turned to restitution. Matthew Henry hears Jacob’s honesty: what comes to us by another’s mistake, “if we keep it… is kept by deceit.” The silver must be turned back, the same root that orders the brothers themselves to turn back to Egypt.
• אוּלַ֥י ’ū·lay, “perhaps / it may be” — Jacob will not assume guilt where the evidence is ambiguous. Cambridge calls it “the improbable supposition that the affair had been an ‘oversight,’” the LXX ἀγνόημα, an accidental error. The hesitant particle holds the mystery open; Jacob acts honestly without knowing the cause.

Where the English smooths the original

• וְאֶת־ The clause opens with the object-marker fronted before its verb — wə·’eṯ ’ă·ḥî·ḵem qā·ḥū, literally “and your-brother, take.” Benjamin is thrown to the front of the sentence, the hardest concession given pride of place. The BSB’s smooth “Take your brother as well” levels the emphatic Hebrew word order.
• קָ֑חוּ qā·ḥū, imperative of lāqaḥ, “take” — the same verb Jacob has just used of the gift (v. 11) and the silver (v. 12). Now the object is his beloved son. Three times “take”: fruits, money, and at last Benjamin himself, the dearest item on the list spoken last.
• וְק֖וּמוּ wə·qū·mū, “and-arise” (root qûm) — the verb of decisive setting-out, echoing Judah’s own “we will rise (wə·nā·qū·māh) and go” in v. 8. Jacob finally adopts his son’s language of action. The BSB folds it into “at once,” losing the imperative “get up.”

Where the English smooths the original

• וְאֵ֣ל ’êl šad·day, “God Almighty” — the covenant name by which God renewed the promise to Abraham (Genesis 17:1) and to Jacob himself (Genesis 35:11). Cambridge notes this is nearly the only occurrence of the Name in the JE strand. Jacob does not pray to a generic deity but to the El Shaddai of his own covenant. English keeps the title but a reader misses the covenant memory inside it.
• רַחֲמִים֙ ra·ḥă·mîm, “mercy / compassion,” is a plural intensive from reḥem, “womb” — literally the “bowels,” the seat of tender affection (so Pulpit: “bowels, hence very tender affection”). Jacob asks God to give the hard ruler a mother’s yearning toward his sons. The BSB’s “mercy” is correct but bloodless beside the visceral Hebrew.
• שָׁכֹ֖לְתִּי The verse ends in a haunting repetition — ka·’ă·šer šā·ḵō·lə·tî šā·ḵā·lə·tî, “as I-am-bereaved, I-am-bereaved.” Ellicott marks how the inserted “of my children” actually “lessens the pathos”; the bare Hebrew is “and I, if I am bereaved, I am bereaved.” The doubled verb is resignation itself — Keil notes the second’s pausal vowel “answering to the feelings of the speaker.”

Where the English smooths the original

• וּמִשְׁנֶה־ Now the compound appears — ū·miš·neh-kesep̄, “and-double-silver,” which Keil and the Pulpit Commentary carefully distinguish from v. 12’s looser “second money.” Here the construct binds the words: a literal doubling. The narrator uses the precise term Jacob avoided, totalling all three parcels of silver into one phrase.
• וַיֵּרְד֣וּ way·yê·rə·ḏū, “and-they-went-down” (root yārad) — the Joseph cycle’s ever-present descent. The BSB’s “hurried down” adds speed the verb itself does not carry; Hebrew simply records the going-down, the same root that took Joseph down to Egypt (37:25) and will take all Israel down (46:3).
• וַיַּֽעַמְד֖וּ way·ya·‘am·ḏū lip̄·nê yō·w·sêp̄, “and-they-stood before Joseph” (root ‘āmaḏ) — the first time the brothers’ posture is set against Joseph’s name unveiled to the reader. They “stand before the face” of the man whose face they were warned they could not see (v. 3). The narrator names Joseph; the brothers still see only “the man.”