Genesis 42:31

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

We said to him, 'We are honest men. We are no spies.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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מְרַגְּלִֽים

râgal

H7270

“walking”

Verb, Piel, Participle Active, Masculine, Plural, Absolute

Appears 25× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 42:9

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root

TWOT: 2113

to go on foot, spy out, foot it, go about, walk along, move the feet - (Qal) to be a tale-bearer, slander, go about - (Piel) - to slander - to go about as explorer, spy - (Tiphel) to teach to walk

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

7: words
7: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is מְרַגְּלִֽים to walk H7270 — appearing just 25 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

מְרַגְּלִֽים to walk H7270 occurs in 24 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

3 verbs
1 adjective
1 pronoun
1 preposition
1 particle

Verb forms

וַנֹּ֥אמֶר Qal · Sequential Imperfect
הָיִ֖ינוּ Qal · Perfect
מְרַגְּלִֽים Piel · Participle Active

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 12 words from the Hebrew and 14 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 7 Hebrew tokens and 8 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Genesis 42:31 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Genesis 42:11 We are all one man's sons; we are honest men. Your servants are not spies."

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Genesis 42:31 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַנֹּ֥אמֶר אֵלָ֖יו כֵּנִ֣ים אֲנָ֑חְנוּ לֹ֥א הָיִ֖ינוּ מְרַגְּלִֽים

We said to him, 'We are honest men. We are no spies.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Genesis 42:31 Septuagint · lemma form

εἶπον δέ αὐτός εἰρηνικός εἰμί οὐ εἰμί κατάσκοπος

And we said to him, We are men of peace, we are not spies.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Onkelos Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וַאֲמַרְנָא לֵהּ כֵּיוָנֵי אֲנָחְנָא לָא הֲוֵינָא אַלִּילֵי

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Onkelos — Aramaic: “Onkelos Genesis” (public domain); “Onkelos Exodus” (public domain); “Onkelos Leviticus” (public domain); “Onkelos Numbers” (public domain); “Onkelos Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “J.W. Etheridge. The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch. London: Longmans, Green, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וְאָמַרְנָא לֵיהּ מְהֵימְנֵי אֲנָן לָא הֲוֵינָא אַלִילֵי

but we said to him, We are faithful men, not spies.

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan — Aramaic: “Targum Jonathan on Genesis” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Exodus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Leviticus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Numbers” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, trans. J. W. Etheridge, London, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Genesis 42:31 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Gen 42:31 And we said unto him, We [are] true [men]; we are no spies:

Ver. 31. See Gen 42:9; Gen 42:11; Gen 42:13; Gen 42:19, &c

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

And it came to pass, as they emptied their sacks,.... Both those in which were the corn they had bought, and those in which were their provender for their cattle, and provision for themselves:

that, behold, every man's bundle of money was in his sack; the same purse, and the same pieces of money, gold or silver, they had paid to the steward:

and when both they and their father saw the bundles of money, they were afraid; the Targum of Jonathan adds,"because of Simeon, whom they had left there;''fearing that they should he charged with theft or fraud, and that Simeon would be put to death; they had opened their sacks before, and found their money in them, but put it up again as it was, in order to open them in their father's presence, from whom they thought proper to conceal this circumstance, lest he should blame them for not returning to the governor with their money upon the first notice of it, when they had travelled but one day's journey; wherefore they make no mention of it in the account of things that befell them, and express their surprise and fear upon finding it when they opened their sacks, as if they had known, nothing of it before; though it may be their fears were renewed and increased by what Jacob might observe to them, as the consequence of it, which they had not so thoroughly considered before.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Genesis, in the Pentateuch, opens this verse with 7 words (7 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is râgal (“to walk”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “to walk” (râgal) contribute to the verse as a whole?
Genesis 42:9 shares the word «to walk» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
These translations render this verse differently. What is at stake in choosing one wording over another?
The verb «וַנֹּ֥אמֶר» is Qal Sequential Imperfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and John Gill's Exposition read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

This verse counts 7 Hebrew ↔ 8 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 3 words in this verse.
7 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 7 words in this verse.