Genesis 43:17

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

The man did as Joseph commanded, and the man brought the men to Joseph's house.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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יוֹסֵ֑ף

Yôwçêph

H3130

“Joseph”

Noun, Proper

Appears 213× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 30:24

Full BDB Definition

Origin: future of H3254

TWOT: None

Joseph = "Jehovah has added" - the eldest son of Jacob by Rachel - father of Igal, who represented the tribe of Issachar among the spies - a son of Asaph - a man who took a foreign wife in the time of Ezra - a priest of the family of Shebaniah in the time of Nehemiah

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 →

11: words
8: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Grammatical profile

3 verbs
6 nouns
2 particles

Verb forms

וַיַּ֣עַשׂ Qal · Sequential Imperfect
אָמַ֣ר Qal · Perfect
וַיָּבֵ֥א Hiphil · Sequential Imperfect

Repetition

Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

הָאִ֔ישׁ man H376 ×3
יוֹסֵ֑ף Joseph H3130 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 15 words from the Hebrew and 17 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 11 Hebrew tokens and 15 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.

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 43:17 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיַּ֣עַשׂ הָאִ֔ישׁ כַּֽאֲשֶׁ֖ר אָמַ֣ר יוֹסֵ֑ף וַיָּבֵ֥א הָאִ֛ישׁ אֶת הָאֲנָשִׁ֖ים בֵּ֥יתָה יוֹסֵֽף

The man did as Joseph commanded, and the man brought the men to Joseph's house.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Genesis 43:17 Septuagint · lemma form

ποιέω δέ ὁ ἄνθρωπος καθά εἶπον ιωσηφ καί εἰςἄγω ὁ ἄνθρωπος εἰς ὁ οἶκος ιωσηφ

And the man did as Joseph said; and he brought the men into the house of Joseph.

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)

וַעֲבַד גַּבְרָא כְּמָא דִּי אֲמַר יוֹסֵף וְאָעֵיל גַּבְרָא יָת גֻּבְרַיָּא לְבֵית יוֹסֵף

(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)

וְעָבַד גַבְרָא הֵיכְמָא דְאָמַר יוֹסֵף וְאָעֵיל גַבְרָא יַת גוּבְרַיָא לְבֵית יוֹסֵף

And the man did as Joseph had said, and the man brought the men into Joseph's house.

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 43:17 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 43:17 And the man did as Joseph bade; and the man brought the men into Joseph’s house.

Ver. 17. And the man did as Joseph bade.] Things then go well within doors, when the hands take counsel of the head, the servants of their master, and are active to execute.

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 the men were afraid, because they were brought into Joseph's house,.... It not being usual, as Jarchi observes, for those that came to buy corn to lodge there, but at an inn in the city:

and they said, because of the money that was returned in our sacks at the first time are we brought in; to examine and inquire of them how they came to go away without paying for their corn, take up their money again after they had laid it down, and take it away with them, and so were guilty of tricking and defrauding, if not of theft:

that he may seek occasion against us: or "roll on us" (z); cast all the shame on them, and leave the reproach and scandal of it on them:

and fall upon us; with hard words, and severe menaces, if not with blows:

and take us for bondmen, and our asses; imprison them, which was the punishment for fraud and theft, and take their asses as a forfeiture.

(z) "ut devolvat (hoc) in nos", Tigurine version.

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

The Pulpit Commentary

Vers. 17, 18. And the man did as Joseph bade; and the man brought the men into Joseph"s house. And the men were afraid, because they were brought into Joseph"s house. "A more natural picture of the conduct of men from the country, when taken into the house of a superior, cannot be drawn. When they are told to go inside they at once suspect that they are about to be punished or confined (Roberts "Oriental Illustrations," p. 49). And they said (sc. To themselves), Because of the money that was returned in our sacks at the first time are we brought in; that he may seek occasion against us, literally, that he may roll himself upon us (cf. Job_30:14; Psa_22:8 Psa_37:5; Pro_26:3) "To say a man rolls himself upon another is the Eastern way of saying he falls upon him" (Roberts" "Oriental Illustrations," p. 49) and fall upon us, and take us for bondmen, and our asses. The brethren of Joseph were clearly apprehensive of some serious stratagem to deprive them of liberty.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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 11 words (8 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is Yôwçêph (“Joseph”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “Joseph” (Yôwçêph) contribute to the verse as a whole?
What does the repetition of “man” (3× in this one verse) do in this verse?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
«וַיַּ֣עַשׂ» is a Qal Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and John Gill's Exposition read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 11 Hebrew ↔ 15 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 7 words in this verse.
“man” occurs 3× in this single verse.
8 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 11 words in this verse.