Genesis 43:4

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

If you will send our brother with us, we will go down and buy you food,

World English Bible · Public Domain

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וְנִשְׁבְּרָ֥ה

shâbar

H7666

“and · to buy grain”

Conjunction + Verb, Qal, Cohortative, 1st Person, Common, Plural

Appears 21× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 41:56

Full BDB Definition

Origin: denominative from H7668

TWOT: 2322

to buy or purchase grain - (Qal) to buy grain - (Hiphil) to sell grain

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 →

10: words
9: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is וְנִשְׁבְּרָ֥ה to buy grain H7666 — appearing just 21 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

וְנִשְׁבְּרָ֥ה to buy grain H7666 occurs in 20 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

3 verbs
2 nouns
2 prepositions
1 conjunction
2 particles

Verb forms

מְשַׁלֵּ֥חַ Piel · Participle Active
נֵרְדָ֕ה Qal · Cohortative
וְנִשְׁבְּרָ֥ה Qal · Cohortative

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 16 words from the Hebrew and 16 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the same length.

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 10 Hebrew tokens and 14 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 43:4 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

אִם יֶשְׁךָ֛ מְשַׁלֵּ֥חַ אֶת אָחִ֖ינוּ אִתָּ֑נוּ נֵרְדָ֕ה וְנִשְׁבְּרָ֥ה לְךָ֖ אֹֽכֶל

If you will send our brother with us, we will go down and buy you food,

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Genesis 43:4 Septuagint · lemma form

εἰ μέν οὖν ἀποστέλλω ὁ ἀδελφός ἐγώ μετά ἐγώ καταβαίνω καί ἀγοράζω σύ βρῶμα

If, then, you send our brother with us, we will go down, and buy you food;

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)

אִם אִיתָךְ מְשַׁלַּח יָת אָחוּנָא עִמָּנָא נֵיחוֹת וְנִזְבֵּן לָךְ עִיבוּרָא

(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)

אִין אִיתָךְ מְשַׁדֵר יַת אָחוּנָא עִמָנָא נֵיחוֹת וְנִזְבּוֹן לָךְ עִבּוּרָא

If thou wilt send our brother with us, we will go down and buy corn for thee;

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 43:4 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 43:4 If thou wilt send our brother with us, we will go down and buy thee food:

Ver. 4. And buy thee food,] q.d., Thou art as much concerned as any of us, and more; because thou art master of the family.

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

But if thou wilt not send him, we will not go down,.... This they said not as undutiful, and from a spirit of rebellion and disobedience to their father, or of stubbornness and obstinacy, but because they durst not go down, nor could they with any safety; they might expect to be taken up as spies, and put to death as they were threatened; and besides, it would be in vain, and to no purpose, since there was no likelihood of succeeding, or of getting any provision:

for the man said unto us, ye shall not see my face, except your brother be with you; which they repeat both for the confirmation of it, and as an apology for themselves, to clear them from any charge of unfaithfulness.

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. 4, 5. If thou wilt send literally, if thou art sending, i.e. if thou art agreeable to send (cf. Gen_24:42, Gen_24:49; Jud_1:6:36) our brother with us, we will go down and buy thee food: but (literally, and) if thou wilt not send him (a similar form of expression to the above, the two words vye, being, and yia, not being, including the substantive verb, and being conjoined with a participle for the finite verb), we will not go down: for the man said unto us, Ye shall not see my face, except your brother be with you. Judah"s peremptory language receives sufficient justification from the fact that he believed the Egyptian governor to be in thorough earnest when he declared that without Benjamin they should sue a second time in vain.

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 10 words (9 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is shâbar (“to buy grain”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word shâbar carries the sense “to buy grain.” How does it shape the verse?
How does Genesis 41:56, which shares the word «to buy grain», read alongside 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?
«מְשַׁלֵּ֥חַ» is a Piel Participle Active 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 10 Hebrew ↔ 14 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 2 words in this verse.
9 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 10 words in this verse.