Joseph said to his father, "Not so, my father; for this is the firstborn; put your right hand on his head."
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The same verse in 3 English versions, stacked beneath the original-language interlinear above. Click any original word for its lexicon entry.
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Joseph said to his father, "Not so, my father; for this is the firstborn; put your right hand on his head."
And Joseph said unto his father, Not so, my father: for this is the firstborn; put thy right hand upon his head.
And Joseph said to his father, “Not so, my father, because that the firstborn son. Put your right hand on his head.”
unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult).
Every available English version of this verse, each an independent rendering of the whole verse.
Joseph said to his father, "Not so, my father; for this is the firstborn; put your right hand on his head."
“Not so, my father!” Joseph said. “This one is the firstborn; put your right hand on his head.”
“Not so, my father!” Joseph said. “This one is the firstborn; put your right hand on his head.”
And Joseph said unto his father, Not so, my father: for this is the firstborn; put thy right hand upon his head.
And Joseph said unto his father, Not so, my father; for this is the first-born; put thy right hand upon his head.
And Joseph said unto his father, Not so, my father: for this is the firstborn; put thy right hand upon his head.
And Ioseph sayde vnto his father, Not so, my father, for this is the eldest: put thy right hand vpon his head.
And he said to his father: It should not be so, my father: for this is the first- born, put thy right hand upon his head.
and Joseph saith unto his father, `Not so, my father, for this `is' the first-born; set thy right hand on his head.'
and Joseph says to his father, “Not so, my father, for this [is] the firstborn; set your right hand on his head.”
Joseph said to his father, “Not so, my father; for this is the firstborn. Put your right hand upon his head.”
And Joseph said to his father, “Not so, my father, because that the firstborn son. Put your right hand on his head.”
And Joseph said to his father, Not so, my father, for this is the firstborn: put thy right hand on his head.
Joseph said to his father, “Not so, my father, for this is the firstborn. Put your right hand on his head.”
And Joseph said to his father, Not so, my father; for this is the first-born; put thy right hand upon his head.
“Not like that, father, this is the firstborn; put your right hand on his head,” Joseph told him.
And Joseph said to his father, Not so, my father, for this is the older; put your right hand on his head.
And Joseph said unto his father: 'Not so, my father, for this is the first-born; put thy right hand upon his head.'
Literal Standard Version (2020), Covenant Press — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). Unlocked Literal Bible (unfoldingWord) — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult). Free Bible Version, Dr. Jonathan Gallagher — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org).
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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 →
Grammatical profile
Verb forms
Repetition
A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:
Hebrew & Septuagint length
In English translation the verse runs 21 words from the Hebrew and 20 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 14 Hebrew tokens and 21 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.
Topical passages linked to Genesis 48:18 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.
Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).
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.
וַיֹּ֧אמֶר יוֹסֵ֛ף אֶל אָבִ֖יו לֹא כֵ֣ן אָבִ֑י כִּי זֶ֣ה הַבְּכֹ֔ר שִׂ֥ים יְמִינְךָ֖ עַל רֹאשֽׁוֹ
Joseph said to his father, "Not so, my father; for this is the firstborn; put your right hand on his head."
World English Bible · Public Domain
εἶπον δέ ιωσηφ ὁ πατήρ αὐτός οὐ οὕτως πατήρ οὗτος γάρ ὁ πρωτότοκος πείθω ὁ δεξιός σύ ἐπί ὁ κεφαλή αὐτός
And Joseph said to his father, Not so, father; for this is the firstborn; lay your right-hand upon his head.
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 →
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.
וַאֲמַר יוֹסֵף לְאָבוּהִי לָא כֵן אַבָּא אֲרֵי דֵין בּוּכְרָא שַׁו יְמִינָךְ עַל רֵישֵׁהּ
(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.
וַאֲמַר יוֹסֵף לְאָבוּי לָא כְדֵין אַבָּא אֲרוּם דֵין בּוּכְרָא שַׁוִי יַד יְמִינָךְ עַל רֵישֵׁיהּ
And Joseph said to his father, Not so, my father, for this is the firstborn; lay thy right hand on his head.
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.
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 14 words (13 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is bᵉkôwr (“firstborn”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.
Commentary
Notes on Genesis 48:18 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
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.
Adam Clarke's Commentary
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill's Exposition
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
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.