Exodus 1:6

Summary

The verse reports the death of Joseph, followed by the death of "all his brothers" and "all that generation." A single verb governs three coordinated subjects, marking the end of the patriarchal generation that had settled in Egypt.

Key words

• vayyamot ("he died", H4191) — qal wayyiqtol (narrative past) form; the vav-consecutive links this action directly to the preceding narrative, and the verb is grammatically singular though it governs multiple subjects listed afterward.
• Yosef ("Joseph", H3130G) — proper noun, the first and grammatical subject of the verb vayyamot.
• kol ("all", H3605) — masculine singular noun in construct state, appearing twice (lines 5 and 9); each time it binds to the following noun to form "all of X."
• 'echav ("his brothers", H0251G + H9023) — masculine plural noun in construct with the pronominal suffix -o ("his"), forming "his brothers."
• ha-dor ha-hu ("that generation", H1755 + H1931) — the noun dor ("generation") takes the definite article ha- and is followed by the demonstrative pronoun hu' ("that"), also with the article, giving the sense "that specific generation."

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence has one finite verb, vayyamot ("he died"), which is grammatically singular (third person masculine singular) even though it introduces three coordinated subjects joined by ve- ("and"): Joseph, "all his brothers" (kol 'echav), and "all that generation" (kol ha-dor ha-hu). This is a common feature of Biblical Hebrew syntax: when a verb precedes a compound subject, it can agree with only the first element while still applying to the whole list.

The two occurrences of kol ("all") each stand in construct state, meaning they cannot stand alone and must attach to the following noun — first to 'echav ("his brothers"), then to ha-dor ("the generation"). The phrase ha-dor ha-hu uses the article twice, on both the noun and the demonstrative, a standard Hebrew pattern for saying "that particular generation" rather than a generic one.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate restructures the clause using an ablative absolute, "Quo mortuo, et universis fratribus ejus, omnique cognatione illa" ("with him having died, and all his brothers, and all that kindred"), which subordinates Joseph's death grammatically to what follows in the next verse, unlike the Hebrew's independent narrative clause. The LXX preserves the singular verb ἐτελεύτησεν ("he died") with δὲ ("but/now") and lists the subjects with καί ("and"), closely mirroring the Hebrew's one-verb, multiple-subject structure. The LXX also renders kol ha-dor ha-hu as πᾶσα ἡ γενεὰ ἐκείνη ("all that generation"), matching the Hebrew's double-definite demonstrative sense.