Genesis 37:15

Summary

A man finds Joseph wandering in the open country and asks him directly what he is looking for. The Hebrew presents this as two linked events: being found while in a state of wandering, and then being questioned by the same man, now identified with the definite article.

Key words

• yimtza'ehu ("he found him", H4672) — qal narrative form with a pronominal suffix, marking the discovery as the next event in the story's sequence.
• 'ish ("a man", H0376G) — indefinite at first mention, introducing an unnamed character.
• to'eh ("wandering", H8582) — qal participle, expressing a continuous state, not a completed action; describes what the man saw as ongoing at the moment of finding.
• yish'alehu ("he asked him", H7592) — qal narrative verb, parallel in form to yimtza'ehu, continuing the narrative chain.
• tevaqqesh ("you are seeking", H1245) — piel imperfect, an intensive stem indicating an active or purposeful search, in the second-person form addressed directly to the one found.

What the text says

The verse is built on two narrative-vav clauses of identical grammatical shape: va-yimtza'ehu ("and he found him") and va-yish'alehu ("and he asked him"), both qal verbs with third-person pronominal suffixes referring to the same unnamed figure. Between them sits a short interjectional clause introduced by hinneh ("there!", H2009), which frames the participle to'eh ("wandering") as a vivid, ongoing scene rather than a simple past fact — the man saw him already in the state of wandering ba-sadeh ("in the open country", H7704G).

A subtle shift occurs between verses: the first mention of the finder is the indefinite 'ish ("a man"), while the second mention, when he speaks, uses ha-'ish ("the man") with the definite article, marking him as the already-introduced referent. The question itself, mah-tevaqqesh ("what are you seeking?"), uses the piel stem of baqash, which in Biblical Hebrew often carries a sense of deliberate or intensified searching, addressed in the second-person masculine singular imperfect, indicating an action understood as ongoing or about to be described by the addressee.

Differences between versions

The LXX (πλανὠμἐνον) and the Vulgate (errantem) render the Hebrew participle to'eh as an attributive participle modifying "him" directly ("found him wandering"), collapsing the Hebrew's separate hinneh-clause into a single clause. This removes the vividness marked by hinneh ("there!") in the Hebrew, which sets the wandering apart as an observed scene rather than a grammatical modifier. The Vulgate further condenses the second sentence, omitting a repeated reference to "the man" (unlike the Hebrew's ha-'ish) and converting the direct question into indirect speech, "interrogavit quid quaereret" ("asked what he was seeking"), rather than preserving the direct quotation found in the Hebrew, LXX, and other cited translations.