Genesis 37:20
וְעַתָּה׀ לְכוּ וְנַֽהַרְגֵהוּ וְנַשְׁלִכֵהוּ בְּאַחַד הַבֹּרוֹת וְאָמַרְנוּ חַיָּה רָעָה אֲכָלָתְהוּ וְנִרְאֶה מַה־יִּהְיוּ חֲלֹמֹתָֽיו׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וְעַתָּ֣ה׀ לְכ֣וּ וְנַֽהַרְגֵ֗הוּ וְנַשְׁלִכֵ֙הוּ֙ בְּאַחַ֣ד הַבֹּר֔וֹת וְאָמַ֕רְנוּ חַיָּ֥ה רָעָ֖ה אֲכָלָ֑תְהוּ וְנִרְאֶ֕ה מַה־יִּהְי֖וּ חֲלֹמֹתָֽיו׃
νῦν οὖν δεῦτε ἀποκτείνωμεν αὐτόν, καὶ ῥίψομεν αὐτὸν εἰς ἕνα τῶν λάκκων, καὶ ἐροῦμεν Θηρίον πονηρὸν κατέφαγεν αὐτόν· καὶ ὀψόμεθα τί ἒστιν τὰ ἐνύπνια αὐτοῦ.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
venite, occidamus eum, et mittamus in cisternam veterem: dicemusque: Fera pessima devoravit eum: et tunc apparebit quid illi prosint somnia sua.
Vengan, vamos a matarlo y a echarlo en uno de estos pozos. Luego diremos que un animal salvaje se lo comió. ¡Ya veremos en qué terminan sus sueños!”
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Ahora pues, venid, y matémoslo y echémosle en una cisterna, y diremos: Alguna mala bestia le devoró: y veremos qué serán sus sueños.
“ Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits. We can say that a vicious animal has devoured him. Then we shall see what becomes of his dreams!”
✦ What the text says
Summary
The brothers propose a plan: kill Joseph, throw him into one of the pits, then claim a wild animal devoured him. The verse closes with their intent to see what becomes of his dreams, using a sequence of first-person plural verb forms that mark each step of the scheme.
Key words
- le.Khu ("come", H1980K) — qal imperative, plural, calling the brothers to act together; opens the proposal.
- na.har.Ge.hu ("let us kill him", H2026) — qal imperfect with vav, first person plural, expressing a cohortative sense ("let us..."); the vav links it as the next step after the imperative.
- nash.li.Khe.hu ("let us throw him", H7993) — hiphil (causative) imperfect with vav, first person plural; the causative stem marks the act of "making him fall/throwing him" into the pit.
- 'a.kha.La.te.hu ("she has eaten him", H0398) — qal perfect, third person feminine singular, referring to chai.Yah ra.'Ah ("wild animal", H2416C + H7451A); the perfect form frames this as the fabricated completed event they will report.
- cha.lo.mo.Ta(v) ("his dreams", H2472) — feminine plural construct with third-person suffix; grammatically plural though referring to Joseph's dream-reports collectively.
What the text says
The Hebrew sentence is built as a chain of cohortative-type imperfects joined by vav, following the initial imperative le.Khu: "come, and let us kill him, and let us throw him... and we will say... and let us see." This chain structure (imperative → vav-imperfects → sequential perfect 'a.Mar.nu, "we will say") presents the plan as a rapid sequence of coordinated actions rather than isolated statements, typical of Biblical Hebrew narrative planning speech.
The clause chai.Yah ra.'Ah 'a.kha.La.te.hu ("a wild animal has eaten him") uses the qal perfect for an event that has not yet happened — it is the wording the brothers intend to report as already completed, a rehearsed false statement embedded within the future plan.
The final clause, ve.nir.'Eh mah-yih.Yu chalomotav ("and let us see what his dreams will be"), uses yih.Yu (H1961), a qal imperfect of "to be," pointing to a future outcome — literally "what will his dreams become" — rather than describing the dreams' current content.
Differences between versions
The Hebrew mah-yih.Yu chalomotav ("what his dreams will become") is rendered in the LXX as τί ἒστιν τὰ ἐνύπνια αὐτοῦ ("what his dreams are"), using a present tense rather than the future-oriented Hebrew verb. The Vulgate diverges further with quid illi prosint somnia sua ("what his dreams profit him"), introducing the verb prosum ("to benefit"), a meaning not present in the Hebrew yih.Yu ("to be/become"). Additionally, the Vulgate specifies cisternam veterem ("an old cistern"), while the Hebrew 'a.Chad ha.bo.Rot ("one of the pits") contains no equivalent qualifier of age.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.