Genesis 37:24

Summary

The verse narrates two consecutive actions — the brothers taking Joseph and throwing him into a pit — followed by a descriptive clause specifying that the pit was empty, lacking water. The syntax shifts from narrative action to a static description of the pit's condition.

Key words

• va-yyiqqaḥuhu ("and they took him", H3947) — qal verb with narrative vav, marking sequential past action; the pronominal suffix "him" is attached directly to the verb.
• va-yyashlikhu ("and they threw", H7993) — hiphil (causative) verb with narrative vav, continuing the sequence; hiphil stem indicates they caused him to be cast, rather than a simple action.
• ha-borah ("toward the pit", H0953A + H9011) — noun with definite article and directional he suffix, indicating motion toward the pit as the endpoint of the throwing.
• req ("empty", H7386) — adjective describing ha-bor ("the pit", H0953A); introduces the descriptive clause that breaks from the narrative chain.
• ein bo mayim ("there was no water in it") — ein (H0369) functions as a construct negator ("there is not"), combined with the prepositional phrase bo ("in it") and mayim ("water", H4325G) to state the pit's lack of water.

What the text says

The verse divides into two grammatical units. The first half uses two verbs joined by narrative vav — va-yyiqqaḥuhu ("and they took him") and va-yyashlikhu ("and they threw") — both third-person plural, continuing the sequential storytelling pattern typical of Hebrew narrative prose. The object suffixes -hu and oto (direct object marker + suffix) both refer back to the same person being acted upon, without repeating a proper noun. The phrase ha-borah, with its directional he suffix, specifies the pit as the destination of the throwing.

The second half of the verse, introduced by ve-ha-bor ("and the pit"), shifts from narrative action to a nominal/descriptive clause: req ("empty") functions as a predicate adjective describing the pit's state, not a further action. This is reinforced by the following clause, ein bo mayim, which uses the existential negator ein rather than a finite verb, a common Hebrew construction for stating the absence of something. The grammar therefore presents the emptiness of the pit as a circumstantial observation appended to the main narrative sequence, rather than as a further event in the chain of actions.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders ha-borah as εἰς τὸν λάκκον ("into the pit"), omitting the directional force explicit in the Hebrew he suffix, though the meaning of destination is preserved through the preposition εἰς. The Vulgate specifies "cisternam veterem" ("an old cistern"), adding the adjective "old," which has no corresponding word in the Hebrew text, LXX, or the word-by-word data provided.