Genesis 37:6

Summary

Genesis 37:6 records Joseph's introductory words to his brothers before he recounts his dream. He addresses them collectively with a polite imperative, asking them to listen to "this dream" that he has experienced.

Key words

• shim'u ("hear", H8085G) — qal imperative, masculine plural: a direct command addressed to multiple listeners ("you all").
• na ("please", H4994) — an interjection attached to the imperative, softening the command into a request or entreaty rather than a blunt order.
• ha-chalom ("the dream", H2472) — masculine singular noun with definite article, naming the specific object to be heard.
• ha-zeh ("this", H2088) — demonstrative particle following the article-marked noun, pointing to the dream as a particular, identifiable one ("this dream," not dreams in general).
• chalamti ("I have dreamed", H2492B) — qal perfect, first person singular, marking the dreaming as a completed action prior to the moment of speech.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative construction va-yomer ("and he said", H0559), the standard form that advances the story's sequence of events, followed by 'alei-hem ("to them", H0413 + H9038), identifying the brothers as addressees through the third-person plural suffix. The core of Joseph's speech is built on the imperative shim'u softened by na, producing a request rather than a bare command — a grammatical nuance not always visible in translations that render it simply as "listen" or "hear."

The phrase ha-chalom ha-zeh stacks the definite article on the noun chalom with the demonstrative zeh, a common Hebrew pattern for pointing at a specific, known referent ("this dream" as opposed to any dream). This is followed by the relative clause asher chalamti, where the relative particle asher introduces the qal perfect verb chalamti. The perfect aspect marks the dreaming as a completed event, temporally prior to the speech act — Joseph is reporting something already experienced, not something ongoing.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders chalamti ("I have dreamed") with vidi ("I saw"), shifting the verb from "dreaming" to "seeing," and adds meum ("my"), an explicit possessive not present in the Hebrew text, where possession of the dream is only implied through the first-person verb form. The LXX text given here reads akousate tou toutou ("hear this"), where the noun corresponding to chalom ("dream") does not appear explicitly in this transcription, unlike the Hebrew, which names ha-chalom directly before the demonstrative.