Genesis 37:7

Summary

Genesis 37:7 narrates Joseph's dream: he and his brothers are binding sheaves in a field, when his own sheaf rises and stands upright while the brothers' sheaves surround it and bow down to it. The verse uses three successive hinneh ("there!", H2009) exclamations to mark the vividness of each dream image as it unfolds.

Key words

• hinneh ("there!", H2009) — interjection repeated three times (words 2, 11, 19), each time introducing a new visual moment in the dream, giving the report an immediate, presentative quality rather than a simple narrated sequence.
• me'allemim ("binding", H0481) — piel participle, masculine plural, describing an ongoing group action ("we were binding"), setting the background scene before the dream's central event occurs.
• qamah ("it arose", H6965B) — qal perfect, third feminine singular, referring to 'alummati ("my sheaf", H0485 + H9020), a completed action: the sheaf's rising is presented as an accomplished fact within the dream.
• nitzavah ("it stood upright", H5324) — niphal perfect, third feminine singular; the niphal form conveys a resulting state (standing firm) rather than the brothers or Joseph causing the sheaf to stand — the sheaf itself is the grammatical subject.
• tishtachaveyna ("they bowed down", H7812) — a verb in narrative form (hishtaphel), third feminine plural, agreeing with alummoteikhem ("your sheaves", H0485 + H9026); the subject bowing is grammatically the sheaves themselves, not the brothers explicitly.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a chain of clauses each introduced by ve-hinneh ("and there!"), a construction that mimics the experience of watching a dream unfold in real time rather than summarizing it afterward. The first hinneh (word 2) sets the scene: "we" ('anachnu, H0587) are binding sheaves in the middle of the field (tokh ha-sadeh, H8432/H7704G). The second hinneh (word 11) shifts to the dream's turning point: Joseph's sheaf ('alummati, "my sheaf") rises (qamah) and stands (nitzavah) — both verbs in the perfect, presenting the rising and standing as completed, stable facts within the vision. The third hinneh (word 19) introduces the brothers' sheaves ('alummoteikhem, "your sheaves") using an imperfect verb (tesubbeinah, "they gathered round," H5437G), suggesting continuous or repeated circling motion, followed by the narrative verb tishtachaveyna ("they bowed down," H7812), which grammatically has the sheaves — not the brothers — as the subject performing the bowing.

Throughout, the grammatical subjects are consistently the sheaves themselves (feminine plural/singular verbs and pronouns agreeing with 'alummim, H0485), not the people who own them. The text keeps the brothers grammatically absent from the actions of rising, standing, and bowing; only their possessive relationship to the sheaves ('alummoteikhem, "your sheaves") links them to the scene.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders me'allemim ("binding") with δεσμεύειν ("to bind"), and translates the triple Hebrew hinneh differently: the first occurrence becomes part of ᾤμην ("I thought/dreamed"), while the second and third are absorbed into simple connective clauses (καὶ ἀνέστη, "and it rose"), losing the repeated presentative marker structure visible in the Hebrew. The Vulgate similarly folds the first hinneh into "putabam" ("I supposed"), and renders the sequence with continuous connectors ("et quasi consurgere... et stare"), smoothing the three-part hinneh rhythm of the Hebrew into a single flowing description.