Genesis 39:2

Summary

The verse states that Yehovah was with Joseph, that he became a successful man, and that he was in the house of his Egyptian master. The three clauses are joined by the same narrative verb form, marking three sequential stages of the same situation.

Key words

• va-yehi ("and he was", H1961) — appears three times (positions 2, 7, 11), each time as qal narrative form ("and it happened that…"), producing a chain of three parallel statements rather than one continuous sentence.
• Yehovah ("Yehovah", H3068G) — the divine name functions as the subject of the first va-yehi clause: it is Yehovah who "was with" Joseph.
• 'ish ("a man", H0376G) — masculine singular noun in construct form, here linked to the following participle to describe Joseph's character/status.
• matzliach ("succeeding", H6743B) — hiphil (causative) participle, "one who causes success/prospers"; as a participle it denotes an ongoing state, not a completed action.
• 'adonav ("his masters", H0113) — masculine plural construct noun with the suffix "his"; despite the plural form, it refers to a single human master (the Egyptian), a grammatical plural applied to one person.

What the text says

The Hebrew builds the verse through three repetitions of va-yehi (H1961), each opening a short clause: (1) Yehovah was with Joseph, (2) he was a man of success, (3) he was in the house of his master. This triple structure creates a rhythmic escalation — presence, character, location — rather than a single grammatical sentence with subordinate clauses. The second clause uses 'ish (H0376G) in construct followed by the hiphil participle matzliach (H6743B), literally "a man of succeeding" — a construction that presents success as an ongoing, causative state attached to Joseph, not a single event.

The final clause locates Joseph be-veit 'adonav ha-mitzri — "in the house of his master(s), the Egyptian" — using bet (H1004M) in construct with 'adonav (H0113), a plural noun form with singular meaning, followed by the gentilic ha-mitzri (H4713) identifying the master's origin.

Differences between versions

The LXX uses the single Greek term κύριος both for Yehovah (H3068G, "καὶ ἦν κύριος") and for the human master (H0113, "παρὰ τῷ κυρίῳ τῷ Αἰγυπτίῳ"), collapsing the Hebrew's distinction between the divine name and the ordinary noun for "master." The Vulgate parallels this with Dominus for Yehovah and domini sui for the master, similarly using related terms where the Hebrew employs a proper name versus a common noun.