Genesis 39:20

Summary

The verse narrates that Joseph's master seized him and placed him in the prison where the king's prisoners were held, ending with the notice that Joseph remained there in that same prison. The two main verbs are chained by narrative vav, marking a rapid sequence of action followed by a resulting state.

Key words

• adonei ("[the] master[s] of", H0113) — plural construct form, though referring to a single master (Potiphar); Biblical Hebrew sometimes uses plural nouns of this type for a singular authority figure.
• yiqqach ("he took", H3947) — qal narrative form (vav-consecutive imperfect), marking the first event in the sequence.
• yittenehu ("he put him", H5414) — qal narrative form with pronominal suffix "him" attached directly to the verb, avoiding a separate object marker.
• asurim ("[were] imprisoned", H0631) — passive qal participle, describing the ongoing state of the king's prisoners rather than a single completed action.
• sohar ("prison", H5470) — appears twice (lines 13 and 26), framing the verse with the same location term at both the middle and the end.

What the text says

The verse opens with two verbs joined by narrative vav: yiqqach ("he took") and yittenehu ("he put him"), both qal forms indicating sequential action — first seizure, then placement. The subject is adonei Yosef ("the master of Joseph"), where adonei (H0113) is grammatically plural in construct form despite referring to one person, a feature attested elsewhere in the text for authority terms.

The location is given twice: first as beit hassohar ("house of the prison", H1004+H5470), then restated at the end of the verse as beit hassohar again, after the clause describing it as meqom asher asirei hammelekh asurim ("the place where the king's prisoners are imprisoned"). Here asurim (H0631) is a passive participle, not a finite past-tense verb, so the Hebrew presents the prisoners' confinement as a standing condition rather than a completed event. The final clause, vayehi sham beveit hassohar ("and he was there in the house of the prison"), uses the narrative form of hayah ("to be", H1961) to mark the resulting state after the action, closing the verse with a repetition of the location phrase that opened it in modified form.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders adonei Yosef as ho kyrios Iōsēph ("the lord of Joseph"), using a singular noun where the Hebrew has the plural-construct adonei. The LXX also translates beit hassohar as to ochyrōma ("the stronghold/fortress"), a term differing from the Hebrew's specific "house of the sohar", while the Vulgate uses carcerem ("prison"), staying closer to the Hebrew sense of a detention facility.