Genesis 39:23

Summary

Genesis 39:23 states that the chief of the prison house did not oversee anything under Joseph's hand, because Yehovah was with him, and whatever he did, Yehovah made succeed. The verse closes the narrative unit describing Joseph's rise within the prison structure by attributing his success directly to divine presence and action.

Key words

• 'ein ("not", H0369) — a construct negator that governs the following noun phrase, producing the sense "there was no [overseer]" rather than a simple verbal negation.
• ro'eh ("seeing", H7200G) — qal participle, masculine singular, describing the warden's habitual/ongoing (non-)action: he was not "one who sees/inspects" anything.
• ba'asher ("in that/because", H0834B + preposition) — combines the preposition be with the relative particle 'asher, functioning here as a causal conjunction, "because."
• 'oseh ("doing", H6213A) — qal participle, masculine singular, describing Joseph's ongoing activity: "that which he was doing."
• matzliach ("making succeed", H6743B) — hiphil (causative) participle, masculine singular, showing Yehovah as the agent causing success, not merely that success "happened."

What the text says

The verse opens with the construct chain 'ein sar beit-hasohar ("there is no chief of the house of the prison"), followed by the participle ro'eh ("seeing/inspecting"). This construction — negator plus participle — presents the warden's non-involvement as a continuous state rather than a single completed action: he was not in the habit of checking anything that was beyado ("in his hand," i.e., under Joseph's control, using yad, H3027H, with 3ms suffix).

The causal clause begins with ba'asher, a combination of the preposition be and the relative 'asher, here functioning as "because." It states that YHWH 'ito ("Yehovah [was] with him"), using a bare prepositional phrase without a verb "to be," typical of Hebrew nominal clauses expressing a state.

The second causal clause, va'asher hu' 'oseh, repeats the relative 'asher with the independent pronoun hu' ("he") placed before the participle 'oseh ("doing"), which places emphasis on the subject: "and that which he himself was doing." The final word, matzliach, is a hiphil participle from the same root as the qal forms elsewhere in Hebrew — the hiphil stem here marks a causative sense: Yehovah is not merely present but actively "causing to succeed."

Differences between versions

The LXX names the warden as ἀρχιδεσμοφύλαξ ("chief prison-keeper") and states he "knew nothing" (γινώσκων οὐθέν) because "all things were through the hand of Joseph" — inserting Joseph's name explicitly, where the Hebrew uses only the pronominal suffix -o ("his hand") without naming him in this verse. The Vulgate similarly renders "nec noverat aliquid" ("he knew nothing"), following the LXX's "not knowing" sense rather than the Hebrew's "not seeing/inspecting" (ro'eh). The Vulgate also renders the final clause as "Dominus... dirigebat" ("the Lord directed"), a governing sense distinct from the Hebrew's causative "making succeed" (matzliach).