Genesis 40:8

Summary

The two officials tell Joseph that they had a dream and that there is no one to interpret it. Joseph responds with a rhetorical question about interpretations belonging to God, then asks them to recount the dream to him.

Key words

• chalom ("a dream", H2472) — masculine singular noun, the object dreamed, paired with the cognate verb that follows for emphasis.
• chalamnu ("we dreamed", H2492B) — qal perfect, 1st person plural; completed action, forming an internal-object construction with chalom ("a dream we dreamed").
• foter ("[one who] interprets", H6622) — qal participle, masculine singular; describes an ongoing role/agent ("an interpreter"), not a finished action.
• ein ("there is not", H0369) — construct-state negative existential noun, governing oto ("it/him") to produce "there is no one of it," i.e., no one for it.
• pitronim ("interpretations", H6623) — masculine plural noun, the abstract object of the rhetorical question about divine origin.

What the text says

The officials' statement is built as chalom chalamnu — noun plus cognate verb in the same root (H2472/H2492B), a construction that in Hebrew intensifies the claim ("a dream we have dreamed") rather than simply stating "we dreamed." This is followed by u-foter ein oto, where the participle foter ("interpreting one") is negated existentially by ein, literally "an interpreter there-is-not of it." The construct use of ein (H0369) with the direct-object marker oto (H0853 + suffix) produces the sense that no person capable of interpreting is present, rather than describing a completed lack.

Joseph's reply opens with the interrogative particle ha (H9008) attached to the negation lo' (H3808), forming a rhetorical question: ha-lo' le-Elohim pitronim — "is it not to God [that] interpretations [belong]?" The preposition le- attached to Elohim (H0430G, grammatically plural but referring to God) marks possession or source: interpretations belong to or come from God. The imperative safru-na li ("recount, please, to me") uses the piel stem of H5608A, an intensive form suggesting a fuller, detailed recounting rather than a brief mention, softened by the particle na' ("please", H4994).

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the officials' words with Ἐνύπνιον ἴδομεν ("we saw a dream") rather than reproducing the Hebrew's cognate emphatic construction chalom chalamnu. The Vulgate's Somnium vidimus similarly uses "we saw" rather than "we dreamed," diverging from the Hebrew verb chalamnu (H2492B, "to dream"). Where the Hebrew has Joseph ask whether interpretations belong "to God" (le-Elohim), the LXX phrases it as διὰ τοῦ θεοῦ ("through/by God"), and the Vulgate as Dei est ("it is God's"), both preserving the sense of divine origin but through different prepositional constructions than the Hebrew le-.