Genesis 40:9

Summary

The chief cupbearer recounts his dream to Joseph, describing it as a vision in which he sees a vine standing before him. The verse marks the transition from narrative summary to direct speech, opening the report of the dream itself.

Key words

• yesapper ("he recounted", H5608A) — piel narrative form, giving the sense of a detailed, deliberate telling rather than a simple mention.
• sar ("chief of", H8269) — construct noun beginning the title "chief of the cupbearers," linking directly to the following word.
• chalomo ("his dream", H2472) — construct noun with pronominal suffix, marking possession ("dream of him").
• hinneh ("there!", H2009) — interjection introducing the dream content with vividness, a hallmark of direct-speech dream reports in this narrative.
• gefen ("a vine", H1612) — singular common noun, the subject of the nominal clause that follows hinneh.

What the text says

The verse is built on two narrative verbs in sequence: vayesapper ("and he recounted") and vayomer ("and he said"), both introduced by the narrative vav (H9001), which chains successive actions in the story. The subject of the first verb is sar hamashqim, a construct phrase — literally "chief of the ones-causing-to-drink" — where hamashqim (H4945A) is a hiphil participle functioning as a noun ("cupbearers"). The object of the recounting, et-chalomo ("his dream"), is marked by the untranslated object marker 'et (H0853) and closed with the possessive suffix -o ("his").

After the shift to direct speech (vayomer lo, "and he said to him"), the cupbearer specifies the setting: bachalomi ("in my dream," with the first-person suffix -i). What follows is a nominal clause, not a verbal one: vehinneh-gefen lefanai — literally "and behold, a vine before me." Hebrew here has no verb "to be"; the interjection hinneh combined with the bare noun gefen creates the vividness of direct perception, as if the vine is presented to the listener in the moment, without a copula. The construct noun panai ("before me", H6440G) with the first-person suffix closes the clause, placing the vine spatially in front of the speaker.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew nominal clause vehinneh-gefen lefanai lacks any verb of being. The LXXSWETE supplies ἢν ("there was"), turning it into a verbal clause. The VULCLEM renders it with videbam ("I was seeing"), adding an explicit verb of perception not present in the Hebrew wording, which instead conveys immediacy through hinneh alone.