Genesis 41:25

Summary

Joseph tells Pharaoh that his dream is singular in meaning — chalom ("dream", H2472) echad ("one", H0259) — and that God has already disclosed to Pharaoh, through the dream, what he is about to do. The verse pairs a nominal clause (dream = one) with a verbal clause reporting a completed act of divine revelation.

Key words

• chalom ("dream of", H2472) — construct noun, grammatically bound to Pharaoh (H6547), producing "the dream of Pharaoh" rather than a generic "a dream."
• echad ("one", H0259) — cardinal number, feminine singular, functioning as predicate: it asserts singularity/unity of meaning for the dream just referred to.
• hu' ("it/he", H1931) — independent personal pronoun resuming the subject chalom Pharaoh, giving the clause its emphatic "is one" structure without a copular verb.
• 'oseh ("is about to do", H6213A) — qal participle, masculine singular, expressing ongoing or imminent action ("the one doing/about to do"), contrasted with the finished action that follows.
• higgid ("he has told", H5046) — hiphil perfect, a causative completed verb: the causing of information to be known, already accomplished at the moment of speaking.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative chain va-yomer ("and he said", H0559) introducing direct speech from Yosef (H3130G) 'el ("to", H0413) Par'oh (H6547H). The first clause, chalom Par'oh echad hu', has no explicit verb "to be"; Hebrew nominal clauses of this kind rely on juxtaposition, with hu' ("it", H1931) marking the predicate link between subject (chalom Par'oh, "the dream of Pharaoh") and predicate (echad, "one"). This construction states equivalence or singularity of meaning rather than describing an action.

The second clause shifts to a verbal structure built around a relative clause functioning as direct object: 'et 'asher ha-'Elohim 'oseh ("that which God is about to do"), marked by the object particle 'et (H0853, untranslated) and the relative 'asher (H0834A). Inside this clause, 'oseh is a participle, denoting action in progress or imminent, describing what ha-'Elohim ("the God", H0430G, plural form used with singular verb agreement) is doing or about to do. The main verb of the sentence, higgid (H5046), is a hiphil perfect — a completed, causative act — placed after its object clause, so the Hebrew word order emphasizes content first ("what God is about to do") before naming the act of disclosure ("he has told"). The construction thus separates the ongoing/future divine action (participle) from the already-completed act of communicating it (perfect verb).

Differences between versions

The Hebrew chalom (H2472) is singular ("the dream"), matched by the LXX τὸ ἐνύπνιον (singular) and the Vulgate somnium (singular). The BSB and SBLIBRE translations render this as plural — "the dreams of Pharaoh are one and the same" / "los dos sueños... significan lo mismo" — reflecting the narrative context of two dreams rather than the grammatical number of this specific clause. The Vulgate also substitutes regis ("of the king") for the Hebrew Par'oh ("Pharaoh") at this point, a lexical variation not present in the Hebrew or the LXX, which retain the proper name.