Genesis 42:13

Summary

The brothers respond to Joseph's accusation by explaining their family situation: they are twelve brothers, sons of one man in the land of Canaan, with the youngest currently with their father and one brother no longer present.

Key words

• sheneim 'asar ("two-ten/twelve", H8147/H6240) — the compound cardinal number formed by "two" plus "ten," expressing the total count of brothers as a unit.
• 'achim ("brothers", H0251G) — masculine plural noun standing in apposition to "your servants," clarifying the familial relationship among the twelve.
• beney 'ish 'echad ("sons of one man", H1121A/H0376G/H0259) — a construct chain: "sons of" governs "a man," further specified by "one," emphasizing common paternity.
• ha-qaton ("the young [brother]", H6996H) — definite adjective functioning as a substantive, referring to the youngest brother without repeating the noun "brother."
• 'eynennu ("he is not", H0369/H9043) — a negative existential particle with a third-person pronominal suffix ("his non-existence"), stating the absence of the one brother rather than using a standard negation verb.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with va-yomeru ("and they said", H0559), a narrative verb form that continues the story's sequence of speech acts. The brothers identify themselves using a chain of appositional phrases: "twelve," "your servants," "brothers," "we" ('anachnu, H0587), and "sons of one man in the land of Canaan" — each phrase adding a layer of identification without subordinating clauses, typical of Biblical Hebrew's paratactic style.

The second half of the verse contrasts two brothers' circumstances using parallel construction. Ha-qaton ("the young one") is described as being 'et 'avinu ("with our father", H0854/H0001G) "this day" (ha-yom, H3117L), while ha-'echad ("the one", H0259) is marked by 'eynennu. This construction, using the noun-based negative existential 'eyn with a suffix rather than a simple negated verb, expresses absence as a state rather than negating an action — the text does not specify death, only non-presence.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders 'eynennu as "non est super" ("is not above/present"), preserving the ambiguity of absence found in the Hebrew 'eynennu. The Septuagint text provided is truncated and does not show the full rendering of this clause for comparison. Modern translations vary in interpretive weight: the SBLIBRE renders this phrase as "ya ha muerto" ("has already died"), an interpretive addition not explicit in the Hebrew 'eynennu, which literally states only non-existence/non-presence without specifying death. The BSB's "is no more" and RV1909's "no parece" ("does not appear") stay closer to the Hebrew's ambiguity about the brother's fate.