Genesis 42:22

Summary

Reuben reminds his brothers that he had warned them not to harm Joseph, that they did not listen to him, and now states that the boy's blood is being "required" or "sought." The verse is Reuben's retrospective accusation after the brothers realize the trouble they are in with Joseph missing.

Key words

• va-ya'an ("he answered", H6030B) — qal narrative verb, marking the next event in the story sequence ("and then he answered").
• he...lo (הֲלוֹא, H9008+H3808) — interrogative particle combined with negation, forming a rhetorical question expecting agreement ("did I not say?").
• techet'u ("you sin", H2398) — qal jussive, expressing the content of a prohibition Reuben claims to have given ("do not sin/let you not sin").
• sh'ma'tem ("you listened", H8085G) — qal perfect, completed action, stating a past fact rather than a command.
• nidrash ("is being required", H1875) — niphal participle, passive/reflexive voice, describing an ongoing state rather than a single completed act; literally "the one being sought/demanded."

What the text says

The sentence opens with the narrative verb va-ya'an ("and he answered", H6030B) followed by the double introduction of speech: the direct object marker 'otam ("them", H0853+H9038) and the infinitive le-'mor ("saying", H0559), a construction repeated twice in this verse to frame two nested quotations — Reuben's present speech and his earlier warning.

Reuben's rhetorical question uses ha-lo' ("did I not...?", H9008+H3808) to introduce 'amarti ("I said", H0559), a qal perfect marking a completed statement in the past. Inside that quoted statement is a second infinitive-marked speech (le-'mor, H0559) containing the prohibition itself: 'al-techet'u ("do not sin", H2398), a jussive form expressing a negative command rather than a simple negation of fact. This contrasts grammatically with lo' shema'tem ("you did not listen", H8085G), a qal perfect stating what actually happened, completed and unchangeable.

The final clause shifts to the niphal participle nidrash ("is being required", H1875), attached to damo ("his blood", H1818+H9023), a construct noun with a pronominal suffix. The niphal (passive/reflexive) form frames the blood not as something someone actively is demanding, but as being in a state of being sought — a grammatical passivity the English glosses cannot fully preserve without the modal insertion of an agent.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders 'amarti ("I said", H0559) with ἐλάλησα ("I spoke"), a near-synonym shift. Where the Hebrew has techet'u ("you sin", H2398), the LXX gives ἀδικήσητε ("you wrong/harm"), a different semantic field than "sin"; the Vulgate's peccare ("to sin") stays closer to the Hebrew root. The Hebrew ve-gam ("and also", H9002+H1571) before "his blood" has no separate equivalent in the LXX, which reads simply καὶ ἰδοὺ ("and behold"). The English BSB turns the passive participle nidrash ("is being required", H1875) into an active modal clause, "we must account for," diverging grammatically from the Hebrew's passive construction.