Genesis 42:26

Summary

The verse narrates the brothers loading the grain they had obtained onto their donkeys and departing from the place where they had been. It is a simple narrative transition, moving the story from the scene in Egypt back toward the journey home.

Key words

• yis'u ("they lifted", H5375H) — qal verb in narrative form (with the vav prefixed), indicating a sequential action: "and they lifted/loaded."
• shivram ("their grain", H7668) — masculine singular noun in construct form with the suffix "their," meaning "the grain of them," i.e., the grain belonging to the brothers.
• chamoreihem ("their donkeys", H2543) — masculine plural noun in construct form with the suffix "their," meaning "the donkeys of them."
• yelekhu ("they went", H1980G) — qal verb in narrative form, marking the second sequential action: "and they went."
• misham ("from there", H8033G) — adverb combined with the preposition mi ("from", H9006), indicating departure from a specific location already established in the narrative context.

What the text says

The verse consists of two narrative clauses joined by the conjunction va ("and", H9001), each introducing a sequential action typical of Biblical Hebrew storytelling. The first clause, va-yis'u et-shivram al-chamoreihem ("and they lifted their grain onto their donkeys"), uses the direct object marker 'et (H0853) to mark shivram ("their grain", H7668) as the object being lifted. Both shivram and chamoreihem are construct nouns with pronominal suffixes, a common Hebrew way of expressing possession without a separate possessive word — literally "grain-of-them" and "donkeys-of-them."

The second clause, va-yelekhu misham ("and they went from there"), repeats the narrative-vav pattern, showing this as the next sequential event. The adverb misham ("from there", H8033G) does not name the location explicitly in this verse; it refers back to a place already established earlier in the narrative context, a common feature of Hebrew that relies on prior text rather than repeating place names.

The construct chains here (noun + suffix) are grammatically compact in Hebrew but require additional words in English or Spanish translations ("their grain," "su trigo," "el trigo") to convey the same possessive relationship.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders shivram ("their grain", H7668) as τὸν σῖτον ("the grain"), using a participle ἐπιθέντες ("having placed") rather than a finite narrative verb, and ἀπῆλθον ("they went away") for yelekhu ("they went", H1980G), with ἐκεῖθεν ("from there") corresponding to misham (H8033G). The Vulgate similarly uses participial construction (portantes, "carrying") rather than the two sequential finite verbs found in the Hebrew, compressing the action into a single main verb profecti sunt ("they set out"). The Hebrew's paratactic structure (two coordinated finite verbs) differs from both the Greek and Latin, which subordinate the loading action to the departure.