Genesis 42:28
וַיֹּאמֶר אֶל־אֶחָיו הוּשַׁב כַּסְפִּי וְגַם הִנֵּה בְאַמְתַּחְתִּי וַיֵּצֵא לִבָּם וַיֶּֽחֶרְדוּ אִישׁ אֶל־אָחִיו לֵאמֹר מַה־זֹּאת עָשָׂה אֱלֹהִים לָֽנוּ׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וַיֹּ֤אמֶר אֶל־אֶחָיו֙ הוּשַׁ֣ב כַּסְפִּ֔י וְגַ֖ם הִנֵּ֣ה בְאַמְתַּחְתִּ֑י וַיֵּצֵ֣א לִבָּ֗ם וַיֶּֽחֶרְד֞וּ אִ֤ישׁ אֶל־אָחִיו֙ לֵאמֹ֔ר מַה־זֹּ֛את עָשָׂ֥ה אֱלֹהִ֖ים לָֽנוּ׃
καὶ εἶπεν τοῖς ἀδελΦοῖς αὐτοῦ Ἀπεδόθη μοι τὸ ἀργύριον, καὶ ἰδοὺ τοῦτο ἐν τῶ μαρσίππῳ μου. καὶ ἐξέστη ἡ καρδία αὐτῶν, καὶ ἐταράχθησαν πρὸς ἀλλήλους λέγοντες Τί τοῦτο ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς ἡμῖν ;
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
dixit fratribus suis: Reddita est mihi pecunia, en habetur in sacco. Et obstupefacti, turbatique, mutuo dixerunt: Quidnam est hoc quod fecit nobis Deus?
Y les dijo a sus hermanos: “¡Me devolvieron mi dinero! ¡Aquí está, dentro de mi costal!” Se les heló la sangre y, temblando de miedo, se dijeron unos a otros: “¿Qué es esto que Dios nos ha hecho?”
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y dijo á sus hermanos: Mi dinero se me ha devuelto, y aun helo aquí en mi saco. Sobresaltóseles entonces el corazón, y espantados dijeron el uno al otro: ¿ Qué es esto que nos ha hecho Dios?
“ My silver has been returned!” he said to his brothers. “ It is here in my sack.” Their hearts sank, and trembling, they turned to one another and said, “ What is this that God has done to us?”
✦ What the text says
Summary
Joseph's brothers discover that the silver has reappeared in a sack, and their reaction is one of fear, expressed through physical trembling and a heart that "goes out." They ask each other what God has done to them.
Key words
- hu.Shav ("it has been returned", H7725G) — hophal perfect, a passive causative form: the silver "was made to return" without any stated agent performing the action. The grammar itself leaves the doer unspecified.
- li.Ba ("heart", H3820A) — singular noun construct with the suffix -m ("their"), literally "their heart" (singular), used collectively for the brothers as a group rather than each individual heart.
- yi.tze' ("it went out", H3318P) — qal narrative verb, continuing the story sequence ("and then..."); paired with "heart" it describes an internal collapse or loss of composure.
- ye.cher.Du ("they trembled", H2729) — qal narrative, plural, marking the external, bodily reaction that follows the internal one.
- 'E.lo.Him ("God", H0430G) — grammatically plural noun, here functioning with a singular predicate ('a.Sah, "he has done") as is standard for this term when referring to the deity.
What the text says
The verse is built as a chain of narrative verbs (va-yiqtol forms) that move the action forward: "he said," "it went out," "they trembled." Joseph's statement to his brothers begins with the hophal form hu.Shav, "it has been returned" — a passive construction that reports the state of the silver without naming who returned it, mirroring the brothers' own ignorance of the cause.
The physical/emotional reaction is described in two steps: first va-yeitze' libbam, "and their heart went out" — using the singular noun lev ("heart") with a plural suffix, a Hebrew idiom treating the group's inner reaction as a single collective faculty — then va-yecherdu, "and they trembled," a plural verb describing the outward, bodily manifestation. The phrase ish 'el-'achiv, "each to his brother" (literally "a man to his brother"), is a Hebrew idiom for reciprocal action ("to one another"), introducing their shared question. The question itself, mah-zot 'asah Elohim lanu, uses the demonstrative zot ("this") to point at the immediate event, asking what Elohim — grammatically plural but taking the singular verb 'asah ("he has done") — has done "to us" (lanu).
Differences between versions
The LXX renders libbam ("their heart") as ἡ καρδία αὐτῶν using ἐξέστη ("was astonished/beside itself"), shifting the image from "going out" to a state of astonishment. The Vulgate uses obstupefacti ("stunned") for the same clause, again departing from the literal "heart went out" toward a description of shock. Both LXX and Vulgate thus interpret the idiom of the heart's movement as an emotional state rather than preserving the Hebrew's image of the heart departing.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.