Genesis 42:30

Summary

This verse reports the speech of Joseph's brothers to Jacob, recounting how the Egyptian official ("the lord of the land") had spoken harshly to them and treated them as if they were spies of the country. It is a retrospective, reported-speech summary of the earlier encounter in Egypt.

Key words

• Di.ber ("he spoke", H1696G) — piel perfect, indicating a completed, intensive act of speaking; sets up the harsh tone described later.
• 'a.do.Nei ("lord(s) of", H0113) — masculine plural construct form used honorifically for a single ruler, "lord of the land," linking to ha.'A.retz ("the land").
• ka.Shot ("harsh", H7186) — feminine plural adjective, agreeing with an implied plural sense of manner (harsh things/harshly), describing how the speech was delivered.
• i.yi.Ten ("he made/gave", H5414I) — qal narrative form (vav-consecutive), continuing the narrative chain "and then he made/treated..."
• m.ra.ge.Lim ("spying out", H7270) — piel participle, masculine plural, "those doing the act of spying," used with ki ("like", H9004) to form a comparison: "like spies."

What the text says

The verse has two main clauses joined by the narrative vav on i.yi.Ten ("and he made/treated"). The first clause, Di.ber ha.'Ish 'a.do.Nei ha.'A.retz 'i.Ta.nu ka.Shot, literally reads "The man, lord of the land, spoke with us harsh things." The subject ha.'Ish ("the man") is immediately re-identified by the construct phrase 'a.do.Nei ha.'A.retz ("lord of the land"), a title rather than a proper name, showing that the brothers still do not know Joseph's identity and refer to him only by his official position in Egypt.

The adjective ka.Shot is feminine plural, which in Hebrew often functions adverbially with a noun understood ("harsh things" or "harshly"), modifying the manner of Di.ber. The second clause uses the qal narrative verb i.yi.Ten with the direct object marker 'o.Ta.nu ("us") followed by the comparative ki + m.ra.ge.Lim ("like spies"), and then a second direct object marker 'et-ha.'A.retz ("the land") governed by the participle m.ra.ge.Lim itself, since participles can take their own objects. This creates a compact syntactic structure: "he treated us as spies of the land," where "spies" is a verbal noun (participle) rather than a static title, emphasizing the ongoing accusation of an action ("those spying out") rather than a fixed occupation.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders i.yi.Ten 'o.Ta.nu ("he made/treated us") as ἔθετο ἡμᾶς ἐν φυλακῇ ("he put us in custody"), adding a detail of imprisonment not explicit in the Hebrew verb H5414I ("to give/make/treat"). The Vulgate's putavit nos exploratores esse ("he thought us to be spies") interprets the Hebrew comparative ki + participle as an internal judgment ("he thought"), while the Hebrew simply states an action of treatment ("he made/treated us like spies") without specifying it as an internal opinion.