Genesis 43:13

Summary

Genesis 43:13 records a set of three direct commands: to take "your brother" (Benjamin), to get up, and to return to "the man" (Joseph, unnamed in the Hebrew here). The verse is part of Jacob's instructions to his sons before their second journey to Egypt.

Key words

• 'achi ("brother", H0251G) — masculine singular noun in construct state, meaning "brother of," bound to the following suffix.
• khem ("your", H9026) — pronominal suffix (2nd person masculine plural) attached to 'achi, producing "your brother," referring collectively to the sons of Jacob.
• qachu ("take", H3947G) — Qal imperative, masculine plural, a direct command addressed to multiple people (the brothers).
• qumu ("arise", H6965B) — Qal imperative, masculine plural, the second of three consecutive commands.
• shuvu ("go back", H7725J) — Qal imperative, masculine plural, completing the sequence of commands; denotes returning to a previous location.

What the text says

The verse is built on a chain of three Qal imperatives — qachu, qumu, shuvu — all masculine plural, addressed to the sons as a group. This stacking of imperatives without intervening connective structure (beyond the simple ve, "and") creates a rapid, urgent sequence of action: take, arise, return. The object of the first command, 'et-'achikhem ("your brother"), is marked by the direct object particle 'et (H0853), which has no independent gloss but signals that "your brother" is the direct object of qachu.

The destination of the return is ha'ish ("the man", H0376G with definite article H9009), a generic term meaning simply "the man," without naming Joseph directly — the referent is understood from the surrounding narrative context of the family's earlier meeting with an Egyptian official. The construct chain 'achikhem ("brother of you-plural") is a single compact noun phrase functioning as the object of the first verb, while the two following imperatives (qumu, shuvu) function together to express onward motion — the notion of "arising" here reinforces the initiation of a journey rather than a separate physical action.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the third imperative shuvu ("go back", H7725J) as κατάβητε ("go down"), rather than a word meaning "return," and merges the second imperative into a participle (ἀναστάντες, "having risen") rather than a separate command — producing two actions instead of three. The Vulgate similarly reduces the sequence to two commands, tollite ("take") and ite ("go"), omitting an explicit equivalent for qumu ("arise") that appears in the Hebrew as its own imperative.