Genesis 43:14

Summary

Jacob invokes El Shaddai ("God Almighty", H0410G+H7706) to grant his sons compassion before the Egyptian official, so that this man will release both the unnamed brother (Simeon, held captive) and Benjamin. Jacob closes with a resigned statement about his own potential loss of sons.

Key words

• El Shaddai ("God Almighty", H0410G + H7706) — a divine title combining "God" in construct form with the epithet "Almighty," invoked as the subject of the following verb.
• yiTen ("may he give", H5414G) — qal imperfect, expressing a wish or future possibility rather than a completed act; here functions as a jussive/optative, "may he give."
• rachamim ("compassion", H7356B) — masculine plural noun, the object given by God; the plural form in Hebrew does not necessarily indicate multiple compassions but intensifies or generalizes the quality.
• shillach ("he will let go", H7971G) — piel sequential perfect, continuing the wish begun with yiTen; the piel stem carries an intensive/causative sense, "to release, send away."
• shakholti / shakhalti ("I have been bereaved", H7921A) — the same qal perfect verb form appears twice in sequence, both first-person singular, "I have been bereaved, I have been bereaved."

What the text says

The verse opens with the divine title El Shaddai as the grammatical subject of yiTen, a qal imperfect verb that here carries optative force ("may he give") rather than simple future tense. The object given is rachamim, "compassion" (masculine plural), directed lifnei ha-ish ("before the man," using H6440G in construct with the definite article and H0376G). The narrative vav on shillach links this verb to the preceding wish as a continuation of the same hoped-for sequence: first compassion, then release. The piel stem of shillach intensifies the action beyond a simple "going," implying an active sending-away or releasing.

The final clause is built on repetition: the same verb root shakhal ("to be bereaved," H7921A) appears twice in the qal perfect, first-person singular, spelled slightly differently (shakholti / shakhalti) but representing the identical grammatical form and meaning. This doubling of an already-completed-action verb form, without a coordinating structure explaining contrast or progression, produces a repetitive, resigned closing statement — "I have been bereaved, I have been bereaved" — that Hebrew achieves through mere juxtaposition of the same perfect form.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders El Shaddai simply as ho theos mou ("my God"), omitting the "Almighty" title and adding "mou" ("my"), not present in the Hebrew construct phrase. The LXX also translates rachamim ("compassion", H7356B) as charin ("favor/grace"), a related but distinct semantic field. The Vulgate renders El Shaddai as "Deus... omnipotens," preserving the "Almighty" sense, and adds interpretive material ("faciat vobis eum placabilem") not directly present in the Hebrew's simple "give you compassion." For the final doubled verb, the LXX uses ēteknōman, ēteknōman ("I was made childless"), a repetition parallel to the Hebrew doubling, while the Vulgate replaces the doubled construction with a single explanatory clause, "ego autem quasi orbatus absque liberis ero" ("I will be as one bereaved of children"), losing the repetitive structure found in the Hebrew and LXX.