Genesis 43:19

Summary

Genesis 43:19 narrates that Joseph's brothers approached the man in charge of Joseph's household and spoke to him at the entrance of the house. This continues the narrative sequence of the brothers' second journey to Egypt, describing their initiative to address the household steward before entering.

Key words

• yi.ge.Shu ("they approached", H5066G) — qal verb in narrative form, indicating a completed sequential action ("and then they approached"), marking the brothers as the grammatical subject.
• ha-'Ish ("the man", H0376G) — definite noun referring to a specific individual, identified further by the relative clause that follows.
• 'a.Sher ("who", H0834A) — relative particle introducing a descriptive clause that specifies which man is meant: the one positioned 'al beit Yosef ("over the household of Joseph").
• y.da.be.Ru ("they spoke", H1696G) — piel (intensive) verb in narrative form, describing the brothers' subsequent act of speaking, syntactically parallel to yi.ge.Shu.
• Pe.tach ha-Bayit ("entrance of the house", H6607 + H1004B) — construct noun phrase specifying the location of the speech act, "entrance" governing "the house" in a genitive-like relationship.

What the text says

The verse is built on two sequential narrative verbs joined by the vav-consecutive construction: yi.ge.Shu ("they approached") and y.da.be.Ru ("they spoke"). Both verbs share an unstated plural subject — the brothers, established earlier in the narrative — and both describe actions directed toward the same figure, introduced first as ha-'Ish ("the man") and further specified through the relative clause 'a.Sher 'al beit Yosef ("who [was] over the household of Joseph"). This relative clause uses the preposition 'al ("over") to indicate a position of authority or oversight without naming a specific title.

The second verb, y.da.be.Ru, is in the piel stem, which in Biblical Hebrew often carries an intensive or repetitive nuance compared to the simpler qal stem used for yi.ge.Shu. The location of the speech is given through the construct phrase Pe.tach ha-Bayit ("entrance of the house"), which anchors the action spatially at the threshold rather than inside the dwelling itself.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text does not use a specific title for the man over Joseph's household, describing him only through the relative clause 'a.Sher 'al beit Yosef ("who was over Joseph's house"). The LXX renders this with the article and prepositional phrase τὸν ἐπὶ τοῦ οἴκου Ἰωσήφ ("the one over the house of Joseph"), closely mirroring the Hebrew structure. The Vulgate, however, translates this figure directly as dispensatorem ("steward" or "manager"), introducing an explicit administrative title not present as a single lexical item in the Hebrew text, which instead conveys the role through a descriptive relative clause.