Genesis 43:22

Summary

The brothers tell Joseph's steward that they brought additional silver with them to purchase food, and that they do not know who placed the (previous) silver back into their sacks. The verse combines a statement of present action with a declaration of ignorance about a past event.

Key words

• Khesef ("silver", H3701) — masculine singular noun, repeated twice in the verse (once as kaspenu, "our silver"), anchoring the verse's theme of money.
• hoRadnu ("we have brought down", H3381) — Hiphil (causative) perfect, 1st person plural: the causative stem indicates the brothers actively caused the silver to be brought down (to Egypt), not merely that it arrived.
• yaDa'nu ("we know", H3045) — Qal perfect, 1st person plural, negated by lo' ("not", H3808), forming the phrase "we did not know" — a completed state of ignorance up to the moment of speaking.
• sam ("did he put", H7760) — Qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular, following the interrogative mi ("who", H4310): together they form the embedded question "who put."
• 'amtechoteinu ("our sacks", H0572) — feminine plural noun in construct with the 1st person plural suffix -nu ("our"), specifying the location where the silver was found.

What the text says

The verse divides into two clauses joined without an explicit conjunction marking contrast, though the sense moves from an action (bringing silver) to a state (not knowing). The first clause, ve-khesef 'acher hoRadnu ve-yadeinu li-shbor 'okhel, uses the Hiphil perfect hoRadnu ("we have brought down") to describe the brothers' deliberate transport of "other silver" (khesef 'acher, H3701 + H0312) "in our hand" (be-yadeinu, construct noun + suffix), followed by the infinitive li-shbor ("to buy", H7666) expressing purpose — food acquisition is the stated goal of bringing the new silver.

The second clause, lo' yada'nu mi-sam kaspenu be-'amtechoteinu, embeds a full question ("who put our silver in our sacks") inside a negated declarative statement ("we did not know"). The interrogative mi (H4310) plus the Qal perfect sam (H7760) form the subordinate question, while kaspenu repeats the noun khesef now with the 1st person plural suffix, explicitly marking it as "our silver" — distinguishing it from the "other silver" (khesef 'acher) just mentioned. The repeated possessive suffixes (-nu) on yadeinu, kaspenu, and 'amtechoteinu reinforce the brothers' collective voice throughout the sentence.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders hoRadnu ("we have brought down") with ἠνέγκαμεν ("we brought/carried"), omitting the causative/directional nuance of "down" present in the Hebrew Hiphil. The Vulgate similarly uses attulimus ("we have brought"), also without the directional sense. The Vulgate additionally paraphrases li-shbor 'okhel ("to buy food") as ut emamus quæ nobis necessaria sunt ("that we may buy what is necessary for us"), expanding beyond the Hebrew's simple reference to "food" ('okhel, H0400).