Genesis 43:25
וַיָּכִינוּ אֶת־הַמִּנְחָה עַד־בּוֹא יוֹסֵף בַּֽצָּהֳרָיִם כִּי שָֽׁמְעוּ כִּי־שָׁם יֹאכְלוּ לָֽחֶם׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וַיָּכִ֙ינוּ֙ אֶת־הַמִּנְחָ֔ה עַד־בּ֥וֹא יוֹסֵ֖ף בַּֽצָּהֳרָ֑יִם כִּ֣י שָֽׁמְע֔וּ כִּי־שָׁ֖ם יֹ֥אכְלוּ לָֽחֶם׃
ἠτοίμασαν δὲ τὰ δῶρα ἕως τοῦ ἐλθεῖν Ἰωσὴφ μεσημβρίᾳ· ἤκουσαν γὰρ ὅτι ἐκεῖ μέλλει ἀριστᾷν.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Illi vero parabant munera, donec ingrederetur Joseph meridie: audierant enim quod ibi comesturi essent panem.
Como ellos ya se habían enterado de que iban a comer allí, prepararon los regalos para cuando José llegara al mediodía.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y ellos prepararon el presente entretanto que venía José al medio día, porque habían oído que allí habían de comer pan.
Since the brothers had been told that they were going to eat a meal there, they prepared their gift for Joseph ’s arrival at noon.
✦ What the text says
Summary
The brothers prepare the gift intended for Joseph, timing its readiness for his arrival at noon, because they had received word that a meal would be eaten there. The verse explains the brothers' actions as a response to information they had obtained beforehand.
Key words
- va-yakhinu ("and they prepared", H3559A) — hiphil (causative) verb in the narrative chain, indicating the brothers caused the gift to be made ready, not merely that it existed.
- minchah ("gift", H4503H) — feminine singular noun with the definite article (ha-minchah), marking it as the specific present already introduced earlier in the narrative.
- tzohorayim ("noons", H6672A) — dual-form noun for "noon," a grammatical dual common in Hebrew time-words, referring to the midday period.
- ki...ki ("for... that", H3588A, appearing twice) — the first ki introduces the causal clause ("because"), the second ki introduces the reported content of what was heard ("that").
- yo'khelu ("they will eat", H0398) — qal imperfect, denoting an action not yet completed at the time of hearing, consistent with a report about a future event.
What the text says
The verse opens with a narrative vav attached to yakhinu, continuing the sequence of actions from the preceding narrative. The hiphil stem of yakhinu marks the preparation as deliberate and caused by the subject (the brothers), rather than a simple statement that the gift "was ready." The object et-ha-minchah uses the direct object marker 'et (H0853, untranslated) together with the definite article, pointing back to the specific gift already mentioned in the story.
The temporal clause 'ad-bo' Yosef ba-tzohorayim uses the infinitive bo' ("to come") governed by the preposition 'ad ("until"), a common Hebrew construction for expressing "until X happens," followed by the dual noun tzohorayim for the midday timeframe.
The final clause is introduced by a double ki: the first functions causally ("because/for"), explaining the motivation behind the preparation, and the second introduces the reported speech content the brothers had heard, namely that they would eat lechem ("food/bread", H3899H) there. The verb yo'khelu is an imperfect, denoting an action understood as future or ongoing relative to the reported hearing (sham'u, a qal perfect indicating the hearing was already complete).
Differences between versions
The LXX renders minchah as dōra ("gifts," plural) where the Hebrew has a singular minchah. The LXX also translates yo'khelu lechem ("they will eat bread/food") as mellei aristan ("he is about to dine"), shifting the subject from plural "they" to singular, matching it with Joseph rather than the brothers. The Vulgate's comesturi essent panem ("they were going to eat bread") preserves the plural subject and the reference to panem ("bread"), closer to the Hebrew lechem.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.