Genesis 43:6

Summary

Israel confronts his sons with a rhetorical complaint, asking why they caused him harm by revealing to "the man" (the Egyptian official) that they had another brother. The verse is framed as direct speech introduced by the narrative verb "he said."

Key words

• va-Yomer ("and he said", H0559) — qal narrative form marking the next event in the story sequence; introduces direct speech.
• lamah ("why?", H4100) — interrogative pronoun combined with the preposition le ("to"), forming the rhetorical question that opens Israel's complaint.
• hare'otem ("you did harm", H7489A) — hiphil perfect, second person masculine plural; the hiphil (causative) stem indicates the sons caused harm to Israel, not merely experienced it themselves; the perfect aspect marks the action as completed.
• haggid ("telling", H5046) — hiphil infinitive; explains the means or content of the harm — the act of disclosing information to "the man."
• ha'od ("still?", H5750 + H9008) — the interrogative particle ha attached to 'od ("still/yet") forms the embedded question "is there still...?", reproducing the original question the sons were asked by the Egyptian official.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative vav attached to yomer ("he said", H0559), a standard qal form that moves the story forward and introduces Israel's direct speech. The complaint itself is built on two linked clauses. The first, lamah hare'otem li ("why did you do harm to me"), uses the hiphil perfect of ra'a (H7489A), a causative stem that frames the sons' action as actively inflicting harm on their father, rather than simply doing something harmful in a general sense. The pronominal suffix -i ("to me", H9030) attached to the preposition le (H9005) marks Israel as the recipient of that harm.

The second clause, introduced by the preposition le plus the infinitive haggid ("in telling", H5046), specifies how the harm occurred: through disclosure to "the man" (ha'ish, H0376G), a reference to the unnamed Egyptian official from the preceding narrative. The infinitive construction functions adverbially, explaining the means of the harm rather than a separate action.

The final segment embeds a question within the question: ha'od lakhem 'ach ("is there still a brother to/for you?"). The interrogative particle ha (H9008) marks this as a quoted or implied question, using the preposition le (H9005) with the suffix -khem ("to you", H9036) to express possession — literally "is a brother [still] to you?" rather than a verb "to have."

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the second clause as a question ("ei estin hymin adelphos" — "whether there is a brother to you"), matching the Hebrew's embedded interrogative ha'od lakhem 'ach. The Vulgate instead renders it as a statement, "ut indicaretis ei et alium habere vos fratrem" ("that you should indicate to him that you had another brother"), converting the embedded question into indirect discourse without an interrogative form.