Genesis 44:17

Summary

Joseph refuses Judah's offer that all the brothers become slaves, declaring that only the one in whose possession the cup was found will become his slave. He then dismisses the rest of the brothers to return to their father "in peace."

Key words

• chalilah ("far be it", H2486) — an interjection expressing strong rejection, here intensified by the following infinitive construction "from doing this."
• nimtza' ("it was found", H4672) — niphal perfect, marking the cup's discovery as a completed passive event without naming who found it.
• hu ("he", H1931) — independent personal pronoun resuming the long relative clause about "the man," functioning as a grammatical pivot before the predicate.
• yihyeh ("he will be", H1961) — qal imperfect, expressing a future/resulting state ("he will become a slave") rather than a simple present fact.
• 'alu ("go up", H5927G) — qal imperative plural, a direct command addressed to "you" ('atem, H0859D), marking the shift from Joseph's ruling to his dismissal of the brothers.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative verb va-yomer ("and he said", H0559), introducing Joseph's direct speech without naming him in the Hebrew (the LXX supplies "Ἰωσήφ" explicitly, the Hebrew relies on context). Joseph's refusal is built with chalilah li me'asot zot — "far be it from me from doing this" — where the preposition min (H9006) attached to the infinitive 'asot ("doing", H6213A) expresses separation from the proposed action (that all brothers be enslaved).

The following clause has a fronted, extended subject: ha'ish 'asher nimtsa hagavia' beyado ("the man in whose hand the cup was found"), a construction sometimes called casus pendens, where the long descriptive phrase precedes the main clause and is picked up by the resumptive pronoun hu ("he", H1931). This structure isolates and emphasizes "the man" as the sole referent of the coming judgment, syntactically separating him from "you" ('atem, H0859D) in the next clause. The niphal form nimtza' keeps the finder of the cup unspecified — the text states only that the cup "was found," not by whom.

The closing imperative 'alu leshalom ("go up in peace") combines the verb of movement with the noun shalom ("peace", H7965G), a common formula for safe departure, directed toward "your father" ('avichem, from 'av, H0001G, construct with suffix H9026).

Differences between versions

The LXX renders chalilah li as μή μοι γένοιτο ("may it not happen to me"), and explicitly inserts the name "Ἰωσήφ" as speaker, which the Hebrew leaves implicit. The Vulgate similarly renders chalilah as Absit a me ut sic agam ("far be it from me that I should so act"). For the closing phrase, the Hebrew 'alu leshalom ("go up in peace") is rendered by the LXX as ἀνάβητε μετὰ σωτηρίας ("go up with safety/salvation"), while the Vulgate has abite liberi ("go away free"), introducing the idea of "freedom" not present in the Hebrew noun shalom ("peace").