Genesis 44:18

Summary

Judah approaches Joseph and asks permission for his servant to speak a word directly to him, requesting that Joseph's anger not be kindled against him, since Joseph holds a status comparable to Pharaoh. The verse functions as the formal opening of Judah's plea in the following speech.

Key words

• va-yiggash ("and he drew near", H5066) — qal narrative verb (vav-consecutive) marking the next event in sequence; establishes Judah's physical approach as the scene's initiating action.
• bi adoni ("pardon me, my lord", H0994 + H0113) — an interjection followed by a construct noun with 1st-person suffix; this fixed formula introduces a respectful, urgent request before a superior.
• yedabber-na ("may he speak, please", H1696 + H4994) — piel imperfect with the particle na ("please"), giving the verb an intensive and polite volitional nuance rather than a flat future ("he will speak").
• ve-al-yichar appekha ("and let your anger not burn", H2734 + H0639) — qal jussive negated by al, expressing a direct wish/request rather than a simple negation of fact; ap ("anger/nose", H0639) is in construct with the 2nd-person suffix "your".
• kamokha ke-Far'oh ("as you, as Pharaoh", H3644 + H6547) — two parallel comparative prepositions stacked together, syntactically emphasizing the equivalence being drawn between the addressee's status and Pharaoh's.

What the text says

The verse opens with a vav-consecutive chain (va-yiggash... va-yomer, "and he drew near... and he said") typical of Hebrew narrative sequencing, moving the story forward through two successive actions: approach, then speech. Judah's actual words begin with the interjection bi ("pardon me", H0994) attached to adoni ("my lord", H0113), a conventional opening formula of deferential address that has no single-word English equivalent — it signals both a request for indulgence and acknowledgment of the addressee's superior rank.

The core request uses yedabber-na, a piel imperfect verb reinforced by the particle na (H4994), producing a polite volitional sense ("may he please speak") rather than a simple future statement. The subject of this verb is grammatically third person ("your servant," referring to Judah himself in the diplomatic third-person self-reference common in formal Hebrew speech), even though Judah is the speaker — a feature the English glosses preserve through "your servant" rather than "I."

The jussive construction ve-al-yichar appekha ("and let your anger not burn") expresses a wish using negated jussive rather than indicative negation, distinguishing a request ("please do not become angry") from a factual denial. The final clause stacks two comparative prepositions, kamokha ("as you") and ke-Far'oh ("as Pharaoh"), both built on the root for "like/as" (H3644), creating an explicit parallel between the addressee's standing and Pharaoh's without a linking verb — Hebrew commonly omits "to be" in such nominal comparisons.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the closing comparison as "σὺ εἶ μετὰ Φαραώ" ("you are with/after Pharaoh"), using a different preposition (μετὰ) than a direct equivalence; the Vulgate similarly reads "tu es enim post Pharaonem" ("you are after Pharaoh"), suggesting a sense of rank succession rather than the Hebrew's direct comparative "as Pharaoh" (ke-Far'oh). The Hebrew's two-fold repetition kamokha ke-Far'oh is compressed into a single comparative clause in both LXX and Vulgate.