Genesis 44:23
וַתֹּאמֶר אֶל־עֲבָדֶיךָ אִם־לֹא יֵרֵד אֲחִיכֶם הַקָּטֹן אִתְּכֶם לֹא תֹסִפוּן לִרְאוֹת פָּנָֽי׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וַתֹּ֙אמֶר֙ אֶל־עֲבָדֶ֔יךָ אִם־לֹ֥א יֵרֵ֛ד אֲחִיכֶ֥ם הַקָּטֹ֖ן אִתְּכֶ֑ם לֹ֥א תֹסִפ֖וּן לִרְא֥וֹת פָּנָֽי׃
σὺ δὲ εἶπας τοῖς παισίν σου Ἐὰν μὴ καταβῇ ὁ ἀδελφὸς ὑμῶν ὁ νεώτερος μεθ’ ὑμῶν, οὐ προσθήσεσθε ἔτι ἰδεῖν τὸ πρόσωπόν μου.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Et dixisti servis tuis: Nisi venerit frater vester minimus vobiscum, non videbitis amplius faciem meam.
Pero usted nos dijo: ‘Si su hermano menor no baja con ustedes, no volverán a ver mi rostro’.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y dijiste á tus siervos: Si vuestro hermano menor no descendiere con vosotros, no veáis más mi rostro.
But you said to your servants, ‘ Unless your younger brother comes down with you, you will not see my face again.’
✦ What the text says
Summary
This verse is Judah's report, recounting to Joseph what Joseph himself had earlier said to his brothers: that they would not see his face again unless their youngest brother came down with them to Egypt. It is a quoted conditional statement embedded within Judah's speech.
Key words
- To.mer ("you said", H0559) — qal narrative verb, second person masculine singular, continuing the storyline of Judah's recounting of past events.
- yeRed ("he will come down", H3381) — qal imperfect, expressing an unfulfilled future/conditional action within the "if" clause.
- ha.qaTon ("the young", H6996H) — adjective with definite article, modifying 'achikhem ("your brother") to specify "the younger/youngest one."
- tosiFun ("you will repeat", H3254G) — hiphil (causative) imperfect, second person masculine plural, with a paragoic nun (H9013) added for emphasis, meaning literally "you will not add [to see]."
- paNai ("my face", H6440H) — plural construct noun with first-person suffix, an idiom meaning "my presence" rather than a literal body part.
What the text says
The verse opens with the narrative vav on To.mer ("and you said"), continuing Judah's direct speech to Joseph, in which Judah quotes Joseph's earlier words back to him. The conditional clause is marked by 'im ("if", H0518J) combined with the negation lo' ("not", H3808), producing "if he does not come down" — a standard construction for a negative condition in Biblical Hebrew.
The phrase 'achikhem haqaTon ("your brother, the young one") uses construct plus adjective with a definite article to single out the youngest brother specifically, distinguishing him from other siblings. The apodosis (the consequence) begins again with lo' ("not") followed by tosiFun, a hiphil imperfect literally meaning "you will not add/continue," followed by the infinitive lir'ot ("to see", from ra'ah, H7200G). This verb-plus-infinitive construction is a Hebrew idiom for "you will not do X again" — here, "you will not see my face again." The paragogic nun suffixed to tosiFun adds emphatic weight to the statement, though this nuance of emphasis does not carry over into translation.
The noun paNai ("my face") is grammatically plural (a common feature of this noun in Hebrew) but functions idiomatically to mean "my presence," not "faces" in a literal plural sense.
Differences between versions
The LXX renders tosiFun...lir'ot ("you will not repeat to see") with οὐ προσθήσεσθε ἔτι ἰδεῖν ("you will not add still to see"), closely mirroring the Hebrew idiom. The Vulgate simplifies this to non videbitis amplius ("you will not see anymore"), collapsing the two-verb Hebrew construction into a single verb with an adverb, losing the explicit "adding/repeating" sense present in the Hebrew and LXX.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.