Genesis 44:25

Summary

This verse reports speech within speech: the brothers, in their address to Joseph, quote what their father said to them earlier — a command to return to Egypt and buy food. It is a single short sentence embedded in a longer narrated retelling.

Key words

• va-yomer — from amar ("he said", H0559), qal narrative form with the vav prefix, marking the next event in the reported sequence: "and he said."
• avinu — "father" (H0001G) in construct with the suffix nu ("our", H9025), producing "our father," identifying the speaker of the embedded quotation.
• shuvu — "go back" (H7725J), qal imperative masculine plural, a direct command addressed to more than one person (the brothers).
• shivru-lanu — "buy" (H7666), qal imperative masculine plural, combined with the preposition la ("for", H9005) plus suffix nu ("us", H9035), giving "buy for us."
• me'at-okhel — me'at ("a little of", H4592) in construct with okhel ("food", H0400), literally "a little of food," i.e., a small quantity of food.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is compact: a narrative verb va-yomer ("and he said") followed immediately by the subject avinu ("our father"), then the quoted speech itself, which consists of two paired imperatives — shuvu ("go back") and shivru-lanu ("buy for us") — followed by the object phrase me'at-okhel ("a little of food"). The double imperative construction places two commands back-to-back without a conjunction, giving the father's instruction a terse, urgent rhythm: return, then buy. The construct phrase me'at-okhel ("a little of food") uses the noun me'at in construct state, which in Biblical Hebrew grammar indicates a limited or small quantity rather than a large or complete provision — the same construction pattern as "father of X" seen in avinu.

The verse is part of a longer speech attributed to Judah (or one of the brothers) recounting to Joseph what their father Jacob had said earlier in the narrative. This creates a layered structure: the current speaker quotes the father's own imperative speech verbatim, preserving the grammatical person and command form as originally spoken.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders me'at-okhel ("a little of food," H4592 + H0400) as μικρὰ βρώματα, "small [amounts of] foods," using a plural noun where the Hebrew has a singular collective noun okhel. The Vulgate translates the same phrase as parum tritici, "a little of wheat," specifying "wheat" where the Hebrew okhel is a general term for "food" without specifying grain type. The Hebrew shuvu shivru-lanu ("go back, buy for us") appears as two separate imperatives, which the LXX (βαδίσατε πάλιν, ἀγοράσατε) and Vulgate (Revertimini, et emite) both preserve as two distinct commands, though the Vulgate adds the conjunction et ("and") not present as a separate word between the two Hebrew imperatives.