Genesis 44:29

Summary

Genesis 44:29 records Jacob's words (quoted by Judah) expressing fear that if Benjamin is also taken from him and harm befalls him, Jacob's old age will end in grief, descending to Sheol. The verse is structured as a conditional chain describing a feared future outcome.

Key words

• leqachtem ("you will take", H3947) — qal verb, sequential perfect (vav + perfect), 2nd person masculine plural; continues a chain of future/conditional actions dependent on a preceding condition.
• panai ("my presence", H6440) — masculine plural noun in construct with the 1st person suffix -i ("my"), literally "the faces of me," idiomatically "from my presence."
• karahu ("it will happen to him", H7136) — qal sequential perfect with 3rd person masculine singular suffix -hu ("him"), continuing the same chain of feared consequences.
• sevati ("my gray hair", H7872) — feminine singular noun in construct with suffix -i, a figurative expression for old age.
• she'olah ("toward Sheol", H7585) — common gender noun with the directional he suffix, indicating motion toward Sheol.

What the text says

The verse is built as a sequence of three verbs joined by the narrative/sequential vav: leqachtem ("you will take"), karahu ("it will happen to him"), and horadtem ("you will cause to go down"). This chain, all in the sequential perfect, expresses a series of feared future events tied to a conditional premise (introduced earlier in the speech): if Benjamin is taken, then harm may occur, and the result will be that the speaker's gray hair goes down to Sheol. The construct phrases panai ("my presence") and sevati ("my gray hair") both use the 1st person suffix -i, linking the feared events directly to the speaker's own person and old age. The noun ason ("harm", H0611) is used without further qualification, leaving the nature of the harm unspecified. The final phrase be-ra'ah she'olah combines the preposition be- ("in") with ra'ah ("calamity") and the directional he on she'olah, producing a literal sense of descending "in calamity toward Sheol."

Differences between versions

The LXX adds ἐν τῆ ὁδῷ ("on the way"), a phrase not present in the Hebrew text; the Vulgate similarly inserts "in via" ("on the way"). Where the Hebrew has ason ("harm"), the LXX uses μαλακία ("weakness/illness"), a more specific term than the general Hebrew noun. For be-ra'ah ("in calamity"), the LXX has μετὰ λύπης ("with grief") and the Vulgate "cum moerore" ("with sorrow"), both shifting the sense from "calamity" toward "grief." The Hebrew she'olah ("toward Sheol") is rendered εἰς ᾅδου ("to Hades") in the LXX and "ad inferos" ("to the underworld") in the Vulgate.