Genesis 44:34

Summary

This verse is the closing line of Judah's plea to Joseph, expressing his refusal to return to Jacob without Benjamin. Judah frames his impossibility of return as conditioned by fear of witnessing the calamity that would befall his father.

Key words

• 'eiKh ("how?", H0349A) — interrogative particle opening a rhetorical question that has no real answer; it frames the going-up to the father as inconceivable rather than merely difficult.
• 'e.'e.Leh ("will I go up", H5927G) — qal imperfect, 1st person; the verb for "going up" reflects the geographical framing of travel toward the father as an ascent.
• 'ei.ne.Nu ("not is he", H0369 + suffix) — a negative existential construction with pronominal suffix "his," stating the boy's absence as a simple fact of non-presence, not merely "without him."
• pen ("lest", H6435) — subordinating particle introducing a purpose/fear clause: the reason Judah cannot go up is to avoid a feared outcome.
• 'er.'Eh ("I should look", H7200G) — qal imperfect 1st person, governed by pen; expresses an action Judah wishes to prevent from happening to himself, namely being an eyewitness to suffering.

What the text says

The verse is built on two parallel conditional/purpose structures introduced by ki ("for", H3588A) and pen ("lest", H6435). The first clause poses a rhetorical question with 'eikh ("how?", H0349A) plus the imperfect 'e'eleh ("will I go up", H5927G), which does not request information but asserts impossibility — Judah is not asking how he would travel, but declaring that no way exists for him to do so. The clause ha.Na'ar 'einenu 'itti ("the lad, he is not with me") uses the negative existential 'einenu (H0369) with a suffixed pronoun, a construction that states absence as a bare condition rather than describing a deficiency in comparative terms.

The second half pivots on pen (H6435), which introduces the feared result Judah is trying to avoid: 'er'eh va-ra' ("I should look on the calamity", H7200G + H7451B). The noun ra' ("calamity", H7451B) is qualified by a relative clause with 'asher (H0834A) and the verb yimtza' ("it will find", H4672), which personifies the calamity as something that "finds" the father, rather than something the father merely "experiences." The repeated construct form 'avi ("my father", H0001G + H9020) appears twice, framing both the return and the anticipated suffering around the same figure.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the two clauses similarly but shifts the grammatical subject of "finding": τὰ κακὰ ἃ εὑρήσει τὸν πατέρα μου keeps "the calamities" as subject of "will find," matching the Hebrew's personification of ra' as an agent. The Vulgate instead frames Judah as a passive witness — "testis assistam" ("I would stand as a witness") — where the Hebrew verb 'er'eh ("I should look", H7200G) is rendered through a legal/witness framing not present in the Hebrew verb itself, which simply denotes seeing.