Genesis 44:5

Summary

The verse is a rhetorical question followed by an accusation: the speaker asks whether the object in question is not the one from which "my master" drinks and by which he practices divination, then declares that the addressees have done wrong. The Hebrew builds the accusation through an emphatic doubled verb form and a closing perfect-tense indictment.

Key words

• lo' ("not", H3808) — combined with the interrogative ha (H9008), it turns the sentence into a rhetorical question expecting a positive answer ("is this not...?").
• zeh ("this", H2088) — demonstrative pronoun standing alone as the subject; the noun it refers to (the object drunk from) is not repeated in the Hebrew clause, only implied by context.
• yishteh ("he drinks", H8354) — qal imperfect, describing a habitual or ongoing action, "he [regularly] drinks."
• nachesh / yenachesh ("surely... practices divination", H5172) — an infinitive absolute (nachesh) paired with a finite piel imperfect (yenachesh) of the same root; this doubling is a Hebrew intensifying construction, emphasizing certainty ("he indeed divines" or "he surely practices divination").
• hare'otem ("you have done evil", H7489A) — hiphil (causative) perfect, second person plural, marking a completed act attributed causatively to the addressees ("you have caused evil / done evil").

What the text says

The verse opens with the interrogative-negative pair ha...lo' attached to the demonstrative zeh, producing a rhetorical question rather than a simple statement: "Is this not the one...?" The relative clause that follows, introduced by 'asher ("that/which", H0834A), is built around the qal imperfect yishteh ("he drinks"), assigning the action to adoni ("my master", H0113 + suffix), followed by the prepositional phrase bo ("in it") referring back to the unnamed object.

The second half of the verse repeats the structure with vehu ("and he") plus the infinitive-absolute-plus-imperfect construction nachesh yenachesh. This doubling of the same root (H5172) is a common Biblical Hebrew device to intensify or confirm the verbal action — here rendered in English versions as "uses for divination" but in the Hebrew syntax carrying more emphatic weight than a single verb form would.

The final clause shifts from question to declaration: hare'otem 'asher 'asitem combines a hiphil perfect ("you have done evil") with a qal perfect of 'asah ("to do", H6213A) inside a relative clause, stacking two completed-action verbs to underline the finality of the accusation.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew and the LXX (οὐ τοῦτό ἐστιν) both use only a demonstrative ("this") without naming the object explicitly. The Vulgate makes this explicit by inserting scyphus, quem furati estis ("the cup, which you stole"), a specification not present in the Hebrew clause itself. The LXX renders the emphatic infinitive-absolute construction nachesh yenachesh with a cognate dative, οἰωνισμῷ οἰωνίζεται ("by divination he divines"), preserving something of the doubling effect, while the Vulgate's augurari solet ("he is accustomed to divine") conveys habitual action but not the same intensifying repetition found in the Hebrew.