Genesis 45:13

Summary

Joseph instructs his brothers to report to their father everything about his status in Egypt and to bring their father down to him quickly. The verse is structured as a chain of four sequential commands using the same verb form throughout.

Key words

• hi.gad.Tem ("you will tell", H5046) — hiphil (causative) sequential perfect, 2nd person plural masculine: literally "you will cause to be told," the causative sense of the root meaning "to be conspicuous/tell."
• ke.vo.Di ("my honor/glory", H3519) — construct noun with 1st person suffix; kavod denotes weight, honor, or magnificence, here Joseph's status in Egypt.
• re.'i.Tem ("you saw", H7200G) — qal perfect, 2nd person plural masculine, a simple completed-action verb marking what the brothers directly witnessed, contrasted with what they must report secondhand.
• mi.har.Tem ("you will hurry", H4116A) — piel (intensive) sequential perfect, continuing the chain of instructions with intensified urgency.
• ho.rad.Tem ("you will bring down", H3381) — hiphil (causative) sequential perfect: causing the father to descend, matching the geographic movement from Canaan down to Egypt.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a sequence of four verbs, all in the sequential perfect (vav + perfect) construction, which in narrative Hebrew functions like a chain of commands or future actions following from a preceding directive: hi.gad.Tem ("you will tell"), mi.har.Tem ("you will hurry"), and ho.rad.Tem ("you will bring down"), with re.'i.Tem ("you saw") inserted as a simple qal perfect describing a past, completed action embedded within the report. This grammatical chaining ties the four actions into one continuous instruction: report, then hurry, then bring down.

The object of the report is introduced twice with the direct object marker 'et (H0853): first kol-ke.vo.Di ("all my honor/glory", H3519) be.mitz.Ra.yim ("in Egypt"), and second kol 'a.Sher re.'i.Tem ("all that you have seen"). The construct form kol...ke.vo.Di links "all" tightly to "my honor," meaning the totality of Joseph's status is meant to be communicated, not just isolated details.

The final phrase ho.rad.Tem 'et-'a.Vi He.nah ("you will bring down my father hither") uses the causative hiphil of yarad ("to go down"), echoing the geographic and narrative motif of descending to Egypt found elsewhere in the Joseph narrative, paired with the adverb He.nah ("hither", H2008) specifying the direction as toward Joseph's location.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders ke.vo.Di ("my honor", H3519) as doxan ("glory"), a term with a semantic range including honor, reputation, and glory, corresponding to the Hebrew kavod. The Vulgate translates it as gloriam, similarly matching this range. The Vulgate adds "ad me" ("to me") at the end, an explicit addition not present in the Hebrew's He.nah ("hither"), specifying the destination as Joseph's own person, an interpretive expansion of the plain adverb "here."