Genesis 45:15
וַיְנַשֵּׁק לְכָל־אֶחָיו וַיֵּבְךְּ עֲלֵיהֶם וְאַחֲרֵי כֵן דִּבְּרוּ אֶחָיו אִתּֽוֹ׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וַיְנַשֵּׁ֥ק לְכָל־אֶחָ֖יו וַיֵּ֣בְךְּ עֲלֵיהֶ֑ם וְאַ֣חֲרֵי כֵ֔ן דִּבְּר֥וּ אֶחָ֖יו אִתּֽוֹ׃
καὶ καταφιλήσας πάντας τοὺς ἀδελφοὺς αὐτοῦ ἔκλαυσεν ἐπ’ αὐτοῖς, καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα ἐλάλησαν οἱ ἀδελφοὶ αὐτοῦ πρὸς αὐτόν.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Osculatusque est Joseph omnes fratres suos, et ploravit super singulos: post quæ ausi sunt loqui ad eum.
Después José besó a todos sus hermanos y lloró con ellos. Sólo entonces sus hermanos se atrevieron a hablar con él.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y besó á todos sus hermanos, y lloró sobre ellos: y después sus hermanos hablaron con él.
Joseph kissed each of his brothers as he wept over them. And afterward his brothers talked with him. Pharaoh Invites Jacob to Egypt
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse narrates that Joseph kissed all his brothers and wept over them, and only after this did his brothers speak with him. The Hebrew marks a temporal sequence: physical demonstration first, verbal exchange second.
Key words
- yenashek ("he kissed", H5401A) — piel stem, giving an intensive nuance to the act of kissing; narrative form continuing the story's main line.
- 'echav ("his brothers", H0251G) — masculine plural noun in construct state with the pronominal suffix -o ("his"), appearing twice in the verse (once as object of the kiss, once as subject of the speaking).
- yevk ("he wept", H1058) — qal (simple) stem, narrative form, describing Joseph's weeping as a plain, non-intensified action, in contrast with the piel verbs surrounding it.
- 'acharey ken ("after thus/afterward", H0310A + H3651C) — a two-word adverbial phrase marking the temporal boundary between the two halves of the verse.
- dibberu ("they spoke", H1696G) — piel perfect, third person plural, marking completed action; the brothers as grammatical subject.
What the text says
The verse is built as two narrative clauses joined by va ("and", H9001) — yenashek ("he kissed") and yevk ("he wept") — both governed by Joseph as implied subject, followed by a shift marked by ve'acharey ken ("and after this"). This phrase functions as a hinge separating the nonverbal action (kissing, weeping) from the verbal one (dibberu, "they spoke"). The construct phrase lekhol-'echav ("to all of his brothers") in the kissing clause and 'echav ("his brothers") as bare subject in the speaking clause both carry the same construct-plus-suffix structure, but their syntactic roles differ: object of the kiss versus subject of the speech.
The verb yevk uses the qal (simple) stem, contrasting with the piel (intensive) forms of yenashek and dibberu. The Hebrew text does not itself intensify the weeping through verb stem, though this grammatical detail is not visible in translation. The preposition 'alei ("over", H5921A) with the suffix hem ("them") indicates Joseph weeping "over" his brothers rather than simply "for" or "with" them.
Differences between versions
The Vulgate renders 'alehem ("over them") as "super singulos" ("over each one"), an expansion not present in the Hebrew plural suffix, which simply means "them" collectively. Additionally, where the Hebrew states plainly dibberu ("they spoke", H1696G), the Vulgate reads "ausi sunt loqui" ("they dared to speak"), introducing a nuance of hesitation or courage not expressed by the Hebrew perfect verb. The SBLIBRE Spanish translation follows this same interpretive expansion ("se atrevieron a hablar," "they dared to speak"), while the RV1909 and BSB render the clause more literally as "spoke" or "talked."
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.