Genesis 45:16
וְהַקֹּל נִשְׁמַע בֵּית פַּרְעֹה לֵאמֹר בָּאוּ אֲחֵי יוֹסֵף וַיִּיטַב בְּעֵינֵי פַרְעֹה וּבְעֵינֵי עֲבָדָֽיו׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וְהַקֹּ֣ל נִשְׁמַ֗ע בֵּ֤ית פַּרְעֹה֙ לֵאמֹ֔ר בָּ֖אוּ אֲחֵ֣י יוֹסֵ֑ף וַיִּיטַב֙ בְּעֵינֵ֣י פַרְעֹ֔ה וּבְעֵינֵ֖י עֲבָדָֽיו׃
Καὶ διεβοήθη ἡ φωνὴ εἰς τὸν οἶκον Φαραὼ λέγοντες Ἥκασιν οἱ ἀδελφοὶ ἸωσήΦ· ἐχάρη δὲ Φαραὼ καὶ ἡ θεραπεία αὐτοῦ.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Auditumque est, et celebri sermone vulgatum in aula regis: Venerunt fratres Joseph: et gavisus est Pharao, atque omnis familia ejus.
Cuando la noticia de que los hermanos de José habían llegado se escuchó en el palacio, el faraón y sus funcionarios se alegraron mucho.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y oyóse la noticia en la casa de Faraón, diciendo: Los hermanos de José han venido. Y plugo en los ojos de Faraón y de sus siervos.
When the news reached Pharaoh ’s house that Joseph ’s brothers had come, Pharaoh and his servants were pleased.
✦ What the text says
Summary
The report that Joseph's brothers had arrived reaches Pharaoh's household, and the news pleases both Pharaoh and his officials. The verse structures the event in two movements: the hearing of the report, then the favorable reaction to it.
Key words
- nish.Ma' ("it was heard", H8085G) — niphal perfect: the passive/reflexive form indicates the sound was heard (no explicit agent named), completed action.
- le.Mor ("saying", H0559) — qal infinitive introduced by the preposition le, functioning to introduce the content of what was heard, similar to a colon before reported speech.
- Ba.'u ("they have come", H0935G) — qal perfect, third person plural, the actual content of the report: the brothers' arrival as a completed fact.
- i.yi.Tav ("it was good", H3190) — qal form with narrative vav (H9001), continuing the story sequence ("and then it was good"), describing the resulting state in Pharaoh's perception.
- 'ei.Nei ("eyes of", H5869I) — feminine dual construct, used idiomatically in the phrase "in the eyes of," meaning in the sight/judgment of someone.
What the text says
The verse opens with ve.ha.Kol nish.Ma' — "and the sound was heard" — using a niphal (passive-type) verb, so the text does not specify who told Pharaoh; the report simply "was heard" reaching beit Par'oh ("[the] house of Pharaoh", construct). The infinitive le.Mor ("saying") introduces the content of that report as direct quotation: ba'u 'achei Yosef — "the brothers of Joseph have come" — a qal perfect stating a completed arrival.
The second half shifts with the narrative vav on i.yi.Tav ("and it was good"), a common Hebrew idiom built on the construct phrase be'einei ("in the eyes of") plus the person — literally "and it was good in the eyes of Pharaoh and in the eyes of his servants." This construction expresses a favorable reaction in terms of what appears good "in the eyes of" a subject, an idiom that does not translate literally into a single English or Spanish verb of emotion.
Differences between versions
The LXX renders the passive Hebrew construction with διεβοήθη ἡ φωνὴ ("the voice/report was spread abroad"), a comparable passive image but with an active verb of spreading rather than simple "being heard." Where the Hebrew idiom is "it was good in the eyes of Pharaoh and in the eyes of his servants," the LXX uses ἐχάρη ("rejoiced"), an emotional verb, and groups Pharaoh's officials under ἡ θεραπεία αὐτοῦ ("his court/attendants") rather than repeating the "eyes of" construct twice as the Hebrew does. The Vulgate similarly renders the idiom as gavisus est ("he rejoiced"), collapsing the Hebrew's twofold "eyes of" phrasing into a single verb of joy applied to Pharaoh and omnis familia ejus ("his whole household").
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.