Genesis 46:28

Summary

Jacob sends Judah ahead of the family group to Joseph, with the purpose expressed by the infinitive horot ("to show/direct", H3384B), so that something can be shown "before him" toward Goshen. The verse closes with a narrative clause: they arrived at the land of Goshen.

Key words

• sha.lach ("he sent", H7971) — qal perfect, 3rd masculine singular, marking a completed action: Judah's sending precedes the group's arrival narrated afterward.
• le.ho.rot ("to show", H3384B) — hiphil infinitive construct. The hiphil stem is causative, so the verb does not mean simply "to see" but "to cause to see / to direct," i.e., someone causing a path or place to be shown.
• le.fa.nav ("before him", H6440) — masculine plural noun in construct with a 3rd person suffix, appearing twice (positions 6–7 and 12–14). Literally "to the faces of him," an idiom meaning "ahead of him" or "in his presence." Its repetition creates ambiguity about whose "him" is meant each time.
• va.yya.vo'u ("and they came", H0935) — qal narrative form (vav-consecutive), continuing the story sequence after Judah's mission is stated.
• Go.she.nah / Go.shen (H1657) — the place name appears twice, first with a directional he suffix (H9011, "toward Goshen") in the purpose clause, then in construct with ar.tza ("land of", H0776) in the final clause "the land of Goshen."

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built in two parts joined by the narrative vav. The first part states Judah's sending (shalach) with a purpose clause using the hiphil infinitive le-horot ("to show/direct"), followed again by le-fanav ("before him") and the directional form Goshenah ("toward Goshen"). Because le-fanav recurs (once after "sent," once after "to show"), the referent of "him" is not marked explicitly by gender or name in either occurrence — grammatically it could point back to Jacob (the one being preceded) or forward to Joseph (the one being shown something), a distinction the construct-plus-suffix form alone does not resolve.

The second clause, introduced by the narrative vav on vayyavo'u ("and they came"), shifts to the plural verb for the whole family group and repeats the place name, now with the construct noun ar.tzah ("land of") rather than the directional suffix, marking arrival rather than direction of travel.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the purpose clause with synantēsai ("to meet"), differing from the Hebrew's causative "to show/direct" (le-horot), and names the location Hērōōn polin ("Heroopolis") and gēn Ramessē ("land of Rameses") instead of Goshen. The Vulgate uses nuntiaret ("that he might announce"), a further distinct sense from both the Hebrew infinitive and the LXX's "to meet."