Genesis 47:30

Summary

Jacob asks Joseph to carry his body out of Egypt after his death and bury it with his ancestors, and Joseph responds that he will do as asked. The Hebrew sentence chains a series of verbs describing lying down (dying), being carried, and being buried, followed by Joseph's brief reply.

Key words

• sha.khav.Ti ("I will lie down", H7901G) — qal sequential perfect, first person; continues the chain of actions Jacob requests, using "lying down" as the verb for death.
• ne.sa.Ta ("you will carry", H5375H) — qal sequential perfect, second person masculine; the same verbal chain shifts to Joseph as subject, marking the action he must perform after Jacob's death.
• ke.var.Ta ("you will bury", H6912) — qal sequential perfect, second person masculine; completes the three-part sequence (lie down / carry / bury) governed by Jacob.
• k.vu.ra.Ta ("grave", H6900) — feminine singular construct with suffix -m ("their"), literally "grave of them," specifying the ancestral burial site.
• 'e.'e.Seh ("I will do", H6213A) — qal imperfect, first person; Joseph's verb differs in aspect from Jacob's sequential perfects, expressing his own future intention rather than continuing Jacob's chain.

What the text says

The verse is built on a chain of three qal sequential perfect verbs — sha.khav.Ti ("I will lie down", H7901G), ne.sa.Ta ("you will carry", H5375H), and ke.var.Ta ("you will bury", H6912) — linked by the narrative vav (H9001). This grammatical form lets one verb's time reference carry forward into the next, so all three actions are understood as a single continuous sequence: Jacob's death, then Joseph carrying him from Egypt, then burying him. The subject shifts from Jacob (first person, "I will lie down") to Joseph (second person, "you will carry," "you will bury") without needing a separate connector to mark that shift, since the sequential perfect chain does this work grammatically.

The phrase bi-k.vu.ra.Tam ("in their grave", H6900 + H9028) uses a construct noun with a third-person plural suffix, pointing to a burial site belonging to unnamed ancestors ('a.vo.Tai, "my ancestors", H0001G, mentioned earlier in the verse). The narrative then shifts with va.yo.Mar ("and he said", H0559) introducing Joseph's reply, where 'e.'e.Seh ("I will do", H6213A) is a qal imperfect rather than a sequential perfect — grammatically marking Joseph's own future action as a fresh statement rather than a continuation of Jacob's requested chain. The construct phrase ki-d.va.Re.kha ("according to the word of you", H1697G + H9021) closes Joseph's response, tying his action explicitly to Jacob's spoken request.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders mi-Mitz.Ra.yim ("from Egypt", H4714G) as "de terra hac" ("from this land"), avoiding repetition of "Egypt" by name, while the Hebrew and LXX (ἐξ Αἰγύπτου) both name Egypt directly. The Vulgate also expands ba-k.vu.ra.Tam ("in their grave") to "in sepulchro majorum meorum" ("in the tomb of my elders"), specifying "elders" where the Hebrew suffix simply says "their" without naming who "they" are beyond the earlier "ancestors."