Genesis 47:6

Summary

Pharaoh tells Joseph that the land of Egypt is at his father's disposal, instructing him to settle his father and brothers in the best part of the land, specifically the land of Goshen ("Goshen", H1657G). He adds a conditional clause: if capable men are found among them, Joseph is to appoint them as overseers of Pharaoh's livestock.

Key words

• lefaneikha ("before you", H6440G construct + H9021 suffix) — combines the preposition le with the construct noun panim ("face") plus a 2nd person suffix, producing the idiom "at your disposal/before you."
• hi' ("it", H1931) — a feminine personal pronoun resuming 'eretz mitzrayim ("land of Egypt", fem.) in a nominal clause with no verb "to be" required.
• hoshev ("cause to dwell", H3427, hiphil imperative) — the causative stem marks Joseph as the active agent who settles his father, not merely allows him to settle.
• yeshevu ("let them dwell", H3427, qal imperfect) — the same root as hoshev but in the simple (non-causative) stem and imperfect aspect, describing the brothers' own dwelling as an ongoing/future state rather than an imposed action.
• vesamtam ("and you will appoint them", H7760H, sequential perfect) — the vav-consecutive perfect continues the conditional sequence begun with 'im yadata ("if you know", H3045, qal perfect), linking the condition to its resulting instruction.

What the text says

The verse opens with a casus pendens: 'eretz mitzrayim ("land of Egypt") is placed first, then resumed by the pronoun hi' ("it"), producing a verbless nominal clause — "the land of Egypt, before you it (is)." This construction foregrounds the land itself before the instruction follows. The instruction then shifts verbal stems: hoshev, a hiphil imperative, casts Joseph as causing his father to dwell in the best of the land, while yeshevu, a qal imperfect of the same root, describes the brothers dwelling in Goshen without the causative nuance — a grammatical distinction not visible in translation, where both are rendered as forms of "dwell" or "settle."

The final section is a conditional chain: 'im yadata ("if you know," qal perfect) sets the condition, and vesamtam ("and you will appoint them," sequential perfect) supplies the consequence, tied together by the narrative vav that carries the sentence forward as a single continuous instruction rather than two separate commands.

Differences between versions

The LXX (Swete) omits any mention of Goshen and of the phrase found in the Hebrew bemeitav ha'aretz is rendered generally as ἐν τῇ βελτίστῃ γῇ ("in the best land"), collapsing the Hebrew's two-stage instruction (settle in the best land / let them dwell in Goshen) into one clause about the father and brothers only. The Vulgate preserves the Goshen reference ("trade eis terram Gessen"), aligning more closely with the Hebrew's two-part structure. The LXX also opens with ἰδοὺ ("behold"), a word with no corresponding element in the Hebrew text as given.