Genesis 48:15

Summary

Jacob blesses Joseph and pronounces a formula naming "the God" (ha'Elohim, H0430G) before whom his fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, identified further as the God who has acted as shepherd toward him from his youth until the present day. The verse is built as one blessing statement followed by a relative-clause description of that God.

Key words

• y.Va.rekh ("he blessed", H1288) — piel verb in narrative form, marking an intensive completed action introduced by the narrative vav: "and he blessed."
• hit.ha.le.Khu ("they walked about", H1980I) — hithpael perfect, third person plural, a reflexive/iterative stem describing repeated or habitual movement, agreeing with the plural subject avotai ("my fathers").
• 'a.vo.Ta ("fathers", H0001G) — feminine plural construct form, though referring to male ancestors; the construct links it to the following suffix "my."
• ro.'Eh ("shepherded", H7462B) — qal active participle, masculine singular, preceded by the definite article ha (H9009), producing a substantival sense: "the one who shepherds/has shepherded."
• 'o.D ("duration", H5750) — construct noun with the suffix "my," forming the phrase "from my duration," i.e., "from my [whole] existence."

What the text says

The sentence opens with two narrative verbs joined by the vav consecutive: va-yVarekh ("and he blessed") and va-yomar ("and he said"), both governed by an implied subject (Jacob) carried from the preceding narrative. The blessing itself takes the form of a relative clause: "ha'Elohim asher hithalekhu avotai lefanav" — "the God before whom my fathers walked" — where the plural verb hithalekhu agrees with the plural noun avotai ("my fathers"), even though the fathers named, Abraham and Isaac, are given afterward in apposition. The suffix on lefanav ("before him," H9023) is third-person singular, referring back to ha'Elohim.

The second designation of God repeats the definite article and noun ha'Elohim and adds a qal participle, ha-ro'eh oti ("the one shepherding me"), which functions almost as a title rather than a finite past-tense verb — the participle form allows an ongoing or characteristic sense rather than a single completed act. The phrase me'odi 'ad hayom hazeh ("from my duration until this day") frames the shepherding as extending across the speaker's whole life up to the moment of speaking.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew names Yosef (H3130G) as the direct object of the blessing ("he blessed Joseph"), while the LXX reads "ηὐλόγησεν αὐτοὺς" ("he blessed them") and the Vulgate reads "benedixitque Jacob filiis Joseph" ("Jacob blessed the sons of Joseph") — both versions shift the object from the singular "Joseph" to a plural referent. In the second title for God, the Hebrew repeats ha'Elohim ("the God"), but the LXX instead uses "ὁ κύριος" ("the Lord") for this second occurrence, and renders ha-ro'eh ("the one shepherding") as "ὁ τρέφων" ("the one feeding/nourishing"), a different verbal image than the Hebrew's shepherding participle.