Genesis 48:9

Summary

Joseph tells his father Jacob that the two boys present are the sons God gave him in this place. Jacob then asks Joseph to bring them closer so he can bless them.

Key words

• banai ("my sons", H1121A) — masculine plural construct noun with 1st-person suffix, identifying the boys as Joseph's own offspring before Jacob names their relation to God.
• natan ("he has given", H5414G) — qal perfect verb, marking a completed action: God's giving of the sons is presented as an accomplished fact, not ongoing.
• Elohim ("God", H0430G) — masculine plural noun (used with singular verbal agreement here), the subject who performed the giving.
• qacheim ("fetch them", H3947J) — qal imperative with pronominal suffix "them," a direct command form addressed to Joseph.
• avarakhem ("I may bless them", H1288) — piel imperfect with prefixed vav, expressing purpose or result following the imperative ("so that I may bless them"), in the intensive piel stem associated with pronouncing a blessing.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative construction va-yomer ("and he said", H0559) introducing direct speech from Joseph to avi ("father", H0001G), a construct noun marked with the possessive suffix "his" referring to Jacob. Joseph's statement places banai ("my sons") in first position for emphasis, followed by the pronoun hem ("they", H1992), forming a nominal sentence: "my sons — they [are]" rather than a verbal one, since Biblical Hebrew often omits "to be" in the present tense. The relative clause asher natan li Elohim ba-zeh ("whom God has given to me in this") uses the qal perfect natan to present the sons as already, completely given, with ba-zeh ("in this", H2088) indicating the location without further specification beyond "this place."

The second half of the verse repeats va-yomer to introduce Jacob's reply, though the Hebrew text does not name the speaker directly — the subject must be inferred from context as Jacob. The imperative qacheim ("fetch them") carries the object suffix "them" directly attached to the verb, followed by the particle na ("please", H4994) softening the command. The clause concludes with va-avarakhem ("so I may bless them"), where the piel imperfect verb, prefixed with the conjunction va, expresses the purpose of the request: bringing the sons closer so that the blessing can be performed.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text does not explicitly name Jacob as the speaker of the second statement (va-yomer, "and he said"); the subject is understood from context. The LXX makes this explicit by inserting "Ἰακώβ" ("Jacob") as the subject of the second speech, resolving the ambiguity present in the Hebrew. The Vulgate, like the Hebrew, leaves the second speaker unnamed, using "Respondit" and "inquit" without a proper noun. The LXX also renders ba-zeh ("in this", H2088) as "ἐνταῦθα" ("here"), matching the Hebrew's spatial sense, while the Vulgate reads "in hoc loco" ("in this place"), an interpretive expansion of the same phrase.