Genesis 49:11

אֹסְרִי לַגֶּפֶן עִירוֹ וְלַשֹּׂרֵקָה בְּנִי אֲתֹנוֹ כִּבֵּס בַּיַּיִן לְבֻשׁוֹ וּבְדַם־עֲנָבִים סוּתֽוֹ׃

✦ Hebrew interlinear

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✦ The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

אֹסְרִ֤י לַגֶּ֙פֶן֙ עִיר֔וֹ וְלַשֹּׂרֵקָ֖ה בְּנִ֣י אֲתֹנ֑וֹ כִּבֵּ֤ס בַּיַּ֙יִן֙ לְבֻשׁ֔וֹ וּבְדַם־עֲנָבִ֖ים סוּתֽוֹ׃

Greek (Septuagint)

δεσμεύων πρὸς ἄμπελον τὸν πῶλον αὐτοῦ, καὶ τῇ ἕλικι τὸν πῶλον τῆς ὄνου αὐτοῦ· πλυνεῖ ἐν οἴνῳ τὴν στολὴν αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐν σταφυλῆς σταφυλῆς τὴν περιβολὴν αὐτοῦ.

Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0

Latin (Vulgate)

Ligans ad vineam pullum suum, et ad vitem, o fili mi, asinam suam, lavabit in vino stolam suam et in sanguine uvæ pallium suum.

Spanish

Amarrará su burro a la vid, y la cría de su burra a la mejor cepa; lavará su ropa en vino, sus vestiduras en la sangre de las uvas.

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

Atando á la vid su pollino, y á la cepa el hijo de su asna, lavó en el vino su vestido, y en la sangre de uvas su manto:

English

He ties his donkey to the vine, his colt to the choicest branch. He washes his garments in wine, his robes in the blood of grapes.

✦ What the text says

Summary

Genesis 49:11 presents two parallel poetic lines built on construct chains: a figure ties his donkey to a vine, and washes his garments in wine. The verse uses paired terms — two words for "vine," two words for "donkey," and two liquid images (wine and "blood of grapes") — to construct tight synonymous parallelism.

Key words

'o.se.Ri ("binding", H0631): qal participle, construct form — presents the action as an ongoing description rather than a single finished event, functioning almost as a title ("the one who binds").
so.re.Kah ("choice vine", H8321B): a specific term for a select vine variety, set in parallel with the more general Ge.fen ("vine", H1612).
'a.to.N ("donkey", H0860): feminine construct noun with the suffix o ("his"), joined to be.Ni ("young one of", H1121H) to form "the young one of his she-donkey" — a phrase distinct from i.r ("donkey", H5895), a separate masculine term used earlier in the same line.
ki.Bes ("he will wash", H3526H): piel perfect form — grammatically marks a completed action, though the supplied gloss and several translations render it as present or future.
su.t ("robe", H5497): construct noun with possessive suffix, paired with le.vu.Sh ("clothing", H3830) to complete the verse's second parallel image.

What the text says

The verse splits into two parallel halves. The first — 'o.se.Ri la.Ge.fen i.r-o ve.la.so.re.Kah be.Ni 'a.to.n-o — reads "binding to the vine his donkey, and to the choice-vine the young one of his she-donkey." Each noun appears in a construct chain with a possessive suffix o ("his"), producing tight correspondence: Ge.fen / so.re.Kah (vine / choice vine) and i.r-o / be.Ni 'a.to.n-o (his donkey / the young one of his she-donkey) — two distinct donkey-terms placed side by side, one general and one specifying offspring of a female donkey.

The second half — ki.Bes ba.Ya.yin le.vu.sh-o u.ve.dam- 'a.na.Vim su.t-o — reads "he washed in the wine his clothing, and in the blood of grapes his robe." The verb ki.Bes is perfect and governs both parallel objects, le.vu.sh-o and su.t-o, each linked to its own liquid image: Ya.yin ("wine", H3196) and dam- 'a.na.Vim ("blood of grapes", H1818 + H6025), the latter functioning as a poetic restatement of wine rather than a separate substance.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate inserts an address, "o fili mi" ("o my son"), between "ad vitem" and "asinam suam," with no corresponding element among the Hebrew words listed. The LXX renders both i.r-o and be.Ni 'a.to.n-o with the single term πῶλον ("colt"), collapsing the distinction the Hebrew draws between the general donkey-term and the "young of the she-donkey" phrase. The LXX also renders *dam-

This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.