Genesis 49:22

Summary

Genesis 49:22 opens Jacob's blessing on Joseph with a doubled phrase built on ben ("son of") and the participle porat ("fruit-bearer"), first placed near ayin ("spring" or "eye") and then followed by a clause stating that banot ("daughters") tza'adah ("stepped/marched") alei shur ("over a wall"). The verse is grammatically compact and its imagery is debated because several words carry more than one possible sense.

Key words

• ben ("son of", H1121H) — masculine singular construct noun, repeated twice to open two parallel clauses, each requiring a following noun/participle to complete the construct phrase.
• porat ("fruit-bearer", H6509) — qal participle, feminine singular, appearing twice. The participle is grammatically feminine even though it stands in construct with the masculine ben, a mismatch the data does not resolve.
• ayin ("a spring", H5869M) — feminine singular noun; the same root elsewhere denotes "eye," so the term carries an inherent double possible meaning between water source and visual organ.
• banot ("daughters", H1323G) — feminine plural noun, the grammatical subject of the following verb.
• tza'adah ("she will climb" / "she stepped", H6805) — qal perfect, third person feminine singular, agreeing with banot as a collective/plural feminine subject; the perfect aspect marks a completed action rather than an ongoing one.

What the text says

The verse is built on two parallel construct chains: ben porat Yosef ("son of fruit-bearing, Joseph") and ben porat alei ayin ("son of fruit-bearing at/by a spring"). Both times, ben stands in construct with the feminine participle porat, meaning the phrase functions as a fixed poetic unit rather than a standard noun-adjective agreement; the data provided shows no separate masculine form used instead. The second half of the verse introduces a new subject, banot ("daughters"), and predicates of it the qal perfect verb tza'adah ("she stepped/marched"), followed by alei shur ("over a wall"). Because tza'adah is a perfect form, the Hebrew grammatically presents this as a completed action ("stepped/marched"), not an ongoing one, even though several translations render it as more general "climb/extend."

Differences between versions

The LXX diverges sharply from the Hebrew structure: instead of porat ("fruit-bearer") it uses ηὐξημένος ("increased/grown"), and instead of the banot ... alei shur clause (daughters stepping over a wall) it reads "my zealous... my youngest son" — a different subject and image entirely, with no equivalent of banot or shur. The Vulgate follows the Hebrew more closely on this point, translating banot literally as filiae ("daughters") who "discurrerunt super murum" ("ran over the wall"), preserving the plural feminine subject. Several modern translations (BSB, RV1909, SBLIBRE) instead render banot as "branches" and tza'adah with present-tense verbs ("scale," "trepan," "se extienden"), an interpretive shift away from both the literal noun "daughters" and the completed-action force of the Hebrew perfect.