Genesis 49:23

Summary

The verse describes hostile action taken against a figure (Joseph, per the surrounding blessing) by archers: they showed bitterness toward him, shot at him, and harbored hostility against him. The subject performing these three actions — "masters of arrows," i.e., archers — is placed at the very end of the sentence.

Key words

• yemararuhu ("they showed bitterness to him", H4843) — piel (intensive) verb with narrative vav and 3ms pronominal suffix hu ("him", H9033); the piel stem intensifies the root idea of bitterness, making it an act done to someone rather than a mere internal state.
• varobbu ("they shot", H7232) — qal (simple) verb in sequential perfect form, continuing the narrative chain begun by the previous verb without introducing a new syntactic break.
• yistemu ("they bear a grudge", H7852) — qal narrative verb, again with the suffix hu ("him", H9033) attached, marking the same object as the first verb.
• ba'alei ("masters of", H1167K) — masculine plural construct noun, grammatically binding to the following noun to form the phrase "masters of arrows."
• chitzim ("arrows", H2671) — masculine plural absolute noun, completing the construct chain and identifying the weapon associated with the subject.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a chain of three verbs — yemararuhu, varobbu, yistemuhu — all governed by narrative or sequential vav, meaning they are read as a continuous sequence of actions happening one after another to the same object, "him" (hu, H9033), attached as a suffix to the first and third verbs. Only after this three-part verbal sequence does the subject appear: ba'alei chitzim, "masters of arrows," a construct-noun phrase identifying the agents as archers. This word order — verbs first, subject last — is a feature the Hebrew syntax allows but that translations must reorder, since English and other target languages typically require the subject before the verbs describing its actions.

The construct phrase ba'alei chitzim literally means "possessors/masters of arrows" rather than using a single word for "archer"; the construct state (ba'alei, H1167K) links directly to chitzim ("arrows", H2671) to produce this descriptive title for the agents performing the hostile action.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the sequence differently, using participles ("plotting," diabouleuomenoi) and a single main verb "they reviled" (eloidoroun), followed by "and they were hostile to him, lords of arrows" (eneichon autō kyrioi toxeumatōn) — collapsing the three Hebrew verbs into two Greek clauses and rephrasing yemararuhu as deliberation-based reviling rather than "showing bitterness."

The Vulgate renders the three Hebrew verbs as "exasperaverunt" (they exasperated), "jurgati sunt" (they quarreled), and "invideruntque" (and they envied), translating yistemu ("bear a grudge", H7852) as envy (invidere) rather than hostility, and it renders chitzim ("arrows", H2671) as "jacula" (javelins/darts) rather than arrows specifically.