Genesis 50:15

Summary

Genesis 50:15 reports that after the death of their father, Joseph's brothers grew apprehensive about Joseph's possible retaliation for wrongs they had done him. The verse presents their internal reasoning as reported speech, expressing both a conditional fear and an anticipated consequence.

Key words

• lu ("if", H3863) — a conditional particle introducing a hypothetical or feared scenario, here framing the brothers' worry as speculative rather than certain.
• yistemenu ("he will bear a grudge", H7852) — qal imperfect, denoting an ongoing or future state of hostility; the imperfect aspect leaves open whether this grudge is already present or anticipated.
• hashev ("certainly [to repay]", H7725K) — hiphil infinitive absolute, paired with the following finite verb to intensify the action it modifies.
• yashiv ("he will repay", H7725K) — hiphil imperfect, causative form of the same root as hashev; together they form an emphatic doubling construction.
• gamalnu ("we dealt out to", H1580) — qal perfect, marking the brothers' past action as completed, contrasted with the feared future actions of Joseph.

What the text says

The verse divides into two reported statements. First, the brothers "saw" (va-yir'u, H7200G) that their father had died — the verb met (H4191) is a qal perfect, marking the death as a completed fact that triggers their reaction. Second, their speech is introduced by va-yomerU (H0559), followed by two clauses expressing their fear.

The first clause uses lu (H3863) with the imperfect yistemenu (H7852) — a conditional structure that in Hebrew frames a hypothetical: "if Joseph bears a grudge against us." The second clause contains the construction hashev yashiv (H7725K), where the infinitive absolute hashev precedes the finite imperfect yashiv from the same root. This doubling is a grammatical feature that intensifies the verb's certainty or force — the repayment, if it occurs, is presented as thorough or certain rather than merely possible.

The object of this feared repayment is kol-ha-ra'ah ("all the harm", H7451I), specified by the relative clause asher gamalnu oto ("which we dealt out to him", H1580) — a qal perfect verb marking the brothers' past deeds as completed and unambiguous.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the conditional lu with μή ποτε ("lest perhaps"), a phrase expressing apprehension or caution, differing from the more open Hebrew conditional. The LXX also renders the Hebrew infinitive-absolute-plus-imperfect construction (hashev yashiv) with a noun-plus-verb doubling (ἀνταπόδομα ἀνταποδῷ, "repayment he might repay"), achieving a similar emphatic effect through different grammatical means. The Vulgate renders yistemenu as "memor sit injuriae" ("he might be mindful of the injury"), which shifts the sense from "bearing a grudge" toward "remembering an offense," and explicitly adds "timentes" ("fearing"), a word not present as a discrete lexical item in the Hebrew text.