Genesis 50:16

Summary

Genesis 50:16 reports that Joseph's brothers sent a message to him, invoking an instruction their father had given before he died. The verse is built as a double reported-speech structure, with the brothers' own act framed by the same verb used for their father's original command.

Key words

• va-yetzavu ("and they commanded", H6680) — piel narrative form, plural subject; describes the brothers' action toward Joseph using the same intensive command-verb applied later to the father.
• le'mor ("saying", H0559) — qal infinitive construct, used twice in this verse to introduce direct speech, creating a nested quotation (they said that the father had said).
• tzivvah ("he commanded", H6680) — piel perfect, singular subject; same root as va-yetzavu, now referring specifically to the father's earlier instruction.
• avikha ("your father", H0001 + H9021) — construct noun with 2ms suffix, identifying the source of the original command.
• lifnei mot-o ("before his death", H6440 + H4194 + H9023) — construct chain literally "to the face of his death," marking the temporal point of the father's instruction.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence has a layered structure: the brothers tzavah-verb toward Joseph, introduced by le'mor, and inside that quotation, the father's own tzavah-verb is reported, introduced by a second le'mor. This repetition of the same root (H6680) for both the brothers' communication to Joseph and the father's original instruction is a notable feature of the Hebrew — the text uses one verb, "to command," for two different speech acts, one of which (brothers to Joseph) is grammatically framed as an authoritative directive rather than a simple report.

The double infinitive le'mor... le'mor marks two boundaries of quoted speech, signaling to a Hebrew reader that what follows is a nested citation: the brothers are quoting their father's words, not merely summarizing them.

Differences between versions

The LXX replaces the first va-yetzavu ("they commanded") with παρεγένοντο ("they came/arrived"), a different verb entirely, removing the notion of the brothers issuing a command to Joseph. The Vulgate's mandaverunt ("they ordered/instructed") stays closer to the commanding sense of the Hebrew root H6680. Modern translations (BSB "sent word," RV1909 "enviaron á decir," SBLIBRE "le enviaron este mensaje") shift away from "commanding" language altogether for the brothers' action, rendering it as a message sent rather than an order given, while preserving "commanded" (or an equivalent) for the father's instruction reported inside the quotation.