Genesis 50:23

Summary

Joseph lives to see the third generation of Ephraim's descendants, and the sons of Makir, Manasseh's son, are described as having been born "on Joseph's knees." The verse closes the Joseph narrative by noting his lineage extending into his great-grandchildren.

Key words

• yar' ("he saw", H7200G) — qal narrative verb, simple past action, subject Joseph; introduces what he witnessed before his death.
• bene ("sons of", H1121G) — masculine plural construct noun, used twice (for Ephraim's and for Makir's line), forming genitive chains that link generations.
• shileshim ("a third generation", H8029) — masculine plural noun marking generational depth from Joseph through Ephraim.
• yuledu ("they were born", H3205) — pual perfect, an intensive passive form: the sons are grammatically the object of the birthing action, with no agent specified, only completed result.
• birkei ("knees of", H1290) — feminine dual construct noun; the dual form signals a paired body part (two knees), governed by "of Joseph."

What the text says

The sentence opens with the narrative va-yar ("and he saw", from H7200G), placing Joseph as the observing subject over the whole verse. The object of his sight is expressed through a construct chain: le-Efrayim bene shileshim — literally "to/of Ephraim, sons of a third generation" — meaning descendants counted three generations from Joseph via Ephraim. The particle gam ("also", H1571) then introduces a second, parallel construct chain: bene Makhir ben-Menasheh, "sons of Makir, son of Manasseh," stacking three generational links (Manasseh → Makir → his sons) in a single genitive construction.

The verb yuledu (H3205) is pual perfect, an intensive passive: the sons "were born," with the action's completion emphasized and no explicit agent named. The phrase 'al birkei Yosef ("on the knees of Joseph") uses the dual construct birkei (H1290) to specify the paired body part, tying the birth notice physically to Joseph.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders birkei ("knees", H1290) as "μηρῶν" (thighs) rather than knees, a divergence in the body-part term used for the same scene. The LXX also renders bene shileshim as "παιδία ἕως τρίτης γενεᾶς" ("children until a third generation"), rephrasing the construct-noun structure as a prepositional phrase. The Vulgate text supplied here does not correspond to the Hebrew of this verse; it contains different content (concerning a future promise of return to the land), so no direct comparison with the Hebrew of Genesis 50:23 can be made from the data given. The SBLIBRE Spanish version adds an interpretive clause, "y los reconoció como suyos" ("and recognized them as his own"), which has no corresponding Hebrew word in the verse's word list.