Genesis 50:24

Summary

Joseph tells his brothers that although he is about to die, God will certainly act on their behalf: God will bring them up from Egypt to the land promised by oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The verse uses an emphatic verbal construction to stress the certainty of this future divine action.

Key words

• pa.Kod ("certainly ", H6485I) — infinitive absolute placed before the finite verb; it does not add new meaning but intensifies the verb that follows, marking certainty rather than mere possibility.
• yif.Kod ("he will visit", H6485I) — qal imperfect, same root as the infinitive absolute; imperfect aspect points to a future or not-yet-completed action, here "will visit/attend to."
• Met ("[am] about to die", H4191) — qal participle, describing Joseph as one currently "in the state of dying," not a completed death; participles express ongoing or imminent states.
• he.'e.Lah ("he will bring up", H5927H) — hiphil (causative) form, sequential perfect; the causative stem means God causes the people to go up, rather than the people going up themselves; the sequential perfect continues the action begun by yif.Kod.
• nish.Ba' ("he swore", H7650) — niphal perfect, a passive/reflexive verbal stem describing a completed act of swearing, referring back to the oath God previously made.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative va ("and", H9001) attached to i.Yo.mer ("he said", H0559), the standard formula introducing direct speech. Joseph's statement to his brothers has two parts: first, his own condition — 'a.no.Khi ("I", H0595) followed by the participle Met ("about to die", H4191), a construction that presents his death as an ongoing/imminent state rather than a finished event. Second, a statement about God's future action, introduced by the conjunction ve ("and", H9002) and the noun lo.Him ("God", H0430G).

This second clause contains the verse's most distinctive grammatical feature: the infinitive absolute pa.Kod ("certainly ", H6485I) placed immediately before the finite imperfect verb yif.Kod ("he will visit", H6485I), from the same root. This doubling construction in Biblical Hebrew intensifies or underscores the certainty of the action — the verb is not merely stated but emphasized. The action then continues with a sequential perfect, he.'e.Lah ("he will bring up", H5927H), in the hiphil (causative) stem, indicating that God himself causes the brothers to go up out of the land, rather than them ascending on their own initiative. The destination is specified through a relative clause built on nish.Ba' ("he swore", H7650), a niphal perfect referring to a previously completed oath, tying the promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by name.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the doubled Hebrew construction (pa.Kod + yif.Kod) with a single noun-verb pairing, ἐπισκοπῇ...ὁ θεός, and adds λέγων ("saying") not present as a separate word in the Hebrew text given. The Vulgate text provided (Vulclem) diverges further: it lacks the participle "about to die" as phrased in Hebrew and instead frames the statement with "Cumque adjurasset eos atque dixisset" ("And when he had made them swear and said"), plus a command "asportate ossa mea vobiscum" ("carry my bones with you"), which is not present in the Hebrew of this verse as provided.