Genesis 50:25

Summary

Joseph makes the sons of Israel swear an oath, declaring with emphasis that God will indeed attend to them, and instructing that when this happens they must carry his bones up from Egypt. The verse combines a narrative oath-formula with a strongly emphasized prediction and a following instruction.

Key words

• va-yashba' ("he made to swear an oath", H7650) — hiphil causative form: Joseph does not merely swear himself but causes others to swear, framed with the narrative vav that advances the story.
• paqod yifqod ("certainly to visit" + "he will visit", H6485I) — an infinitive absolute paired with the finite imperfect of the same root, a construction that intensifies the verb, here rendered as "surely" or "certainly" attend/visit.
• 'Elohim ("God", H0430G) — grammatically plural noun functioning as the subject of a singular verb (yifqod), the standard pattern for this divine name in the text.
• ha'alitem ("you will bring up", H5927H) — hiphil sequential perfect (vav-consecutive), continuing the sequence of action after the oath-clause, addressed to the sons of Israel as a group (m. pl.).
• 'atzmotai ("my bones", H6106G) — feminine plural construct noun with first-person suffix, the object to be "brought up" from Egypt.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative vav on va-yashba', a hiphil form indicating that Joseph causes the sons of Israel to take an oath, rather than swearing it himself. The content of the oath is introduced by le-mor ("saying", H0559), a common infinitive construct used to mark reported speech.

The core of what Joseph says is built on the infinitive absolute construction paqod yifqod — the root pqd (H6485I) appears twice, first as an infinitive absolute and then as a finite imperfect verb. This doubling is a grammatical device that intensifies or emphasizes the verbal action, commonly rendered in translation as "surely" or "certainly." The subject of yifqod is 'Elohim (H0430G), a morphologically plural noun that here governs a singular verb form, the ordinary pattern for this word when referring to God as a singular subject. The object marked by 'et- (H0853) with the suffix -khem ("you," m. pl.) is the sons of Israel.

The vav on ha'alitem is a sequential (vav-consecutive) perfect, continuing the chain of instructions that follows from the oath: once the visitation occurs, the addressees "will bring up" (hiphil, causative — they cause the bones to be brought up) Joseph's 'atzmotai ("my bones," H6106G, feminine plural construct with 1cs suffix) mi-zeh ("from here," H2088), i.e., away from the location where Joseph is speaking, understood as Egypt.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the emphatic infinitive-absolute construction differently, using ἐν τῇ ἐπισκοπῇ ᾗ ἐπισκέψεται ("in the visitation with which he will visit"), a noun-plus-verb repetition rather than the Hebrew infinitive-plus-finite-verb doubling, though both achieve a similar intensifying effect. The LXX also adds μεθ' ὑμῶν ("with you") at the end, a phrase not present in the Hebrew text as given. The Vulgate text supplied here corresponds to a different portion of the chapter (v. 26) and does not parallel this verse's wording for direct comparison.