Genesis 50:6

Summary

Pharaoh responds to a request (implied from the preceding narrative) by granting permission: he commands the addressee to go up and bury his father, in accordance with an oath that had been sworn beforehand. The verse consists of Pharaoh's direct speech, introduced by a narrative formula.

Key words

• va-yomer ("and he said", H0559) — qal narrative verb, marking the next event in sequence: Pharaoh's speech act follows directly from what precedes.
• 'aleh ("go up", H5927G) — qal imperative, a direct command with no softening particle, establishing Pharaoh's authoritative tone.
• qevor ("bury", H6912) — second qal imperative, joined to the first by u- ("and", H9002), forming a paired command: "go up and bury."
• hishbi'ekha ("he made you swear", H7650) — hiphil perfect with 2nd-person suffix (H9031); the hiphil stem is causative, meaning the grammatical subject (an unnamed "he," contextually Jacob) caused the addressee to take an oath, rather than the addressee swearing independently.
• ka'asher ("just as", H0834D with prefix H9004) — relative particle with comparative preposition, introducing the clause that measures Pharaoh's permission against a prior sworn commitment.

What the text says

The verse opens with the standard Hebrew narrative chain va-yomer + subject (Par'oh, H6547H), a construction that simply advances the story to the next speech event. Pharaoh's words consist of two paired imperatives, 'aleh and u-qevor, both second-person masculine singular commands in the qal (simple) stem. The direct object of the second imperative is marked by 'et (H0853, untranslated grammatical marker) followed by avikha — "father" (H0001G) in construct form with the pronominal suffix -kha ("your," H9021), producing "your father."

The final clause, introduced by ka'asher, ties Pharaoh's permission to a prior event: hishbi'ekha, a hiphil perfect verb. The hiphil stem is causative, so the verb does not mean "you swore" but "he made you swear" — the grammatical subject is the one who caused the swearing, and the addressee is the object (via suffix -kha, H9031). The perfect aspect marks this oath as a completed action prior to the moment of speech, explaining why Pharaoh frames his permission as fulfillment of an existing obligation rather than a new decision.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew hiphil hishbi'ekha ("he made you swear") identifies the addressee as the one bound by oath, with an unnamed third party as the one who imposed it. The LXX (ὥρκισέν σε, "he put you under oath") and the Vulgate (adjuratus es, "you have been made to swear," passive) preserve this causative structure. The SBLIBRE Spanish translation ("tal como le juraste," "just as you swore to him") reverses this relationship, presenting the addressee as the one who swore directly to the other party, rather than as the one who was caused to swear by him.