What Does Genesis 43:17 Mean?
And the man did as Joseph said, and the man brought the men into Joseph's house.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And the man did as Joseph bade; and the man brought the men into Joseph’s house.THE KEY
The men are “caused to come” into the house of one whose name means “he adds,” placing arrival and addition in the same frame.
THE MEANING
You can be brought into a place before you know what it means. Here, the Hebrew verb behind “brought” is a causative form of “come”: the man moves the visitors and makes them arrive. Their destination bears Joseph’s name, associated with “he adds,” though the verse leaves the addition unspoken.
THE ROOT
וַיָּבֵא
wayyāvēʾ
GROWS FROM
בוא
Come, enter, arrive; in a causative form, bring or cause to come.
“brought” in this verse is wayyāvēʾ. English separates “come” from “bring,” but this verb is built from the root for coming: the man causes the men to come. The word holds their movement and their arrival together.
ALSO GROWS
bāʾ: Came or entered.
בָּא
The root names arrival itself, the movement the man causes in this verse.
hēvîʾ: Brought or caused someone to arrive.
הֵבִיא
This causative form makes explicit the link between bringing someone and their coming.
māvōʾ: An entrance or way in.
מָבוֹא
This branch carries the same root from arrival into the threshold through which someone enters.
יוֹסֵף
Yōsēf
GROWS FROM
יסף
Add, increase, do again.
Joseph’s name is associated with yasaf, “to add,” as its naming explanation makes clear in Genesis 30:24. His name sits at the destination of this verse, even as the verse leaves what will be added unstated.
ALSO GROWS
yāsaf: To add or increase.
יָסַף
This verb supplies the root sense carried in Joseph’s name.
yōsēf: He adds; also the name Joseph.
יוֹסֵף
The name marks the house’s owner with the idea of addition.
THE PATTERN
A bringing carries someone across a threshold into a destination they do not reach alone.
And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from Adam, he built into a woman, and brought her to Adam.And I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession. I am the LORD.And if I go and make ready a place for you, I come again and take you to myself, so that where I am, you also may be.THE THREAD
And she called his name Joseph, may he add, and said, The LORD shall add to me another son.Rachel’s naming words make the root in Joseph’s name explicit: “The LORD shall add.” In this verse, the men arrive at Joseph’s house, so their destination carries the same language of addition.
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