What Does Genesis 43:20 Mean?
And they said, My lord, we did indeed come down at the first time to buy food.
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 said, O sir, we came indeed down at the first time to buy food:THE KEY
The Hebrew says “descending, we descended,” so their defense carries the first trip in its very grammar.
THE MEANING
The phrase “we came indeed down” repeats the verb for descending, so the first journey is not background; it is the center of their answer now. When need brings you back before what you do not yet understand, your return carries the first arrival with it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a return has no tie to its first arrival dissolves here: the brothers name the earlier descent as the ground of their present appeal.
THE ROOT
יָרֹד יָרַדְנוּ
yārōḏ yāraḏnû
GROWS FROM
ירד
y-r-d
To descend, to go down.
“did indeed come down” in this verse is yārōḏ yāraḏnû. Hebrew pairs the infinitive absolute יָרֹד (yārōḏ, “descending”) with יָרַדְנוּ (yāraḏnû, “we descended”), intensifying the claim through the same verb twice. The English “indeed” preserves the emphasis but conceals that descent itself is repeated; their present defense is linguistically tethered to the earlier journey.
ALSO GROWS
yōrēḏ: One who goes down; descending.
יוֹרֵד
This participle keeps the same root in view as an ongoing movement, echoing the brothers’ emphatic account of their descent.
hōrîḏ: To bring down.
הוֹרִיד
This causative form shows that the same root can describe bringing something down, extending the root’s sense of downward movement.
THE PATTERN
In scripture, movement toward food is repeatedly marked by descent: need sends people down, while life-giving bread comes down to them.
And Joseph's ten brothers went down to buy grain in Egypt.And there was hunger in the land, and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there, for the hunger was heavy in the land.For the bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world.THE THREAD
And Joseph's ten brothers went down to buy grain in Egypt.Genesis 42:3 uses the same Hebrew root ירד (yāraḏ, “descend”) and grain-buying verb שבר (shāḇar, “buy grain”) to describe the brothers’ first arrival. In 43:20, the doubled form of ירד (yāraḏ, “descend”) recalls that descent explicitly, so their present defense is built from the words of the original trip.
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