What Does Genesis 43:27 Mean?
And he asked them about their wholeness, and said, Is your father whole, the old man of whom you spoke? Is he still alive?
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 he asked them of their welfare, and said, Is your father well, the old man of whom ye spake? Is he yet alive?THE KEY
The Hebrew word shalom underlies both the question about the brothers’ welfare and the question about the father’s well-being, joining care for wholeness with the question of whether life remains.
THE MEANING
When you care for someone, the question can hold both their wholeness and the fact of their being alive. Here, the repeated shalom carries concern from the brothers’ welfare to the father’s well-being, before “Is he yet alive?” presses the question to life itself.
THE ROOT
שָׁלוֹם
shalom
GROWS FROM
שׁלם
sh-l-m
To be complete, whole, or intact.
The Hebrew repeats shalom where English says “welfare” and then “well.” Beneath those different expressions, the question keeps returning to the father’s wholeness and well-being.
ALSO GROWS
shalem: Whole, complete.
שָׁלֵם
This form makes the root’s sense of wholeness audible in the question about the father’s state.
shillem: To repay or make good.
שִׁלֵּם
This branch carries the root’s sense of making something complete or restoring what is due.
חַי
chai
GROWS FROM
חיה
ḥ-y-h
To live or be alive.
“still alive” in this verse is chai. The question about the father’s well-being reaches beyond how he fares to whether he is still living. English separates “alive” from “life,” while Hebrew keeps them in one word family.
ALSO GROWS
chayyim: Life, living.
חַיִּים
The shared root links the father’s being alive with life itself.
chayah: To live, remain alive.
חָיָה
This verbal form makes the question’s central concern explicit: whether life continues.
THE PATTERN
Care seeks another’s wholeness by asking how they fare.
And he said to him, Go, I pray you, see whether there is wholeness with your brothers and wholeness with the flocks, and bring me word again. So he sent him out of the valley of Hebron, and he came to Shechem.Ask for the wholeness of Jerusalem; those who love you are at ease.Beloved, concerning all things I pray that your way goes well and that you are whole, just as your living soul goes well.THE THREAD
And he said to him, Go, I pray you, see whether there is wholeness with your brothers and wholeness with the flocks, and bring me word again. So he sent him out of the valley of Hebron, and he came to Shechem.Genesis 37:14 asks whether the brothers and flocks are “well”; the Hebrew uses shalom, the same word beneath the concern for the father here. The shared root reveals a recurring shape of care: asking after another’s wholeness.
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