What Does Genesis 44:13 Mean?
Then they tore their garments, and each man loaded his donkey, and they turned back to the city.
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
Then they rent their clothes, and laded every man his ass, and returned to the city.THE KEY
Grief tears their clothing open, while the root of “returned” shows every brother turning back together.
THE MEANING
When a path turns back, what remains unresolved comes with you. Here, shared distress is visible in the torn clothes as the brothers return together.
THE ROOT
וַיָּשֻׁבוּ
wayyashuvu
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
shuv
to turn, return, or turn back
“turned back” in this verse is wayyashuvu. The verb carries the motion of turning back, so the brothers reverse the direction of their journey together. Related words from this root can name a return or a turning away; the verse makes the direction clear by showing where they go.
ALSO GROWS
teshuvah: return, turning back
תְּשׁוּבָה
It makes the return in the verse part of a wider root-family of turning back.
meshubah: turning away, backsliding
מְשׁוּבָה
It shows that the root describes a turn whose direction depends on where it leads.
וַיִּקְרְעוּ
wayyiqreʿu
GROWS FROM
קָרַע
qaraʿ
to tear or rend
“tore” in this verse is wayyiqreʿu. The same root can name the act of tearing, a tear as a thing, and the state of being torn. Their grief takes visible form in the clothing they rip.
ALSO GROWS
qeraʿ: a tear, rent, or split
קֶרַע
The noun names the rupture that the brothers make in their garments.
qārûaʿ: torn, split
קָרוּעַ
This related form describes the torn condition left by the action.
THE PATTERN
Torn garments make an inward rupture visible on the body.
And Reuben turned back to the pit, and behold, Joseph was not in the pit, and he tore his clothes.Then Job rose up, and tore his robe, and shaved his head, and fell to the ground, and bowed down.But when the sent ones, Barnabas and Paul, heard of it, they tore their garments and leapt into the crowd, crying out,THE THREAD
And Reuben turned back to the pit, and behold, Joseph was not in the pit, and he tore his clothes.Reuben’s return and torn clothes use the same Hebrew roots, shuv (שׁוּב), “turn back,” and qaraʿ (קָרַע), “tear,” that frame this verse. The brothers’ actions echo an earlier moment when a brother returns to find Joseph absent; now the whole group tears their clothes and turns back.
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