What Does Genesis 46:33 Mean?

And it shall come to pass, when Pharaoh calls you and says, What is your work?

Genesis 46:33 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

And it shall come to pass, when Pharaoh shall call you, and shall say, What is your occupation?

THE KEY

The Hebrew asks, “What are your works?”, so occupation carries the texture of what a person does.

THE MEANING

When authority asks what fills your days, your work comes into view as a practice you carry out. The verse makes that doing something that can be named aloud.

THE ROOT

מַעֲשֵׂיכֶם

maʿaseikhem

GROWS FROM

עשה

to do, make, accomplish

The word translated “occupation” is literally “your works,” from ⁨עשה⁩ (asah), “to do” or “make.” English gives the question the feel of a job category; the Hebrew also lets you hear work as the doing itself, visible in a person’s practice.

ALSO GROWS

asah: to do, make

עָשָׂה

This is the verb beneath “your works”: occupation grows from what someone does.

maʿaseh: work, deed, act

מַעֲשֶׂה

This singular form shares the root and holds together work and deed, the action and what is done.

THE PATTERN

Work becomes a visible part of how a person is described.

And she again bore his brother Abel. And Abel was a shepherd of sheep, but Cain was one who served the ground.

Genesis 4:2 · SDVAbel and Cain are described through the work they do.

Now Moses shepherded the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to the mountain of God, to Horeb.

Exodus 3:1 · SDVMoses’s work as a keeper of the flock is named through his daily practice.

And because he was of the same craft, he stayed with them and worked, for by their craft they were tentmakers.

Acts 18:3 · SDVThe verse identifies Paul, Aquila, and Priscilla through the craft they share.

THE THREAD

And Pharaoh said to his brothers, What is your work? And they said to Pharaoh, Your servants are shepherds, we and also our fathers.

Genesis 47:3 · SDV

This is the brothers’ answer to Pharaoh’s question: they name their work as “shepherds.” Their words “both we, and also our fathers” show that this practice reaches across generations.

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