What Does Genesis 43:6 Mean in the King James?
And Israel said, Wherefore dealt ye so ill with me, as to tell the man whether ye had yet a brother?
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The word “tell” carries the sense of making something stand out in the open: the brothers’ disclosure turns a hidden bond into a present risk.
THE MEANING
When something you have said about someone you love returns as a source of risk, the cost lands in the relationship itself. This verse voices the ache of seeing a bond made visible to someone who can use that knowledge. Once spoken, the fact changes what is possible between you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that telling a true thing is automatically harmless: disclosure can alter a relationship and expose someone to consequences.
THE ROOT
לְהַגִּיד
lehaggid
GROWS FROM
נגד
To declare, announce, or make known; related forms can carry the sense of being in front or conspicuous.
“tell” in this verse is lehaggid. In לְהַגִּיד, the root נ־ג־ד appears with its nun assimilated into the doubled gimel. The word’s sense of declaring makes the brothers’ answer more than a private fact: it brings the existence of another brother into view.
ALSO GROWS
maggid: One who declares or makes known.
מַגִּיד
The same root appears in Psalm 19:1, where the firmament “sheweth” God’s handiwork, bringing it into view.
nagid: A leader or ruler; one who stands in front.
נָגִיד
This related form echoes the root’s sense of what is brought forward or made conspicuous, illuminating how disclosure makes a fact stand before others.
וַיֹּאמֶר
vayomer
GROWS FROM
אמר
To say or utter.
The verse opens with Israel speaking, then focuses on what the brothers have said. The repeated speech roots place the strain inside the act of telling: words carry a fact from one relationship into another.
ALSO GROWS
omer: An utterance or saying.
אֹמֶר
It makes explicit that the spoken word is the form the disclosure takes.
imrah: A saying or utterance.
אִמְרָה
This related noun keeps the focus on speech as something given shape and heard by another.
THE PATTERN
Disclosure turns what is hidden into something that can shape relationships and carry consequences.
And they said, Thy servants are twelve brethren, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan; and, behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is not.For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad.Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.THE THREAD
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.The Hebrew verb translated “sheweth” is מַגִּיד (maggid), from the same root נ־ג־ד as לְהַגִּיד, “to tell,” in this verse. Both describe something being made known; here, that disclosure feels like danger, while the psalm’s firmament declares God’s handiwork.
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