Genesis 48:21

Bible in Basic English (1941)

Then Israel said to Joseph, Now my death is near; but God will be with you, guiding you back to the land of your fathers.

📖 Grammatical Analysis

Original Text

וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יִשְׂרָאֵל֙ אֶל־יוֹסֵ֔ף הִנֵּ֥ה אָנֹכִ֖י מֵ֑ת וְהָיָ֤ה אֱלֹהִים֙ עִמָּכֶ֔ם וְהֵשִׁ֣יב אֶתְכֶ֔ם אֶל־אֶ֖רֶץ אֲבֹתֵיכֶֽם

Transliteration

And wayyōʾmer yiśrāʾēl to-yôsēp̄ hinnēh ʾānōkî mēt and wĕhāyāh ʾĕlōhîm with ʿimmākem and wĕhēšîb ʾetkem to-ʾereṣ ʾăbōtêkem

Grammar Details

• *wayyōʾmer*: waw-consecutive + Qal imperfect, 3rd masculine singular - and he said
• *yiśrāʾēl*: proper noun, masculine singular - Israel
• *yôsēp̄*: proper noun, masculine singular - Joseph
• *hinnēh*: demonstrative particle - behold
• *ʾānōkî*: 1st person singular pronoun - I
• *mēt*: Qal participle, masculine singular - dying
• *wĕhāyāh*: conjunction + Qal perfect, 3rd masculine singular - and will be
• *ʾĕlōhîm*: noun, masculine plural - God
• *ʿimmākem*: preposition + 2nd person masculine plural suffix - with you
• *wĕhēšîb*: conjunction + Hiphil perfect, 3rd masculine singular - and will bring back
• *ʾetkem*: direct object marker + 2nd person masculine plural suffix - you
• *ʾereṣ*: noun, feminine singular construct - land of
• *ʾăbōtêkem*: noun, masculine plural construct + 2nd person masculine plural suffix - your fathers

Word Meanings

• *hinnēh*: behold/look/here
• *ʾānōkî mēt*: I am dying/about to die/will die
• *wĕhāyāh*: and will be/shall be/and may be
• *ʾĕlōhîm*: God/divine being (grammatically plural form used for singular deity)
• *wĕhēšîb*: and will bring back/return/restore
• *ʾereṣ ʾăbōtêkem*: land of your fathers/ancestors/forefathers

Referenced Verses

• Gen 46:4 : 4 I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will see that you come back again, and at your death Joseph will put his hands on your eyes.
• Gen 50:24 : 24 Then Joseph said to his brothers, The time of my death has come; but God will keep you in mind and take you out of this land into the land which he gave by his oath to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.
• Gen 26:3 : 3 Keep in this land, and I will be with you and give you my blessing; for to you and to your seed will I give all these lands, giving effect to the oath which I made to your father Abraham;
• Gen 28:15 : 15 And truly, I will be with you, and will keep you wherever you go, guiding you back again to this land; and I will not give you up till I have done what I have said to you.
• Gen 37:1 : 1 Now Jacob was living in the land where his father had made a place for himself, in the land of Canaan.
• Gen 12:5 : 5 And Abram took Sarai, his wife, and Lot, his brother's son, and all their goods and the servants which they had got in Haran, and they went out to go to the land of Canaan.
• Gen 15:14 : 14 But I will be the judge of that nation whose servants they are, and they will come out from among them with great wealth.
• Deut 1:1-9 : 1 These are the words which Moses said to all Israel on the far side of Jordan, in the waste land in the Arabah opposite Suph, between Paran on the one side, and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab on the other. 2 It is eleven days' journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea. 3 Now in the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses gave to the children of Israel all the orders which the Lord had given him for them; 4 After he had overcome Sihon, king of the Amorites, ruling in Heshbon, and Og, king of Bashan, ruling in Ashtaroth, at Edrei: 5 On the far side of Jordan in the land of Moab, Moses gave the people this law, saying, 6 The Lord our God said to us in Horeb, You have been long enough in this mountain: 7 Make a move now, and go on your way into the hill-country of the Amorites and the places near it, in the Arabah and the hill-country and in the lowlands and in the South and by the seaside, all the land of the Canaanites, and Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates. 8 See, all the land is before you: go in and take for yourselves the land which the Lord gave by an oath to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to their seed after them. 9 At that time I said to you, I am not able to undertake the care of you by myself; 10 The Lord your God has given you increase, and now you are like the stars of heaven in number. 11 May the Lord, the God of your fathers, make you a thousand times greater in number than you are, and give you his blessing as he has said! 12 How is it possible for me by myself to be responsible for you, and undertake the weight of all your troubles and your arguments? 13 Take for yourselves men who are wise, far-seeing, and respected among you, from your tribes, and I will make them rulers over you. 14 And you made answer and said to me, It is good for us to do as you say. 15 So I took the heads of your tribes, wise men and respected, and made them rulers over you, captains of thousands and captains of hundreds and captains of fifties and captains of tens, and overseers of your tribes. 16 And at that time I gave orders to your judges, saying, Let all questions between your brothers come before you for hearing, and give decisions uprightly between a man and his brother or one from another nation who is with him. 17 In judging, do not let a man's position have any weight with you; give hearing equally to small and great; have no fear of any man, for it is God who is judge: and any cause in which you are not able to give a decision, you are to put before me and I will give it a hearing. 18 And at that time I gave you all the orders which you were to do. 19 Then we went on from Horeb, through all that great and cruel waste which you saw, on our way to the hill-country of the Amorites, as the Lord gave us orders; and we came to Kadesh-barnea. 20 And I said to you, You have come to the hill-country of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving us. 21 See now, the Lord your God has put the land into your hands: go up and take it, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has said to you; have no fear and do not be troubled. 22 And you came near to me, every one of you, and said, Let us send men before us to go through the land with care and give us an account of the way we are to go and the towns to which we will come. 23 And what you said seemed good to me, and I took twelve men from among you, one from every tribe; 24 And they went up into the hill-country and came to the valley of Eshcol, and saw what was there. 25 And taking in their hands some of the fruit of the land, they came down again to us, and gave us their account, saying, It is a good land which the Lord our God is giving us. 26 But going against the order of the Lord your God, you would not go up: 27 And you made an angry outcry in your tents, and said, In his hate for us the Lord has taken us out of the land of Egypt, to give us up into the hands of the Amorites for our destruction. 28 Where are we going up? Our brothers have made our hearts feeble with fear by saying, The people are greater and taller than we are, and the towns are great and walled up to heaven; and more than this, we have seen the sons of the Anakim there. 29 Then I said to you, Have no fear of them. 30 The Lord your God who goes before you will be fighting for you, and will do such wonders as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes; 31 And in the waste land, where you have seen how the Lord was supporting you, as a man does his son, in all your journeying till you came to this place. 32 But for all this, you had no faith in the Lord your God, 33 Who goes before you on your way, looking for a place where you may put up your tents, in fire by night, lighting up the way you are to go, and in a cloud by day. 34 And the Lord, hearing your words, was angry, and said with an oath, 35 Truly, not one of this evil generation will see that good land which I said I would give to your fathers, 36 But only Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, he will see it; and to him and to his children I will give the land over which his feet have gone, because he has been true to the Lord with all his heart. 37 And, in addition, the Lord was angry with me because of you, saying, You yourself will not go into it: 38 Joshua, the son of Nun, your servant, he will go into the land: say to him that he is to be strong, for he will be Israel's guide into their heritage. 39 And your little ones, who, you said, would come into strange hands, your children, who now have no knowledge of good or evil, they will go into that land, and to them I will give it and it will be theirs. 40 But as for you, go back, journeying into the waste land by the way of the Red Sea. 41 Then you said to me, We have done evil against the Lord, we will go up to the attack, as the Lord our God has given us orders. And arming yourselves every one, you made ready to go up without care into the hill-country. 42 And the Lord said to me, Say to them, Do not go up to the attack; for I am not among you, and you will be overcome by those who are against you. 43 This I said to you, but you gave no attention and went against the orders of the Lord, and in your pride went up into the hill-country. 44 And the Amorites who were in the hill-country came out against you and put you to flight, rushing after you like bees, and overcame you in Seir, driving you even as far as Hormah. 45 And you came back, weeping before the Lord; but the Lord gave no attention to your cries and did not give ear to you. 46 So you were kept waiting in Kadesh for a long time.
• Deut 31:8 : 8 It is the Lord who goes before you; he will be with you, he will not take away his help from you or give you up: so have no fear.
• Josh 1:5 : 5 While you are living, all will give way before you: as I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will not take away my help from you or give you up.
• Josh 1:9 : 9 Have I not given you your orders? Take heart and be strong; have no fear and do not be troubled; for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go,
• Josh 3:7 : 7 And the Lord said to Joshua, From now on I will give you glory in the eyes of all Israel, so that they may see that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with you.
• Josh 23:14 : 14 Now I am about to go the way of all the earth: and you have seen and are certain, all of you, in your hearts and souls, that in all the good things which the Lord said about you, he has kept faith with you; everything has come true for you.
• Josh 24:1-9 : 1 Then Joshua got all the tribes of Israel together at Shechem; and he sent for the responsible men of Israel and their chiefs and their judges and their overseers; and they took their place before God. 2 And Joshua said to all the people, These are the words of the Lord, the God of Israel: In the past your fathers, Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor, were living on the other side of the River: and they were worshipping other gods. 3 And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the River, guiding him through all the land of Canaan; I made his offspring great in number, and gave him Isaac. 4 And to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau: to Esau I gave Mount Seir, as his heritage; but Jacob and his children went down to Egypt. 5 And I sent Moses and Aaron, troubling Egypt by all the signs I did among them: and after that I took you out. 6 I took your fathers out of Egypt: and you came to the Red Sea; and the Egyptians came after your fathers to the Red Sea, with their war-carriages and their horsemen. 7 And at their cry, the Lord made it dark between you and the Egyptians, and made the sea go over them, covering them with its waters; your eyes have seen what I did in Egypt: then for a long time you were living in the waste land. 8 And I took you into the lands of the Amorites on the other side of Jordan; and they made war on you, and I gave them into your hands and you took their land; and I sent destruction on them before you. 9 Then Balak, the son of Zippor, king of Moab, went up to war against Israel; and he sent for Balaam, the son of Beor, to put a curse on you: 10 But I did not give ear to Balaam; and so he went on blessing you; and I kept you safe from him. 11 Then you went over Jordan and came to Jericho: and the men of Jericho made war on you, the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Hivites and the Jebusites: and I gave them up into your hands. 12 And I sent the hornet before you, driving out the two kings of the Amorites before you, not with your sword and your bow. 13 And I gave you a land on which you had done no work, and towns not of your building, and you are now living in them; and your food comes from vine-gardens and olive-gardens not of your planting. 14 So now, go in fear of the Lord, and be his servants with true hearts: put away the gods worshipped by your fathers across the River and in Egypt, and be servants of the Lord. 15 And if it seems evil to you to be the servants of the Lord, make the decision this day whose servants you will be: of the gods whose servants your fathers were across the River, or of the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living: but I and my house will be the servants of the Lord. 16 Then the people in answer said, Never will we give up the Lord to be the servants of other gods; 17 For it is the Lord our God who has taken us and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, out of the prison-house, and who did all those great signs before our eyes, and kept us safe on all our journeys, and among all the peoples through whom we went: 18 And the Lord sent out from before us all the peoples, the Amorites living in the land: so we will be the servants of the Lord, for he is our God. 19 And Joshua said to the people, You are not able to be the servants of the Lord, for he is a holy God, a God who will not let his honour be given to another: he will have no mercy on your wrongdoing or your sins. 20 If you are turned away from the Lord and become the servants of strange gods, then turning against you he will do you evil, cutting you off, after he has done you good. 21 And the people said to Joshua, No! But we will be the servants of the Lord. 22 And Joshua said to the people, You are witnesses against yourselves that you have made the decision to be the servants of the Lord. And they said, We are witnesses. 23 Then, he said, put away the strange gods among you, turning your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel. 24 And the people said to Joshua, We will be the servants of the Lord our God, and we will give ear to his voice. 25 So Joshua made an agreement with the people that day, and gave them a rule and a law in Shechem. 26 And Joshua put these words on record, writing them in the book of the law of God; and he took a great stone, and put it up there under the oak-tree which was in the holy place of the Lord. 27 And Joshua said to all the people, See now, this stone is to be a witness against us; for all the words of the Lord have been said to us in its hearing: so it will be a witness against you if you are false to the Lord your God. 28 Then Joshua let the people go away, every man to his heritage. 29 Now after these things, the death of Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, took place, he being then a hundred and ten years old. 30 And they put his body in the earth in the land of his heritage in Timnath-serah, in the hill-country of Ephraim, to the north of Mount Gaash. 31 And Israel was true to the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the older men who were still living after Joshua's death, and had seen what the Lord had done for Israel. 32 And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel had taken up from Egypt, they put in the earth in Shechem, in the property which Jacob had got from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for a hundred shekels: and they became the heritage of the children of Joseph. 33 Then the death of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, took place; and his body was put in the earth in the hill of Phinehas his son, which had been given to him in the hill-country of Ephraim.
• 1 Kgs 2:2-4 : 2 I am going the way of all the earth: so be strong and be a man; 3 And keep the orders of the Lord your God, walking in his ways, keeping his laws and his orders and his rules and his words, as they are recorded in the law of Moses; so that you may do well in all you do and wherever you go, 4 So that the Lord may give effect to what he said of me, If your children give attention to their ways, living uprightly before me with all their heart and their soul, you will never be without a man to be king in Israel.
• Ps 18:46 : 46 The Lord is living; praise be to my Rock, and let the God of my salvation be honoured.
• Ps 146:3-4 : 3 Put not your faith in rulers, or in the son of man, in whom there is no salvation. 4 Man's breath goes out, he is turned back again to dust; in that day all his purposes come to an end.
• Zech 1:5-6 : 5 Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they go on living for ever? 6 But my words and my orders, which I gave to my servants the prophets, have they not overtaken your fathers? and turning back they said, As it was the purpose of the Lord of armies to do to us, in reward for our ways and our doings, so has he done.
• Luke 2:29 : 29 Now you are letting your servant go in peace, O Lord, as you have said;
• Acts 13:36 : 36 Now David, having done God's work for his generation, went to sleep, and was put with his fathers, and his body came to destruction:
• 2 Tim 4:6 : 6 For I am even now being offered, and my end is near.
• Heb 7:3 : 3 Being without father or mother, or family, having no birth or end to his life, being made like the Son of God, is a priest for ever.
• Heb 7:8 : 8 Now at the present time, men over whom death has power take the tenth; but then it was taken by one of whom it is witnessed that he is living.
• Heb 7:23-25 : 23 And it is true that there have been a great number of those priests, because death does not let them go on for ever; 24 But this priest, because his life goes on for ever, is unchanging. 25 So that he is fully able to be the saviour of all who come to God through him, because he is ever living to make prayer to God for them.
• 2 Pet 1:14 : 14 For I am conscious that in a short time I will have to put off this tent of flesh, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me.