a man as an individual or a male person · noun, common masculine singular absolute
him
וַיִּמְצָאֵ֣הוּvai.yim.tza.'E.hu
H4672
properly · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
wandering
תֹעֶ֖הto.'Eh
H8582
to vacillate · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
field
בַּשָּׂדֶ֑הba.sa.Deh
H7704
a field (as flat) · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
man
הָאִ֛ישׁha.'Ish
H376
a man as an individual or a male person · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
him
וַיִּשְׁאָלֵ֧הוּvai.yish.'a.Le.hu
H7592
to inquire · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
saying
לֵאמֹ֖רle.Mor
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
seekest
תְּבַקֵּֽשׁte.va.Kesh
H1245
to search out (by any method · verb, piel imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Judges 4:22 And, behold, as Barak pursued Sisera, Jael came out to meet him, and said unto him, Come, and I will shew thee the man whom thou seekest. An…
John 4:27 And upon this came his disciples, and marvelled that he talked with the woman: yet no man said, What seekest thou? or, Why talkest thou with…
Genesis 21:14 And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the…
2 Kings 6:19 And Elisha said unto them, This is not the way, neither is this the city: follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom ye seek. But he le…
John 1:38 Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye? They said unto him, Rabbi, (which is to say, being interpreted…
John 18:4 Jesus therefore, knowing all things that should come upon him, went forth, and said unto them, Whom seek ye?
John 18:7 Then asked he them again, Whom seek ye? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth.
John 20:15 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have b…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Genesis 37:12-22
Here is, I. The kind visit which Joseph, in obedience to his father's command, made to his brethren, who were feeding the flock at Shechem, many miles off. Some suggest that they went thither on purpose, expecting that Joseph would be sent to see them, and that then they should have an opportunity to do him a mischief. However, Joseph and his father had both of them more of the innocence of the dove than of the wisdom of the serpent, else he had never come thus into the hands of those that hated him: but God designed it all for good. See in Joseph an instance, 1. Of dutifulness to his father. Though he was his father's darling, yet he was made, and was willing to be, his father's servant. Ho…
Israel said, . . . Do not thy brethren feed the flock in Shechem?--Anxious to learn how his sons were doing in their distant encampment, Jacob despatched Joseph; and the youth, accepting the mission with alacrity, left the vale of Hebron, sought them at Shechem, heard of them from a man in "the field" (the wide and richly cultivated plain of Esdraelon), and found that they had left that neighborhood for Dothan, probably being compelled by the detestation in which, from the horrid massacre, their name was held.
Adam Clarke on Genesis 37:14
Go - see whether it be well with thy brethren - Literally, Go, I beseech thee, and see the peace of thy brethren, and the peace of the flock. Go and see whether they are all in prosperity. See Clarke on Gen 37:4 (note). As Jacob's sons were now gone to feed the flock on the parcel of ground they had bought from the Shechemites, (see Gen 33:19), and where they had committed such a horrible slaughter, their father might feel more solicitous about their welfare, lest the neighboring tribes should rise against them, and revenge the murder of the Shechemites.
As Jacob appears to have been at this time in the vale of Hebron, it is supposed that Shechem was about sixty English miles distant from it…
"And Joseph was wandering about," because he could not find his brothers. And it was right that he wandered about, for he was seeking those that were going astray. Yes, "the Lord knows who are his." Indeed, Jesus also, when he was wearied from his journey, sat at the well. He was wearied, for he was not finding the people of God whom he was seeking; they had gone out from the face of the Lord. The person who follows sin goes out from Christ. The sinner goes out; the just person enters in. Indeed, Adam hid himself as a sinner, but the just person says, "Let my prayer enter in before you."
Jacob sent his son to manifest solicitude for his brothers, and God the Father sent his only-begotten Son to visit the human race, which was weak from sin and like lost sheep. When Joseph was looking for his brothers he wandered in the desert. Christ also sought the human race, which was wandering in the world; he too as it were, wandered in the world because he was seeking the erring. Joseph searched for his brothers in Shechem. Shechem is interpreted as a shoulder, for sinners always turn their backs in the face of the just, and shoulders are behind. Just as Joseph's brothers, struck with envy, offered their back rather than their face to fraternal love, so also the unhappy Jews preferred to envy rather than to love the Author of salvation who came to them. Of such people it is said in the psalms: "Let their eyes grow dim so that they cannot see, and keep their backs always feeble."
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
John Gill on Genesis 37:15
And a certain man found him,.... Many of the Jewish writers (l) say, this was an angel, the angel Gabriel, in the likeness of a man; but according to Aben Ezra, it was a traveller he met on the road; but it is more probable, as Schimidt observes, that it was some man at work in the field that came upon him and took notice of him:
and, behold, he was wandering in the field; in some field near Shechem, perhaps the same his father Jacob had purchased, and where he expected to have found his brethren, and was looking out for them, going to and fro in search of them; which the labouring man in the field observed:
and the man asked him, saying, what seekest thou? seeing him walking about, and fi…
And his brethren went. Before Moses treats of the horrible design of fratricide, he describes the journey of Joseph, and amplifies, by many circumstances, the atrocity of the crime. Their brother approaches them in the discharge of a duty, to make a fraternal inquiry after their state. He comes by the command of his father; and obeys it without reluctance, as appears from his answer. He searches them out anxiously; and though they had changed their place, he spares neither labor nor trouble till he finds them. Therefore their cruelty was something more than madness, seeing they did not shrink with horror from contriving the death of a brother so pious and humane. We now see that Moses does n…
In a short time the hatred of Joseph's brethren grew into a crime. On one occasion, when they were feeding their flock at a distance from Hebron, in the neighbourhood of Shechem (Nablus, in the plain of Mukhnah), and Joseph who was sent thither by Jacob to inquire as to the welfare (shalom, valetudo) of the brethren and their flocks, followed them to Dothain or Dothan, a place 12 Roman miles to the north of Samaria (Sebaste), towards the plain of Jezreel, they formed the malicious resolution to put him, "this dreamer," to death, and throw him into one of the pits, i.e., cisterns, and then to tell (his father) that a wild beast had slain him, and so to bring his dreams to nought.
Tyndale Open Study Notes on Genesis 37:14-17
The brothers ranged far and wide. Shechem was about fifty miles from Hebron, and Dothan another fifteen miles beyond Shechem.
Rashi on Genesis 37:15
וימצאהו איש AND A MAN FOUND HIM — This was the angel Gabriel (Genesis Rabbah 84:14) as it is said, (Daniel 9:21) and the man (והאיש) Gabriel” (Midrash Tanchuma, Vayeshev 2:3).
