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In Genesis 49 when Jacob blesses his sons the blessing he gives to Joseph is usually rendered (in most translations) as something similar to:

“Joseph is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine near a spring, whose branches climb over a wall.”

But a few translations render it completely differently, for example the New Living Translation:

“Joseph is the foal of a wild donkey, the foal of a wild donkey at a spring— one of the wild donkeys on the ridge.”

Sefaria seems to agree with this translation and translates that verse into English as:

“Joseph is a wild ass, A wild ass by a spring —Wild colts on a hillside.”

What’s up with the major discrepancy? Isn’t the blessing Jacob bestows on Joseph one of the most important verses in Bereshis? None of the commentary translated into English attached to this verse in Sefaria seems to agree with this translation too. Confused!

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    It's not uncommon to have conflicting interpretations, especially on the more poetic passages. Sefaria brings both translations, if you click the asterisk.
    – shmosel
    Commented Feb 28 at 6:54
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    Or a third one: "Yosef is a charming child, charming to the eye; young women climbed up to see him." It happens. Every translation has to make decisions on interpretation. (Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan's The Living Torah is great about this -- his footnotes will note if there's a significantly different reading in the classical Jewish commentaries. He doesn't tell you what to think.) As for "one of the most important verses" ... Maimonides foot-stomped that all the verses are Divine and all equally important. But hey, it could be important and still ambiguous.
    – Shalom
    Commented Feb 28 at 7:56

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The different translations reflect the ambiguity about what the root of פֹּרָת is.

If it is פ.ר.ה. then it has a connotation of fruitage/sprigging. If it is פ.ר.א. then it is a donkey/foal (like Ishmael that is called a wild ass of a man in Gen. 16:12).

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  • For completeness, where does the third interpretation (quoted by Shalom in a comment to the OP) of "charming" come from?
    – Joel K
    Commented Feb 28 at 11:48
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    @JoelK if I recall correctly, Rashi has that (suggesting it is either Aramaic or that Aramaic has a cognate אפריון)... though that interpretation is not suggested by the translations OP cites, so I did not include it in the answer
    – Deuteronomy
    Commented Feb 28 at 11:57

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