Genesis 41:18

Summary

This verse is part of Pharaoh's retelling of his dream to Joseph. It describes seven cows, described as fat of flesh and good of appearance, coming up out of the river and grazing among the reeds.

Key words

• hi.Neh ("there!", H2009) — an interjection drawing attention to the scene, presenting the vision vividly, as if the speaker is pointing at what he saw.
• 'o.Lot ("coming up", H5927G) — qal participle, feminine plural, describing the cows as caught in the ongoing action of ascending from the river at the moment of narration.
• be.ri.'ot ("fat of", H1277) — feminine plural construct adjective, grammatically bound to ba.Sar ("flesh", H1320), forming the phrase "fat of flesh."
• Fot ("good looking of", H3303) — feminine plural construct adjective, bound to To.'ar ("form", H8389), forming "good of form/appearance."
• tir.'Ei.nah ("they grazed", H7462B) — qal narrative form (vav-consecutive), feminine plural, marking the next event in the sequence: after coming up, the cows then grazed.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with ve ("and", H9002) plus hi.Neh ("there!", H2009), a construction that frames the following clause as a vivid, present-tense-like scene within the reported dream — grammatically this is common in dream or vision reports in Biblical Hebrew. The subject "seven cows" (She.va' pa.Rot) is introduced after the participle 'o.Lot ("coming up"), so the syntax places the action (rising from the river) before the naming of the subject, emphasizing the movement itself as the first thing seen.

The two descriptive phrases — be.ri.'ot ba.Sar ("fat of flesh") and vi.Fot To.'ar ("good looking of form") — are both construct chains: an adjective in construct form governing a noun. This construction ties the quality (fatness, good appearance) directly to the specific body part or aspect (flesh, form) rather than functioning as a simple free-standing adjective. The two phrases are joined by vi ("and", H9002), presenting the cows' fatness and appearance as a paired description.

The final clause shifts verbal form to va-tir.'Ei.nah ("and they grazed"), a narrative (vav-consecutive) verb form that marks sequential action: after coming up from the river, the cows then began grazing ba-'A.chu ("among the reeds", H0260), using a noun that specifically denotes reed or marsh vegetation rather than a general term for pasture.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the construct phrases as καλαὶ τῷ εἴδει ("beautiful in appearance") καὶ ἐκλεκταὶ ταῖς σαρξίν ("select in flesh"), using adjectives with dative nouns rather than the Hebrew's construct-chain structure, and reorders the qualities (appearance first, flesh second) compared to the Hebrew's flesh-then-form sequence. The Vulgate's obesis carnibus ("with fat flesh") preserves the flesh-fatness pairing but separates it from pulchras nimis ("exceedingly beautiful") with an intervening conjunction, differing from the Hebrew's tighter construct pairing of the two qualities.