Genesis 41:24

Summary

This verse concludes Pharaoh's retelling of his dream: the seven thin ears of grain swallowed the seven good ears, and Pharaoh reports that he told this to the diviner-priests, but none could explain it to him.

Key words

• tiv.La'.na ("they swallowed", H1104) — qal verb with narrative vav, feminine plural form agreeing with the ears of grain, continuing the sequential action of the dream account.
• shi.bo.Lim ("ears of grain", H7641B) — masculine plural noun, appearing twice (positions 4 and 10) to designate both sets of ears, distinguished by their attached adjectives.
• da.Kot ("thin", H1851) — feminine plural adjective modifying shi.bo.Lim, describing the ears that perform the swallowing.
• to.Vot ("good", H2896A) — feminine plural adjective modifying the second set of shi.bo.Lim, describing the ears that are consumed.
• ma.Gid ("[was one who] told", H5046) — hiphil participle, masculine singular, functioning as "the one declaring/telling," negated by 'Ein to express total absence of an interpreter.

What the text says

The verse divides into two clauses joined by narrative vav-forms, typical of Hebrew sequential narration. The first clause repeats the earlier dream image: tiv.La'.na ("they swallowed", H1104) takes as its subject ha-shibbolim ha-daqqot ("the thin ears of grain") and as its object, marked by 'et (H0853), ha-shibbolim ha-tovot ("the good ears of grain"). The adjectives da.Kot ("thin", H1851) and to.Vot ("good", H2896A) create a direct contrast between the two sets of ears, mirroring the earlier cow imagery in the same dream sequence.

The second clause shifts to Pharaoh's own action: 'o.Mar ("I said", H0559), another narrative-vav verb, introduces his report to ha-chartummim ("the diviner-priests", H2748) using the preposition 'el ("to", H0413). The final clause negates the presence of an interpreter through 'Ein ("there not", H0369) — a construct-form existential negator — combined with the hiphil participle ma.Gid ("the one telling", H5046). This participial construction presents the lack of interpretation as an ongoing state rather than a single failed attempt, and the prepositional phrase li ("to me", H9005 + H9030) marks Pharaoh as the one left without explanation.

Differences between versions

The LXX adds descriptive elements not present in the Hebrew: it renders the thin ears as οἱ ἑπτὰ στάχυες οἱ λεπτοὶ καὶ ἀνεμόφθοροι ("the seven thin and wind-blighted ears"), inserting "wind-blighted," and describes the good ears as τοὺς ἑπτὰ στάχυας τοὺς καλοὺς καὶ τοὺς πλήρεις ("the seven good and full ears"), adding "full" — neither term corresponds to a Hebrew word in this verse. The Vulgate's "priorum pulchritudinem devoraverunt" ("they devoured the beauty of the former ones") shifts the object from "ears" to "beauty," diverging from the Hebrew's direct noun-to-noun contrast between shibbolim.