Genesis 41:27

Summary

Genesis 41:27 continues Joseph's interpretation of Pharaoh's dream, identifying the seven thin and ugly cows and the seven empty, scorched ears of grain as symbols of seven years. The verse explicitly names these coming years as years of famine.

Key words

• ra.Kot ("thin", H7534) — feminine plural adjective describing the cows, paired with the article ha to agree with pa.rot ("cows", H6510).
• ra.'Ot ("displeasing", H7451A) — feminine plural adjective, second descriptor of the cows, joined by ve ("and", H9002) to the previous adjective, forming a double characterization.
• 'o.Lot ("were coming up", H5927G) — qal participle feminine plural, functioning as a substantive description ("the ones coming up"), referring back to the cows as agents of the action.
• she.du.Fot ("scorched of", H7710) — qal passive participle feminine plural in construct form, meaning the ears of grain are the object of the scorching action, linked to ha.Kadim ("the east wind", H6921).
• yih.Yu ("they will be", H1961) — qal imperfect, third person masculine plural, marking the interpretive equivalence between the dream symbols and the years, despite referring to feminine plural subjects (cows, ears of grain).

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence structure repeats the numeral she.va' ("seven", H7651) four times, tying together two sets of symbols (the thin/ugly cows and the empty/scorched ears of grain) with the interpretation that both sets represent "seven years." The syntax uses a nominal sentence pattern: subject (the cows, described by two adjectives and a participle) followed by the predicate she.va' sha.Nim He.nah ("seven years they [are]", H7651 + H8141 + H2007), where the pronoun He.nah ("they", H2007) explicitly marks the identification between the animals and the time period.

The second half of the verse shifts to use the verb yih.Yu ("they will be", H1961) in the imperfect, which introduces a future-oriented interpretive shift — connecting the two nyad symbols to the coming she.nei ra.'Av ("years of famine", H8141 construct + H7458). The construct phrase she.du.Fot ha.Kadim ("scorched of the east wind", H7710 + H6921) attributes the damage to the ears of grain specifically to the Kadim ("east wind", H6921), a detail retained across the versions.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the Hebrew's double adjectival description of the cows (ra.Kot "thin" and ra.'Ot "displeasing") using λεπταὶ ("thin") for both cows and grain-ears, collapsing some of the distinct Hebrew vocabulary into repeated Greek terms. The Vulgate preserves the double description with "tenues atque macilentae" for the cows, matching the Hebrew's two-adjective structure more closely than the LXX. The Hebrew's repeated use of she.va' four times across the verse creates an emphatic numerical parallelism that is smoothed in the English translations (BSB, RV1909) into a more linear prose structure.