Genesis 41:30

Summary

The verse states that seven years of famine will arise after the seven years of abundance, causing all the plenty in Egypt to be forgotten, and that this famine will destroy the land.

Key words

• ka.mu ("they will arise", H6965B) — qal sequential perfect, third person plural, continuing the narrative sequence begun by the preceding verse; the "years of famine" are the grammatical subject that "arises."
• ra.'Av ("famine", H7458) — masculine singular noun, appearing twice (lines 5 and 19), once as the thing that arises and once as the subject that "destroys."
• nish.Kach ("it will be forgotten", H7911) — niphal (passive) sequential perfect, third person masculine singular; the passive form means the abundance itself is the grammatical patient, with no explicit human agent stated who forgets it.
• khi.Lah ("it will destroy", H3615H) — piel (intensive) sequential perfect, third person masculine singular; the intensive stem conveys a thorough or complete action of destruction, with ra.'Av ("famine") as subject.
• 'a.cha.rei. ("after", H0310A) with suffix Hen ("them", H9039) — construct form plus third person feminine plural suffix, referring back to the previously mentioned years (a feminine plural noun in Hebrew), meaning "after them."

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a chain of three sequential perfect verbs joined by the narrative vav ("and"): ka.mu ("they will arise"), nish.Kach ("it will be forgotten"), and khi.Lah ("it will destroy"). This verbal chain presents three consecutive events as a continuous unfolding sequence rather than three separate statements. The subject of the first verb is she.va' she.Nei ra.'Av ("seven years of famine"), a construct phrase where she.Nei ("years of") governs ra.'Av ("famine"), literally "years of famine," paralleling the earlier "years of abundance" mentioned before this verse.

The second clause uses the niphal (passive) verb nish.Kach ("it will be forgotten") with kol-ha.sa.Va' ("all the plenty") as its subject; the passive construction removes any explicit agent, so the text does not specify who forgets the abundance, only that the abundance itself becomes forgotten. The third clause reverses grammatical roles: here ra.'Av ("famine") is the acting subject of the piel verb khi.Lah ("it will destroy"), with 'et-ha.'A.retz ("the land") marked by the direct object marker 'et as the object being destroyed. The piel stem intensifies the verb's force compared to a simple qal form.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders ka.mu ("they will arise") as a future "will come" (ἣξει), a semantically similar but distinct verb choice from the Hebrew's "arise." The Vulgate paraphrases the famine years as "alii" ("other" years), adding an interpretive qualifier not present in the Hebrew construct phrase. Both the LXX and Vulgate preserve the passive sense of "forgotten" (ἐπιλησθήσονται; oblivioni tradatur) and the destructive final clause, though the Vulgate uses "consumptura est" ("is about to consume"), a slightly different aspectual nuance from the Hebrew piel perfect khi.Lah.