Genesis 41:34

Summary

The verse recommends that Pharaoh act by appointing overseers throughout Egypt, who will collect a fifth of the produce of the land during the seven years of abundance. The sentence moves from Pharaoh's own action to the delegated task of the officials he appoints.

Key words

• ya'aseh ("let him act", H6213A) — qal imperfect, expressing what Pharaoh should do; sets up the main recommendation before the appointment clause.
• yafqed ("let him appoint", H6485J) — hiphil jussive, causative form meaning Pharaoh causes overseers to be placed in position; the hiphil stem marks that Pharaoh does not do the overseeing himself but brings it about.
• peqidim ("overseers", H6496) — masculine plural noun, the officials to be installed; plural indicates multiple appointees across the land.
• chimmesh ("he will take a fifth of", H2567) — piel sequential perfect, an intensive verb built on the numeral "five," denoting the specific action of extracting a fifth portion; the sequential form continues the chain of actions begun with ya'aseh and yafqed.
• shenei ha-sava' ("the years of the plenty", H8141/H7647) — construct chain, "years of" governing "the plenty," fixing the time frame during which the fifth is collected.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a chain of three verbal actions concerning Pharaoh: ya'aseh ("let him act"), yafqed ("let him appoint"), and chimmesh ("he will take a fifth of"). The first two are jussive/imperfect forms expressing recommendation or permission, joined by the conjunction ve ("and", H9002). The third verb, chimmesh, is a sequential perfect (vav-consecutive construction, H9001), which continues the narrative logic begun by the jussives — it describes the resulting action once overseers are in place, though grammatically the subject shifts from Pharaoh's appointing act to the collecting activity itself.

The phrase 'al-ha-'aretz ("over the land", H5921A + H9009 + H0776G) specifies where the overseers are placed, while the following clause 'et-'eretz Mitzrayim ("the land of Egypt", H0776G construct + H4714G) names the specific territory whose produce is taxed. The verb chimmesh derives from the numeral "five" (root meaning "to take a fifth"), so the Hebrew verb itself encodes the specific fraction, unlike English which requires the phrase "take a fifth of." The construct chain shenei ha-sava' ("years of the plenty") ties the collection action to a bounded time period marked by the definite article on "plenty" (H9009 + H7647).

Differences between versions

The LXX renders peqidim ("overseers") as toparchas ("local governors/district rulers"), a term with more explicit territorial administrative connotation than the Hebrew "overseers." The LXX also shifts the subject of the fifth-collecting action to a third-person plural ("let them collect a fifth," apopemptōsatōsan), whereas the Hebrew chimmesh is grammatically singular, following the sequence from Pharaoh's own initial actions. The Vulgate's quintam partem fructuum ("a fifth part of the fruits") makes explicit "fruits/produce" as the object of the fifth, a specification not lexically present in the bare Hebrew chimmesh ("he will fifth").