Genesis 41:40

Summary

Pharaoh tells Joseph that he will be placed in charge of his house, and that all the people will submit to his authority ("mouth"). Pharaoh reserves for himself only the position of the throne, stating he alone will remain greater than Joseph.

Key words

• 'aTah ("you", H0859A) — an independent personal pronoun placed at the very start of the sentence, giving emphatic focus to the addressee before the verb appears.
• tihYeh ("you will be", H1961) — qal imperfect of the verb "to be," expressing a future or ongoing state rather than a single completed action.
• yiShak ("it will kiss", H5401A) — qal imperfect from the root meaning "to kiss." Its subject is kol-'ammi ("all my people"), and its grammatical object is pikha ("your mouth"), so the literal sense is "all my people will kiss your mouth."
• rak ("only", H7535) — a restrictive adverb that narrows the scope of what follows, isolating the throne as the sole exception.
• 'egDal ("I will be great", H1431) — qal imperfect first person, combined with the preposition mimme- ("more than") plus suffix, forming a comparative construction: "I will be great(er) than you."

What the text says

The sentence is built on two parallel prepositional phrases governed by 'al ("over"/"on"): 'al-beiti ("over my house") and 'al-pikha ("on/upon your mouth"). This parallelism links Joseph's administrative authority over the household to authority exercised through his spoken word. The verb yiShak ("it will kiss," H5401A) is unusual: its literal meaning is physical kissing, and here it takes "your mouth" as its object, producing a striking image — the people "kissing" Joseph's mouth as a way of expressing submission to his command.

The final clause uses rak ("only," H7535) to mark a single exception to Joseph's elevated status: the throne. The verb 'egDal ("I will be great," H1431) is paired with the comparative preposition mimme- ("more than") plus the second-person suffix, so Pharaoh states his own greatness only relative to Joseph, specifically with regard to the throne, not to the house or the people's obedience.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew yiShak ("it will kiss," H5401A) is rendered by the LXX as ὑπακούσεται ("will obey") and by the Vulgate as "obediet" ("will obey"). Both versions replace the literal image of kissing the mouth with an abstract verb of obedience, so the physical metaphor present in the Hebrew text is not reflected in either translation.

The Hebrew comparative construction "'egDal ... mimmekha" ("I will be great... than you," H1431) appears in the LXX as ὑπερέξω σου ("I will surpass/exceed you") and in the Vulgate as "præcedam" ("I will go before/precede you"). Each version selects a different verb to express Pharaoh's superiority, though all preserve the restriction to the matter of the throne introduced by rak ("only," H7535).