Genesis 41:47

Summary

The verse states that during the seven years of abundance, the land produced grain so plentifully that it is described as coming "by handfuls." The subject of the action is "the land" itself, personified as the producer of the harvest.

Key words

• Ta'as ("it produced", H6213) — qal wayyiqtol form, third person feminine singular, agreeing with the feminine noun 'aretz; the narrative vav ties this action directly to the preceding statement about the seven good years.
• 'aretz ("land", H776) — feminine singular noun with the definite article, functioning as the grammatical subject: it is "the land" that acts, not the people.
• sheva' ("seven", H7651) — cardinal number opening a construct chain that specifies the time frame of the action.
• shenei ("years of", H8141) — masculine plural construct form of "years," linking sheva' to ha-sava' ("the plenty") to form the phrase "seven years of the plenty."
• qmatzim ("handfuls", H7062) — masculine plural noun following the preposition li ("to"), forming the idiomatic expression "to/by handfuls," describing the manner or abundance of the yield.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built around a single main clause: va-Ta'as ha-'aretz ("and the land produced"), with the land as an active, feminine grammatical subject — the text does not say "grain grew" or "people harvested," but rather attributes the productive action to the land itself. This is followed by a prepositional phrase specifying the time, be-sheva' shenei ha-sava' ("in the seven years of the plenty"), which uses a construct chain (shenei + ha-sava') to tie the number of years grammatically to the abundance already mentioned earlier in the chapter.

The final phrase, li-qmatzim ("to handfuls"), is attached with the preposition lamed, which here indicates result or manner rather than direction — the land's yield resulted in, or is measured in, "handfuls." The plural form of qmatzim suggests repeated or multiple handfuls, an idiomatic way of expressing overflowing abundance rather than a literal unit of measurement.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders li-qmatzim as δράγματα ("sheaves"), a related agricultural image but distinct from the Hebrew's "handfuls," shifting the picture slightly from grasped grain to bound sheaves. The Vulgate departs further, adding "et in manipulos redactae segetes congregatae sunt in horrea Ægypti" ("and the crops gathered into bundles were collected into the granaries of Egypt"), introducing the mention of granaries and Egypt that is not present in the Hebrew of this verse but appears in the following verses of the narrative.