Genesis 41:53

Summary

The verse marks the close of the seven years of abundance that had taken place in the land of Egypt. It functions as a narrative transition, signaling that the period of plenty described earlier has run its course.

Key words

• tikhLeinah ("they came to an end", H3615G) — qal verb, feminine plural, agreeing with "years" (a feminine plural noun in Hebrew); carries the narrative vav, marking sequence in the story.
• Sheva' ("seven", H7651) — cardinal number specifying the duration of the period being closed.
• sheNei ("years of", H8141) — masculine plural noun in construct state, linking directly to what follows ("years of the plenty").
• saVa' ("plenty", H7647) — masculine singular noun with the definite article ha ("the", H9009), naming the specific abundance referred to.
• haYah ("it was", H1961) — qal perfect verb, third person masculine singular, describing the plenty as a completed state that had existed in Egypt.

What the text says

The sentence opens with the narrative vav attached to tikhLeinah ("they came to an end", H3615G), a verb form that continues the story sequence from the preceding narrative. The subject is Sheva' sheNei ha-saVa' ("seven years of the plenty"), a construct chain: sheNei ("years of", H8141) is grammatically bound to ha-saVa' ("the plenty", H7647), producing the sense "the years belonging to the plenty" rather than two separate ideas of "years" and "plenty." This construct structure is common in Biblical Hebrew for expressing a period defined by its content or quality.

The relative clause 'asher haYah be-'Eretz Mitzrayim ("which it was in the land of Egypt") specifies where this plenty occurred. The verb haYah ("it was", H1961) is in the qal perfect, indicating a completed situation — the plenty had existed, and now, per the main verb tikhLeinah, it has ended. The construct 'Eretz Mitzrayim ("land of Egypt", H0776G + H4714G) similarly binds "land" to "Egypt" as a single geographic designation.

Grammatically, the feminine plural agreement of tikhLeinah with "years" (feminine plural in Hebrew) is a detail not visible in translation, since English "years" does not carry grammatical gender.

Differences between versions

The LXX (Swete) renders the sequence with ΙΙαρῆλθον ("they passed by") for the Hebrew tikhLeinah ("they came to an end", H3615G), using a different verb of motion/passing rather than one of completion or ending. The Vulgate uses transactis ("having been completed/transacted"), an ablative absolute construction, which reorganizes the Hebrew's main-clause syntax into a subordinate temporal clause ("the seven years... having been completed..."). The Hebrew construct chain sheNei ha-saVa' ("years of the plenty") is rendered in the LXX as τὰ ἑπτὰ ἔτη τῆς εὐθηνίας ("the seven years of the abundance"), preserving the genitive relationship similarly to the Hebrew construct.