Genesis 41:55

Summary

The verse narrates that famine struck all the land of Egypt, prompting the people to cry out to Pharaoh for food. Pharaoh responds by directing all of Egypt to go to Joseph, telling them to do whatever he says.

Key words

• tir'av ("it was hungry", H7456) — qal narrative verb (feminine singular), agreeing with the feminine collective subject kol-erets mitzrayim ("all the land of Egypt"); the land itself is grammatically the one that "hungers."
• yitz'aq ("it cried out", H6817) — qal narrative, continuing the chain of consecutive actions (va-yiqtol) that structures the verse as a sequence: famine → outcry → Pharaoh's speech.
• la-lechem ("for the food/bread", H3899H) — noun with the preposition la- prefixed, marking the object/purpose of the outcry ("cried out... for bread").
• yo'mar ("he will say", H0559) — qal imperfect, giving an open, repeatable future sense ("whatever he says/will say") rather than a single completed statement.
• ta'asu ("you will do", H6213A) — qal imperfect, second person plural, matching yo'mar in tense to form a paired instruction: future speech, future compliance.

What the text says

The verse is built as a chain of vav-consecutive narrative verbs (va-tir'av, va-yitz'aq, va-yomer), the standard Biblical Hebrew device for sequential storytelling: the land becomes hungry, then the people cry out, then Pharaoh speaks. The subject of the first verb, kol-eretz mitzrayim ("all the land of Egypt", H3605 + H0776G + H4714G), is treated grammatically as a single feminine entity that "is hungry," while the second clause shifts the actor to ha-'am ("the people", H5971A), the human population within that land.

Pharaoh's reported speech at the end contains two imperfect verbs placed side by side without a conjunction in the Hebrew: asher yo'mar lakhem ta'asu — literally "that which he will say to you, you will do." The relative particle asher ("that/which", H0834A) introduces what Joseph will say, and the imperfect yo'mar signals an ongoing or repeatable future action (not a single past command), matched by the imperfect ta'asu for the people's compliance. The juxtaposition without an explicit "and" is a feature of the Hebrew syntax that some translations render by inserting a connector such as "and" or "whatever."

Differences between versions

The LXX adds καὶ ("and") between the two imperfect verbs (εἲπη... καὶ... ποιήσατε), making explicit a conjunction absent in the Hebrew asher yo'mar lakhem ta'asu. The Vulgate restructures the passage as an ablative absolute ("Qua esuriente...") and adds the participial phrase "alimenta petens" ("seeking food"), which is not a direct one-to-one match with the Hebrew la-lechem ("for bread") but conveys the same purpose. The Hebrew tir'av describes the land itself as "hungry," while the LXX’s ἐπείνασεν πᾶσα ἡ γῆ preserves this personification; the Vulgate’s "esuriente" (ablative participle referring to the land, "she being hungry") similarly retains it.