Genesis 41:56

Summary

The verse describes the famine covering the whole land, Joseph opening the storehouses containing grain, selling to Egypt, and the famine intensifying specifically within the land of Egypt. The sentence moves from a general statement of the famine's extent to Joseph's action and back to a specific intensification.

Key words

• ra'av ("famine", H7458) — masculine singular noun, repeated twice (lines 3 and 25), framing the verse: first over "all the face of the land," then specifically "in the land of Egypt."
• hayah ("it was", H1961) — qal perfect, third person masculine, describing a completed state (the famine "was" already over the land) before the narrative sequence begins.
• yiftach ("he opened", H6605A) — qal narrative (vayyiqtol) form, marking the next event in the story chain: Joseph's action of opening.
• kol asher bahem ("all that was in them", H3605 + H0834A + H9038) — a relative construction with a pronominal suffix "them" (masculine), referring back to the storehouses/granaries implied by context, though the noun "storehouses" itself is not explicit in the Hebrew of this verse.
• yechezaq ("it was severe/strong", H2388G) — qal narrative form, describing the famine's intensification as the final event in the chain, using a root meaning "to be strong/severe" rather than repeating hayah.

What the text says

The verse opens with a non-narrative clause: ve-ha-ra'av hayah ("and the famine was") using the qal perfect hayah (H1961), which sets a background state rather than advancing the story. This famine is said to be 'al kol-penei ha-'aretz ("over all the face of the land", H5921A + H3605 + H6440J + H9009 + H0776G), a construct chain meaning "the surface of the land" — a common Biblical Hebrew idiom for total geographic extent.

The narrative then shifts into the vav-consecutive (narrative) chain with three sequential actions marked by va- + prefixed verb: yiftach ("he opened", H6605A), yishbor ("he sold/bought grain", H7666), and yechezaq ("it was severe", H2388G). This chain structure ("and he opened... and he sold... and it grew severe") presents the events as sequential consequences rather than simultaneous descriptions. Notably, the Hebrew object of yiftach is kol 'asher bahem ("all that was in them", H3605 + H0834A + H9038), using a plural pronominal suffix "them" — grammatically this implies a plural antecedent (such as storehouses) that is not lexically stated within this verse's word list, requiring the reader to supply it from context.

The final clause returns to a stative description using yechezaq (H2388G), a root distinct from hayah, indicating the famine's severity intensified specifically be-'eretz Mitzrayim ("in the land of Egypt", H0776G + H4714G), narrowing the geographic scope from "all the land" to Egypt specifically.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the object of Joseph's opening as τοὺς σιτοβολῶνας ("the granaries/storehouses"), making explicit what the Hebrew kol 'asher bahem ("all that was in them") leaves as a pronominal reference. The Vulgate similarly specifies horrea ("storehouses"). The Hebrew verb yishbor (H7666, "he bought grain/sold grain") is rendered by the LXX as ἐπώλει ("he was selling"), and the Vulgate as vendebat ("he was selling") — both versions resolve the Hebrew root's semantic range toward "selling," while the English BSB and Spanish RV1909/SBLIBRE also follow "sold."