Genesis 47:14

Summary

The verse describes Joseph collecting all the silver found in Egypt and Canaan, paid in exchange for grain, and bringing that silver into Pharaoh's house.

Key words

• y.la.Ket ("he gathered up", H3950) — piel narrative form; the piel stem here intensifies the action of gathering, suggesting a thorough or systematic collection rather than a simple, single act.
• nim.Tza' ("was found", H4672) — niphal participle, masculine singular; the passive/reflexive niphal form frames the silver as the object that "was found" or "presented itself," without naming an agent who found it.
• shoe.Rim ("[were] buying grain", H7666) — qal participle, masculine plural, paired with the pronoun hem ("they", H1992); the participle expresses ongoing or habitual action — the people were in the process of buying grain.
• i.ya.Ve' ("he brought", H0935P) — hiphil narrative form; the causative hiphil stem indicates Joseph caused the silver to come/enter, i.e., he brought it in.
• Bei.ta ("[the] house of", H1004P) — construct noun combined with a directional he (H9011) attached to far.'Oh ("Pharaoh", H6547H), together meaning "toward the house of Pharaoh."

What the text says

The verse is built on two parallel narrative-vav clauses, each opening with a verb in a converted narrative form (va-...), which is typical of Hebrew storytelling: first y.la.Ket ("he gathered up") and then i.ya.Ve' ("he brought"). Both verbs share Joseph as subject and ha.Kesef ("the money/silver", H3701G) as object, marked twice by the untranslated direct object marker 'et. This repetition of subject, object, and object-marker across the two clauses creates a tight structural parallel: Joseph gathers, then Joseph brings.

The phrase kol-ha.Kesef ha-nim.Tza' ("all the silver that was found") uses the niphal participle nim.Tza' to describe the silver's location without specifying who found it — the focus stays on the silver's existence in the land rather than on an act of discovery. This silver is located be-'eretz mitzrayim ("in the land of Egypt") and u-ve-'eretz kena'an ("and in the land of Canaan"), both using the construct form 'eretz ("land of") before the place names.

The relative clause 'asher hem shoverim ("which they were buying") uses the pronoun hem together with the qal participle shoverim, emphasizing the ongoing action of the buyers acquiring ba-Shever ("for the grain", H7668). The final clause moves the silver's location from the general "land" to the specific beita far'oh ("toward the house of Pharaoh"), using the directional he suffix rather than a preposition to indicate motion toward that destination.

Differences between versions

The LXX adds a clause not present in the Hebrew: καὶ ἐσιτομέτρει αὐτοῖς ("and he measured out grain to them"), which has no corresponding phrase in the Hebrew text supplied. The Vulgate condenses the verse, rendering the two Hebrew locations ("land of Egypt and land of Canaan") simply as quibus ("from these/them") without naming the lands, and translates beita far'oh ("house of Pharaoh") as in ærarium regis ("into the king's treasury"), a more specific institutional term than the Hebrew "house."