Genesis 47:21

Summary

The verse states that Joseph caused "the people" (ha'am, H5971A) to relocate to "the cities" ('arim, H5892B), covering the territory "from the end of the border of Egypt to its [other] end" — a merism expressing totality of the land.

Key words

he'evir ("he brought over/caused to pass", H5674C) — hiphil perfect of the root 'br ("to cross/pass"). The hiphil stem makes this causative: the subject (Joseph, from the preceding verses) does not himself cross, but causes the people to cross or move. This causative nuance is the grammatical core of the verse.

'am ("people", H5971A) — masculine singular collective noun, marked as definite object by 'et (H0853) and the article ha (H9009). It refers to the population as a single collective entity.

'arim ("cities", H5892B) — masculine plural noun preceded by the preposition-article le (H9005), "to the cities," indicating the destination of the movement.

ge?ul ("territory of", H1366H) — construct form ("X of..."), linking to Mitsrayim ("Egypt", H4714G) to form "border/territory of Egypt."

qatsehu ("its end", H7097A + suffix H9023) — construct noun qatseh with 3ms suffix, paired with miqtseh ("from the end of") earlier in the verse to form the merism "from one end... to its end," a standard Hebrew idiom for total geographic extent.

What the text says

The clause opens with the object placed before the verb: ve'et-ha'am ("and the people") is fronted, then the hiphil verb he'evir follows, with a resumptive object pronoun oto ("it/him", H0853+H9033) attached to the verb phrase. This word order — object first, verb second, with a resumptive pronoun — is a marked construction in Biblical Hebrew, often used to shift topic focus onto "the people" as the subject of the sentence's concern, even though grammatically they remain the object of the causative verb.

The geographic phrase miqtseh gevul-Mitsrayim ve'ad qatsehu ("from the end of the border of Egypt and to its end") uses a construct chain paired with a preposition sequence (min...'ad, "from...to") to express complete territorial coverage — the same idiomatic structure used elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible for describing full geographic extent, without specifying exact borders.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew verb he'evir ("he caused to pass/move") describes relocation. The LXX renders this with katedoulōsato ("he enslaved/reduced to servitude"), a semantically distinct action referring to servitude rather than movement. The BSB follows the LXX's reading ("reduced the people to servitude"), while the RV1909 ("hízolo pasar," "caused it to pass") and SBLIBRE ("lo trasladó," "he transferred/relocated") follow the Hebrew's sense of physical relocation. The Vulgate's clause ("et cunctos populos ejus," "and all its peoples") does not visibly render a corresponding verb of motion in the segment provided, differing in structure from both the Hebrew and the LXX at this point.