Genesis 47:23

Summary

Joseph tells the Egyptian people that he has purchased them and their land for Pharaoh, and then hands them seed so that they can sow the land. The verse marks the transition from the famine transaction to the resumption of agricultural work.

Key words

• hen ("here!", H2005) — an interjection opening Joseph's declaration, drawing attention to the fact he is about to state.
• qaniti ("I have bought", H7069) — qal perfect, 1st person singular, marking a completed action: the purchase is already finished at the moment of speaking.
• 'admatkhem ("your land", H0127G) — feminine singular noun in construct form with a 2nd person masculine plural suffix, literally "the land of you (pl.)," linking the land directly to the people addressed.
• he' ("here!", H1887) — a second interjection, distinct from hen earlier in the verse, introducing the gift of seed.
• uzra'tem ("and you will sow", H2232) — qal sequential perfect, 2nd person masculine plural, continuing the narrative sequence begun with qaniti; it expresses a following action (sowing) as a consequence of receiving the seed.

What the text says

The verse is built around two short declarations, each opened by an interjection (hen and he'), which function as attention-markers rather than as full clauses. The first, hen qaniti 'etkhem hayom ve'et-'admatkhem le-far'oh ("here — I have bought you today, and your land, for Pharaoh"), uses the qal perfect qaniti to present the purchase as an accomplished fact, with the direct object markers 'et marking both "you" and "your land" as objects of the same verb. The construct form 'admat-khem ties the land grammatically to the people, so that the people and their land are presented as a single transaction unit "for Pharaoh."

The second declaration, he'-lakhem zera' ("here — for you, seed"), is a brief, verbless clause: zera' ("seed") stands alone with the preposition le- ("for") plus the pronominal suffix, meaning "seed is for you." The narrative then continues with the sequential perfect uzra'tem 'et-ha'adamah ("and you will sow the land"), which grammatically extends the sequence of actions from the interjections into a further consequence — receiving seed leads to sowing.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew addresses "the people" (ha'am, H5971A), while the LXX specifies "all the Egyptians" (πᾶσι τοῖς Αἰγυπτίοις), naming the group the Hebrew leaves general. The LXX renders the second interjection he' not as "here is" but as an imperative, λάβετε ("take"), turning Joseph's declarative gesture into a command; the Vulgate similarly shifts it into an imperative, accipite semina ("take the seeds"). The Vulgate also adds an explanatory phrase, En ut cernitis ("Behold, as you see"), which has no direct equivalent among the Hebrew words listed.