Genesis 47:24

Summary

This verse continues Joseph's proposal to the Egyptians, establishing that at harvest time a fifth of the produce will go to Pharaoh, while four-fifths will remain with the people for seed, food for themselves, and food for their households and children.

Key words

• ha.Yah ("it will be", H1961) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the narrative chain begun in earlier verses; marks the temporal condition ("when it happens" / "at the time of").
• te.vu.'Ot ("harvests", H8393) — feminine plural noun, indicating the recurring or general produce of the land, not a single harvest event.
• cha.mi.Shit ("a fifth", H2549) — feminine singular ordinal number, specifying the exact fractional portion owed to Pharaoh.
• ya.Dot ("hands/portions", H3027) — plural noun used idiomatically for "parts" or "shares"; combined with 'ar.Ba' ("four", H0702) in construct, it forms "four parts/portions."
• Ze.ra' ("seed of", H2233) — masculine singular construct noun, linking to sa.Deh ("field", H7704) to form "seed for the field," specifying agricultural reinvestment rather than mere consumption.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence structure relies on two sequential perfect verbs — ha.Yah ("it will be") and ne.ta.Tem ("you will give", H5414) — which continue a chain of future/conditional actions initiated earlier in Joseph's speech. This grammatical form presents the arrangement as an ongoing procedural instruction rather than a single command.

The numerical division is expressed through cha.mi.Shit ("a fifth") for Pharaoh's portion and 'ar.Ba' ha.yya.Dot ("the four parts/hands") for what remains with the people. The noun ya.Dot (plural of "hand") functions here as a unit of division or "share," a usage distinct from its literal anatomical meaning.

The remaining four-fifths are then distributed across four purposes, each introduced by the preposition le. ("to/for"): seed for the field (le.Ze.ra' ha.sa.Deh), food for the addressees themselves (le.'a.khe.le.Khem), food for those in their households (la.'a.Sher be.va.tei.Khem), and food for their young children (le.'e.Khol le.ta.pe.Khem). This fourfold repetition of le. creates a rhythmic listing structure that itemizes each beneficiary category distinctly, a nuance that flows together in English translations as a single list of "for yourselves, your households, and children."

Differences between versions

The LXX renders ya.Dot ("hands/parts", H3027) as μέρη ("parts"), matching the idiomatic sense, but structures the four purposes differently: it groups "seed for the land and food for you" together, then adds "and for all your households" (πᾶσιν τοῖς οἴκοις ὑμῶν) as a single final category, collapsing the Hebrew's fourfold division (self / household members / children) into fewer distinct clauses and omitting a separate explicit mention of children (ta.pe.Khem, "your little ones", H2945) as its own item. The Vulgate similarly consolidates the household and children clauses into "cibum familiis et liberis vestris" ("food for your families and your children"), merging what the Hebrew presents as three separate prepositional phrases ('a.khe.le.Khem, va.tei.Khem, ta.pe.Khem) into two.