Genesis 49:20

Summary

The verse is part of Jacob's blessing over his sons, addressing Asher's tribe. It states that Asher's bread (or food) will be rich/fat, and that he will provide royal delicacies.

Key words

• me'Asher ("from Asher", H0836 with preposition H9006) — the phrase opens with the preposition min ("from"), giving the sense "from Asher [comes]..." rather than simply naming him as subject.
• shemenah ("rich/fat", H8082) — a feminine singular adjective agreeing with lachmo ("his bread"), describing the quality of the food as rich or fatty.
• lachmo ("his food/bread", H3899 + H9023) — a construct noun with a third-person masculine possessive suffix, meaning "his bread" or "his food," tying the richness directly to Asher.
• yitten ("he will give/provide", H5414) — a qal imperfect verb, expressing future or ongoing action: Asher himself will supply something.
• ma'adannei-melekh ("delicacies of a king", H4574 + H4428) — a construct chain literally "delicacies of a king," where the first noun is plural construct and the second is the governing noun in the genitive-like relationship.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence divides into two clauses joined by ve- ("and"). The first clause, me'Asher shemenah lachmo, places the prepositional phrase "from Asher" before the subject-predicate structure "rich [is] his bread." This word order emphasizes source: whatever richness is described originates from Asher. The adjective shemenah ("rich", H8082) is feminine because it agrees grammatically with lachmo ("bread", H3899), a common noun that can take feminine adjectival agreement in this construction.

The second clause, ve-hu yitten ma'adannei-melekh, uses the independent pronoun hu ("he", H1931) for emphasis before the verb yitten ("he will give", H5414), reinforcing that Asher himself is the one who provides. The object is a construct chain, ma'adannei-melekh ("delicacies of a king", H4574 + H4428), where "king" is singular in the Hebrew text, specifying a single royal figure as the standard of the delicacies rather than a plural class of rulers.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew melekh ("king", H4428) is singular, but the LXX renders it as ἄρχουσιν ("to rulers"), plural, and the Vulgate similarly uses regibus ("to kings"), plural. Where the Hebrew specifies delicacies fit for "a king" (singular), both the LXX and Vulgate broaden this to multiple rulers or kings.