Kejadian 41:41

41:41 “See here,” Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I place ¹  you in authority over all the land of Egypt.” ² 

Kejadian 41:48-49

41:48 Joseph ³  collected all the excess food ⁴  in the land of Egypt during the seven years and stored it in the cities. ⁵  In every city he put the food gathered from the fields around it. 41:49 Joseph stored up a vast amount of grain, like the sand of the sea, ⁶  until he stopped measuring it because it was impossible to measure.

Kejadian 41:55-56

41:55 When all the land of Egypt experienced the famine, the people cried out to Pharaoh for food. Pharaoh said to all the people of Egypt, ⁷  “Go to Joseph and do whatever he tells you.”

41:56 While the famine was over all the earth, ⁸  Joseph opened the storehouses ⁹  and sold grain to the Egyptians. The famine was severe throughout the land of Egypt.

[41:41]  ¹ tn The translation assumes that the perfect verbal form is descriptive of a present action. Another option is to understand it as rhetorical, in which case Pharaoh describes a still future action as if it had already occurred in order to emphasize its certainty. In this case one could translate “I have placed” or “I will place.” The verb נָתַן (natan) is translated here as “to place in authority [over].”

[41:41]  ² sn Joseph became the grand vizier of the land of Egypt. See W. A. Ward, “The Egyptian Office of Joseph,” JSS 5 (1960): 144-50; and R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel, 129-31.

[41:48]  ³ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Joseph) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[41:48]  ⁴ tn Heb “all the food.”

[41:48]  ⁵ tn Heb “of the seven years which were in the land of Egypt and placed food in the cities.”

[41:49]  ⁶ tn Heb “and Joseph gathered grain like the sand of the sea, multiplying much.” To emphasize the vast amount of grain he stored up, the Hebrew text modifies the verb “gathered” with an infinitive absolute and an adverb.

[41:55]  ⁷ tn Heb “to all Egypt.” The name of the country is used by metonymy for the inhabitants.

[41:56]  ⁸ tn Or “over the entire land”; Heb “over all the face of the earth.” The disjunctive clause is circumstantial-temporal to the next clause.

[41:56]  ⁹ tc The MT reads “he opened all that was in [or “among”] them.” The translation follows the reading of the LXX and Syriac versions.