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.
1 tn The imperfect verbal form has an obligatory nuance here. The Samaritan Pentateuch has a jussive form here, “and let [Pharaoh] do.”
2 tn Heb “and let him appoint.” The jussive form expresses Joseph’s advice to Pharaoh.
3 tn Heb “appointees.” The noun is a cognate accusative of the preceding verb. Since “appoint appointees” would be redundant in English, the term “officials” was used in the translation instead.
4 tn Heb “and he shall collect a fifth of the land of Egypt.” The language is figurative (metonymy); it means what the land produces, i.e., the harvest.
5 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Pharaoh) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
6 tn Heb “and he caused him to ride in the second chariot which was his.”
7 tn The verb form appears to be a causative imperative from a verbal root meaning “to kneel.” It is a homonym of the word “bless” (identical in root letters but not related etymologically).
9 tn Or “over the entire land”; Heb “over all the face of the earth.” The disjunctive clause is circumstantial-temporal to the next clause.
10 tc The MT reads “he opened all that was in [or “among”] them.” The translation follows the reading of the LXX and Syriac versions.