SYNOPSIS: Joseph tells Pharaoh the meaning of both dreams: seven years of plenty will be followed by seven years of famine. He also advises Pharaoh about what he should do about it. He must locate a very wise man and put him in charge of all Egypt, and grain should be stored in all the cities throughout the years of plenty, to be distributed to the people in the time of hunger which will follow. Pharaoh is impressed.
- Text of the passage (in Nawat)
41:39 en navon w'xakham kamókha
'There is none [so] discerning and wise as you.' These words of Pharaoh repeat and allude to Joseph's words in v. 33: w'‛atta yere far‛o ish navon w'xakham 'Now let His Highness (lit. Pharaoh) designate (lit. see) a man discerning and wise.' As simple as that, Joseph gets the job. But his reason for concluding that Joseph has discernment and wisdom is the fact that he was able to interpret his dreams, while also recognising that this ability was God-given: axare hodía‛ elohim ot'kha et kol zot 'after God caused you to know all this' (hodía‛ is the causative of y-d-‛ 'to know.') Perhaps the reasoning was: if God is on your side to such an extent that he gives you all this discernment and wisdom, then you are the man needed for the job!
41:40 w'‛al píkha yisshaq kol ‛ammi
Literally this says: 'and on your mouth all my people shall kiss.' There is a deafening silence of some commentaries on this. The LXX and the Vulg. say here something to the effect of 'all my people shall obey [the word of] your mouth' while in English we have (KJV) 'according to thy word shall all my people be ruled', (ESV) 'all my people shall order themselves as you command', and so on; even Everett Fox gives 'to your orders shall all my people submit' with the laconic footnote "Hebrew obscure." Acc. to Speiser, though, there is nothing obscure about it: "Heb. cons. yšq, as now pointed (yiššaq, preceded by ‛al pīkā), can only mean 'shall kiss you on the mouth.'" But he goes on: "By repointing the verb to yāšoq..., we obtain the sense here indicated [namely, 'all my people shall submit to your orders']." Thus all the translations cited implicitly reject the word's Masoretic pointing. All the English language bibles included on Bible Hub's "parallel verses" page for this verse follow suit save the New American Standard Bible which has 'and according to your command all my people shall do homage', and Young's Literal Translation which has this to offer: 'and at thy mouth do all my people kiss.'
raq hakkisse egdal mimmékka
The verb form egdal means 'I shall be great'; followed by mi- 'from, than' (in mimmékha) it means 'I shall be greater than you.' This egdal mimmékha, however, is modified by hakkisse 'the throne', hence: 'I shall be greater than you by virtue of the throne.' The raq means 'only': It is only by virtue of the fact that I am on the throne that I am greater than you.'
41:41 wayyómer par‛o
Without anything intervening between Pharaoh's last words and those that follow, the second 'Pharaoh said' is merely a punctuation in the narrative that signals that his next statement sums up the gist of his whole brief speech: You're the boss now.
41:42
Here Pharaoh performs three gestures that symbolize Joseph's investiture (note the eymological meaning of investiture: 'clothing the person being installed in the insignia of rank or position'). The symbols are Pharaoh's signet ring (Tabba‛to), robes of fine linen (bigde shesh) and the gold chain (r'vid hazzahav).
41:43 wayyarkev oto
To conclude, Pharaoh installs Joseph on his second chariot. The H word for 'chariot', merkava (cons. mirkévet), a vehicle used for travel and war, is derived from the verb root r-k-b 'to ride'. In the causative, as here, the verb means 'to cause to ride.'
avrekh
He was to be treated as a governor, someone so important that men preceded him calling out avrekh to the people, i.e. "Make way!" This word of unknown origin could have an Egyptian source.
w'naton
The infinitive absolute occurs in place of a finite verb: 'And he placed him over all Egypt.'
41:44 ani far‛o
This looks like a formal pronouncement. It is worth observing that the opening formula, 'I am X', is just what God says when making formal pronouncements to important personages in the Old Testament: cf. the beginning of the Ten Commandments for a well-known example. Obviously, Joseph and anyone else listening would know perfectly well that he was Pharaoh, so the function of the utterance is not informative.
44:45 wayyiqra... wayyitten lo...
Lastly, Pharaoh gives Joseph a new name (and here once more the parallel with God's solemn dealings with the patriarchs is striking) and a wife. The meanings of the names mentioned are uncertain but they have an Egyptian ring. On, the place of which his father-in-law Potiphera is the priest, was a city near present-day Cairo.
44:49
This verse contains two conventional idioms both of which are hyperboles expressing great abundance: k'xol hayyam 'like the sand of the sea' and ‛ad ki xadal lispor ki en mispar 'until he stopped counting for it was innumerable (lit. there was no number).'
44:50f.
Joseph's two sons, Menasseh and Ephraim, bear the names of two later Israelite tribes. The following two verses contain name games regarding these. As Speiser puts it: "The aetiological explanations of the names are, as usual, independent of correct etymology."
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