What Does Genesis 47:14 Mean?
And Joseph gathered up all the silver that was found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, for the grain which they bought. And Joseph brought the silver into Pharaoh's house.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, for the corn which they bought: and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh’s house.THE KEY
As grain meets hunger, the money from two lands converges in Pharaoh’s house, the verse traces provision flowing outward while wealth flows inward.
THE MEANING
When scarcity narrows choices, an exchange can meet immediate need while concentrating wealth. Mitzrayim (מִצְרַיִם, Mitzrayim, “the two narrows,” from tzar [צַר, tzar, “narrow”] with the dual ending -ayim) gives that tightening a place: grain is bought, and the money of Egypt and Canaan gathers in Pharaoh’s house.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the assumption that an exchange which supplies people necessarily spreads wealth too: provision changes hands while the money collects in Pharaoh’s house.
THE ROOT
וַיִּלְקֹט
wayyiqloṭ
GROWS FROM
לקט
To gather, pick up, or glean.
“gathered up” in this verse is wayyiqloṭ. The verb used for Joseph’s collection belongs to the same root family as the language of gleaning a harvest. That agricultural echo makes the gathering of money feel like a harvest drawn from the land.
ALSO GROWS
leqeṭ: Gleanings, what is gathered or left to be gleaned from a harvest.
לֶקֶט
It links Joseph’s collection to the gathering of harvest remnants, while the verse makes the gathered object the land’s money.
lāqaṭ: To gather, pick up, or glean.
לָקַט
This is the verb’s root form; here it describes collecting all the money found across Egypt and Canaan.
שֶׁבֶר
shever
GROWS FROM
שבר
In this passage’s word family, grain or provision and the act of buying grain share the same root.
The Hebrew echoes the same שבר root in the grain (shever) and in “they bought” (shovrim). Provision and its purchase are bound together in the phrase, just before the verse shows where the payment goes.
ALSO GROWS
shever: Grain or provisions.
שֶׁבֶר
This is the word rendered “corn,” the food people buy to meet their need.
shavar: To buy grain or provisions.
שָׁבַר
The verse uses its form שֹׁבְרִים (shovrim, “they are buying”) for the purchase, echoing the word for the grain itself.
הַכֶּסֶף
hakkesef
GROWS FROM
כסף
The noun names silver or money; the verbal form carries the sense of longing or yearning.
Kesef names tangible silver as well as money, while the same consonants form a verb for longing. Here the silver is gathered from two lands and carried into Pharaoh’s house.
ALSO GROWS
kesef: Silver; money.
כֶּסֶף
This is the resource collected across Egypt and Canaan and brought to Pharaoh.
nikhsefah: Longed for, yearned for.
נִכְסְפָה
This verbal form shares the root’s consonants, placing material wealth and longing in the same word family.
THE PATTERN
When scarcity puts necessities behind a concentrated store, whoever holds the store also shapes dependence.
And when silver was used up in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph, saying, Give us bread, for why should we die before your face? For the silver is gone.The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is a servant to the lender.Look, the wages of the workers who mowed your fields, stripped away by your fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have gone into the ears of the LORD of hosts.THE THREAD
And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, Let me now go to the field, and gather ears of grain after him in whose eyes I shall find favor. And she said to her, Go, my daughter.The verb translated “gathered up” here is לָקַט (lāqaṭ, “gather” or “glean”), the same root used for Ruth’s gleaning in the field. In Genesis the gathered object is the money of two lands; in Ruth it is grain left for a gleaner, showing how the same act of gathering can serve very different holders and needs.
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