What Does Genesis 47:20 Mean?
And Joseph bought all the fields of Egypt for Pharaoh, for every man of the Egyptians sold his field, because the hunger gripped them. So the land became Pharaoh's.
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 bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh; for the Egyptians sold every man his field, because the famine prevailed over them: so the land became Pharaoh’s.THE KEY
The famine turns hunger into a transfer of ground: each person’s field passes into Pharaoh’s possession.
THE MEANING
Scarcity reaches beyond the body into the ground a person holds; under its pressure, fields pass from many hands into one ruler’s ownership. The verse shows how need can concentrate power as well as resources.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that deprivation only takes what a person consumes: famine can strip away the ground that sustains a person and transfer it to someone already holding power.
THE ROOT
מכרו
makhru
GROWS FROM
מכר
to sell or transfer for a price
“sold” in this verse is makhru. The same root names the sale of Joseph in Genesis 37:28 and the Egyptians’ sale of their fields here. That echo links Joseph’s own passage through sale to this transfer of the land he now acquires for Pharaoh.
ALSO GROWS
mekhirah: sale
מְכִירָה
This noun makes explicit that the root names the act of transferring something by sale.
mimkar: something sold; a sale
מִמְכָּר
This branch names the thing transferred, making the movement from individual fields to Pharaoh’s possession visible.
ויקן
wayyiqan
GROWS FROM
קנה
to acquire, buy, or possess
“bought” in this verse is wayyiqan. The root can name both the act of acquiring and what is acquired. Set against the Egyptians’ selling, it shows how many separate holdings gather into Pharaoh’s possession.
ALSO GROWS
qinyan: acquisition; possession
קִנְיָן
This branch brings out the ownership that follows the purchase.
miqneh: livestock; possessions
מִקְנֶה
The word for acquired property shows how the root can extend from acquiring to what is held.
חזק
chazaq
GROWS FROM
חזק
to be strong, strengthen, or hold fast
“gripped” in this verse is chazaq. The famine is described as מָקוֹם? No.
ALSO GROWS
chazaq: strong; firm
חָזָק
This branch echoes the verse’s description of famine as strong upon the people.
hecheziq: to hold firmly; to take hold
הֶחֱזִיק
This branch makes the pressure of the famine legible as a force that bears down on them.
THE PATTERN
When need or power strips people of control over land and its yield, wealth gathers in fewer hands.
And it came to pass, when Jezebel heard that Naboth was stoned and dead, that Jezebel said to Ahab, Rise, take hold of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused to give you for silver. For Naboth is not alive, but dead.Woe to those who reach house to house, who draw field to field, until there is no room, so that you may be settled alone in the midst of the earth!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
Then Midianite traders passed by, and they drew him up and lifted him out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver, and they brought Joseph into Egypt.The verb “sold” in both verses comes from מָכַר (makhar, “to sell”). Joseph is first transferred into Egypt by that verb; here the same verb marks Egyptians transferring their fields, while Joseph buys the whole land for Pharaoh.
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