What Does Genesis 47:13 Mean in the King James?

And there was no bread in all the land; for the famine was very sore, so that the land of Egypt and all the land of Canaan fainted by reason of the famine.

Genesis 47:13 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The famine is called “heavy”: hunger becomes a weight pressing on the whole land.

THE MEANING

When bread is absent, scarcity weighs on whole territories; neither Egypt nor Canaan is spared. The land itself languishes under the pressure, showing how hunger reaches beyond any one household.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

Scarcity is not only a private hardship for individuals; this verse shows whole lands fainting under its weight.

THE ROOT

כָּבֵד

kaved

GROWS FROM

כבד

k-b-d

To be heavy or weighty.

The famine is described as heavy, a load that presses beyond one household until the land itself languishes. The same root gives kavod, “weight” and “honor,” so the English “sore” can hide the verse’s image of hunger as weight.

ALSO GROWS

kavod: Weight, honor, or glory.

כָּבוֹד

This branch makes the weight-language audible beneath the famine’s severity.

kibbed: To honor or treat as weighty.

כִּבֵּד

It carries the same root’s sense of assigning weight, echoing the burden famine lays across the land.

THE PATTERN

When provision fails, its weight crosses borders and makes whole regions vulnerable.

And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt; and the famine shall consume the land;

Genesis 41:30 · KJVFamine consumes the land as a whole, turning a shortage of food into a region-wide crisis.

Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Beth-lehem-judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons.

Ruth 1:1 · KJVThe famine reaches a family so forcefully that they leave their land and seek provision across a border.

And there stood up one of them named Agabus, and signified by the Spirit that there should be great dearth throughout all the world: which came to pass in the days of Claudius Cæsar.

Acts 11:28 · KJVThe predicted dearth extends across the world, showing scarcity on a scale beyond one household or territory.

THE THREAD

And the LORD said unto Moses, Pharaoh’s heart is hardened, he refuseth to let the people go.

Exodus 7:14 · KJV

Genesis calls the famine ⁨כָּבֵד⁩ (kaved), “heavy”; the same ⁨כבד⁩ root describes Pharaoh’s heart, rendered “hardened” here. The shared weight-image links a land pressed by hunger with a heart that refuses to release the people.

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