What Does Genesis 47:15 Mean in the King James?
And when money failed in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came unto Joseph, and said, Give us bread: for why should we die in thy presence? for the money faileth.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The verse’s hidden hinge is “faileth”: money reaches nothing, but hunger still asks for bread.
THE MEANING
When the resources you count on reach their end, your need for what sustains life does not disappear; bread is still the plea. The verse lets scarcity speak plainly: when food is absent, death becomes the question standing before you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that money can guarantee life: when the silver comes to nothing, the need for bread remains.
THE ROOT
אָפֵס
ʾāphes
GROWS FROM
א־פ־ס
To cease, come to an end, or be nothing.
“Faileth” can sound like something merely underperforming; this root says the silver has reached its end, where it is nothing. The same root names the earth’s extremities, giving the word the sense of a boundary reached.
ALSO GROWS
ʾephes: Nothing, nought.
אֶפֶס
The money’s failure is stated as its becoming nothing: the resource has reached its limit.
ʾafsei ʾarets: The ends or extremities of the earth.
אַפְסֵי אָרֶץ
The shared root carries the sense of an edge or limit, echoing the point at which the money runs out.
THE PATTERN
When provision is threatened, scripture makes bread the concrete line between hunger and life.
And the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.Give us this day our daily bread.And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.THE THREAD
Wherefore shall we die before thine eyes, both we and our land? buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants unto Pharaoh: and give us seed, that we may live, and not die, that the land be not desolate.The plea for bread returns, now alongside an offer of land and freedom in exchange for continued life. The same Hebrew word לֶחֶם (lechem, bread) carries the request forward from urgent need into the price of survival.
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