What Does Genesis 47:17 Mean in the King James?
And they brought their cattle unto Joseph: and Joseph gave them bread in exchange for horses, and for the flocks, and for the cattle of the herds, and for the asses: and he fed them with bread for all their cattle for that year.
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 Hebrew word translated “fed” also means “led”: bread carries the people through famine while their animals become its price.
THE MEANING
In the reader’s present too, survival can come through provision that costs something real. Here, bread carries the people through the year while their livestock passes into Joseph’s hands, and the verb rendered “fed” also carries the sense “led.”
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that being sustained means nothing has been surrendered: here, the people receive bread as their animals pass to Joseph.
THE ROOT
וַיְנַהֲלֵם
waynahalēm
GROWS FROM
נהל
n-h-l
To lead, guide, or conduct someone along.
The verb translated “fed” carries the sense of leading or guiding, so the verse pictures provision as something that carries people through the year. The same verb can describe being led beside waters, but here the cost remains visible: bread sustains the people as their livestock passes to Joseph.
ALSO GROWS
yenahalēnî: He leads me.
יְנַהֲלֵנִי
Psalm 23 uses the same verb for being led beside still waters, joining guidance with sustenance.
nehaltā: You guided.
נֵהַלְתָּ
Exodus 15:13 uses the same root for being guided toward a place of refuge.
THE PATTERN
Bread is concrete provision that carries life through scarcity.
Then said the LORD unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no.He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would.THE THREAD
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.The same Hebrew root נהל (n-h-l), meaning “to lead or guide,” appears in both verses: Joseph “fed” the people, while the shepherd “leadeth” beside still waters. Both picture sustenance as being conducted through need; Genesis keeps the cost of that provision in view.
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