Genesis 41:34-35

41:34 Pharaoh should do ¹  this – he should appoint ²  officials ³  throughout the land to collect one-fifth of the produce of the land of Egypt ⁴  during the seven years of abundance. 41:35 They should gather all the excess food ⁵  during these good years that are coming. By Pharaoh’s authority ⁶  they should store up grain so the cities will have food, ⁷  and they should preserve it. ⁸ 

Genesis 41:48

41:48 Joseph ⁹  collected all the excess food ¹⁰  in the land of Egypt during the seven years and stored it in the cities. ¹¹  In every city he put the food gathered from the fields around it.

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¹ tn The imperfect verbal form has an obligatory nuance here. The Samaritan Pentateuch has a jussive form here, “and let [Pharaoh] do.”

² tn Heb “and let him appoint.” The jussive form expresses Joseph’s advice to Pharaoh.

³ tn Heb “appointees.” The noun is a cognate accusative of the preceding verb. Since “appoint appointees” would be redundant in English, the term “officials” was used in the translation instead.

⁴ tn Heb “and he shall collect a fifth of the land of Egypt.” The language is figurative (metonymy); it means what the land produces, i.e., the harvest.

⁵ tn Heb “all the food.”

⁶ tn Heb “under the hand of Pharaoh.”

⁷ tn Heb “[for] food in the cities.” The noun translated “food” is an adverbial accusative in the sentence.

⁸ tn The perfect with vav (ו) consecutive carries the same force as the sequence of jussives before it.

⁹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Joseph) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹⁰ tn Heb “all the food.”

¹¹ tn Heb “of the seven years which were in the land of Egypt and placed food in the cities.”