For these two years has the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be ripening nor harvest.
For these two years has the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be ripening nor harvest.
For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and there are yet five years, in which there shall be neither plowing nor harvest.
For these two years have been years of need, and there are still five more years to come in which there will be no ploughing or cutting of grain.
For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in which there shall neither be tillage nor harvest.
For these two years the famine has been in the land, and there are yet five years, in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest.
For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and there are yet five years, in the which there shall be neither plowing nor harvest.
There shall neither be earing nor harvest - Earing has been supposed to mean collecting the ears of corn, which would confound it with harvest: the word, however, means ploughing or seed-time, from the Anglo-Saxon erian, probably borrowed from the Latin aro, to plough, and plainly means that there should be no seed-time, and consequently no harvest; and why? Because there should be a total want of rain in other countries, and the Nile should not rise above twelve cubits in Egypt; See Clarke on Genesis 41:31 (note). But the expressions here must be qualified a little, as we find from Genesis 47:19, that the Egyptians came to Joseph to buy seed; and it is probable that even during this famine they sowed some of the ground, particularly on the borders of the river, from which a crop, though not an abundant one, might be produced. The passage, however, in the above chapter may refer to the last year of the famine, when they came to procure seed for the ensuing year.