And in the seven plenteous years the earth brought forth by handfuls.

And the fruitfulness of the seven years came: and the corm being bound up into sheaves was gathered together into the barns of Egypt.

And in the seven plenteous years the earth brought forth by handfulls.

and the land maketh in the seven years of plenty by handfuls.

Now in the seven good years the earth gave fruit in masses.

And in the seven years of plenty the earth brought forth in heaps.

And the fertility of the seven years arrived. And when the grain fields were reduced to sheaves, these were gathered into the storehouses of Egypt.

Et protulit terra septem annis saturitatis ad collectiones.

The earth brought forth by handfuls - This probably refers principally to rice, as it grows in tufts, a great number of stalks proceeding from the same seed. In those years the Nile probably rose sixteen cubits; See Clarke on Genesis 41:31 (note).

And in the seven plenteous years the earth brought forth by handfuls. Such as the gatherers take up in their hands when reaped, in order to bind up in sheaves: now such was the fruitfulness of the land during the seven years of plenty, that either one stalk produced as many ears as a man could hold in his hand; or one grain produced an handful, as Ben Melech observes; though Onkelos paraphrases the words,"the inhabitants of the earth in the seven years of plenty gathered even into their treasuries:''and this they did by the order and direction of Joseph as he passed through the land; what he bought of them they brought, and put into the granaries, as he directed them.

the earth brought forth by handfuls--a singular expression, alluding not only to the luxuriance of the crop, but the practice of the reapers grasping the ears, which alone were cut.

For the seven years of superabundance the land bore לקמצים, in full hands or bundles; and Joseph gathered all the provisional store of these years (i.e., the fifth part of the produce, which was levied) into the cities. "The food of the field of the city, which was round about it, he brought into the midst of it;" i.e., he provided granaries in the towns, in which the corn of the whole surrounding country was stored. In this manner he collected as much corn "as the sand of the sea," until he left off reckoning the quantity, or calculating the number of bushels, which the monuments prove to have been the usual mode adopted (vid., Hengst. p. 36).