וַתֹּאכַ֨לְנָה֙ הַפָּר֔וֹת הָרַקּ֖וֹת וְהָרָע֑וֹת אֵ֣ת שֶׁ֧בַע הַפָּר֛וֹת הָרִאשֹׁנ֖וֹת הַבְּרִיאֹֽת
The lean and ill-favored cattle ate up the first seven fat cattle,
World English Bible · Public Domain
Genesis 41:20
Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex) Genesis 41:20 appears in the Hebrew Old Testament. The text above is from the Westminster Leningrad Codex. Each word links to its Strong’s number, a concise gloss, and parsing drawn from the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible morphology. Click any word for its full Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB) entry.
English Translation
The lean and ill-favored cattle ate up the first seven fat cattle,
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Compare translations 3
The same verse in 3 English versions, stacked beneath the original-language interlinear above. Click any original word for its lexicon entry.
Each is an independent rendering of the whole verse — the interlinear is not word-aligned to these translations.
Highlighted words mark where these versions differ — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment.
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World English Bible Public Domain
The lean and ill-favored cattle ate up the first seven fat cattle,
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King James Version Public Domain
And the lean and the ill favored kine did eat up the first seven fat kine:
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unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Then the thin and ugly cows ate the first seven fat cows.
unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult).
Show all 18 translations
Every available English version of this verse, each an independent rendering of the whole verse.
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World English Bible Public Domain
The lean and ill-favored cattle ate up the first seven fat cattle,
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Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Then the thin, ugly cows devoured the seven well-fed cows that were there first.
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Majority Standard Bible Public Domain
Then the thin, ugly cows devoured the seven well-fed cows that were there first.
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King James Version Public Domain
And the lean and the ill favored kine did eat up the first seven fat kine:
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American Standard Version (1901) Public Domain
and the lean and ill-favored kine did eat up the first seven fat kine:
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Revised Version (1885) Public Domain
and the lean and ill favoured kine did eat up the first seven fat kine:
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Geneva Bible (1599) Public Domain
And the leane and euilfauoured kine did eate vp the first seuen fat kine.
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Douay-Rheims (1899) Public Domain
And seven kine came up out of the river exceeding beautiful and full of flesh: and they grazed on green places in a marshy pasture.
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Young's Literal Translation Public Domain
`And the lean and the bad kine eat up the first seven fat kine,
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Literal Standard Version CC BY-SA 4.0
And the lean and the bad cows eat up the first seven fat cows,
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Unlocked Literal Bible CC BY-SA 4.0
The thin and undesirable cows ate up the first seven fat cows.
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unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Then the thin and ugly cows ate the first seven fat cows.
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Darby Bible Public Domain
And the lean and bad kine ate up the seven first fat kine;
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World Messianic Bible Public Domain
The thin and ugly cattle ate up the first seven fat cattle;
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Webster's Bible Public Domain
And the lean and the ill-favored cows ate up the first seven fat cows:
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Free Bible Version CC BY-SA 4.0
These skinny, ugly cows ate the first seven healthy-looking cows.
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Bible in Basic English Public Domain
And the thin cows made a meal of the seven fat cows who came up first;
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JPS Tanakh (1917) Public Domain
And the lean and ill-favoured kine did eat up the first seven fat kine.
Literal Standard Version (2020), Covenant Press — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). Unlocked Literal Bible (unfoldingWord) — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult). Free Bible Version, Dr. Jonathan Gallagher — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org).
Word by word
More ways to search: Search by grammar → Find every occurrence → Compare this word →
Practice this passage: Drill this verse → Learn its vocabulary →
הָרַקּ֖וֹת
raq
H7534
“the · thin”
Particle, Definite Article + Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Plural, Absolute
- Appears 3× in the Hebrew Bible
- First appears at Genesis 41:19
- Part of Speech
- Particle + Adjective
- Type
- Adjective
- Gender
- Feminine
- Number
- Plural
- State
- Absolute
Full BDB Definition
thin, lean
- וַתֹּאכַ֨לְנָה֙ ʼâkal H398 “and · to eat” Conjunction + Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Plural
- הַפָּר֔וֹת pârâh H6510 “the · cows” Particle, Definite Article + Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute
- הָרַקּ֖וֹת raq H7534 “the · thin” Particle, Definite Article + Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Plural, Absolute
- וְהָרָע֑וֹת raʻ H7451 “and · the · evil” Conjunction + Particle, Definite Article + Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Plural, Absolute
- אֵ֣ת ʼêth H853 “-” Particle, Direct Object
- שֶׁ֧בַע shebaʻ H7651 “seven” Adjective, Cardinal number, Feminine, Singular, Absolute
- הַפָּר֛וֹת pârâh H6510 “the · cows” Particle, Definite Article + Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute
- הָרִאשֹׁנ֖וֹת riʼshôwn H7223 “the · first” Particle, Definite Article + Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Plural, Absolute
- הַבְּרִיאֹֽת bârîyʼ H1277 “the · fat” Particle, Definite Article + Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Plural, Absolute
About this verse
These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →
- 9
- words
- 8
- distinct lemmas
- Pentateuch
- section
Notable vocabulary
The rarest word here is הָרַקּ֖וֹת thin H7534 — appearing just 3 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.
Shared distinctive vocabulary
הָרַקּ֖וֹת thin H7534 occurs in 3 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:
Grammatical profile
- 1 verb
- 2 nouns
- 5 adjectives
- 1 particle
Verb forms
- וַתֹּאכַ֨לְנָה֙ Qal · Sequential Imperfect
Repetition
A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:
- הַפָּר֔וֹת cow H6510 ×2
Hebrew & Septuagint length
In English translation the verse runs 12 words from the Hebrew and 16 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.
A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.
Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.
Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint
The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.
These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.
καί καταἐσθίω ὁ ἑπτά βοῦς ὁ αἰσχρός καί λεπτός ὁ ἑπτά βοῦς ὁ πρῶτος ὁ καλός καί ἐκλεκτός
And the seven ill-favoured and thin cows ate up the seven first good and choice cows.
LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain
Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →
Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)
The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.
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Targum Onkelos Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)
וַאֲכָלָן תּוֹרְתָּא חֲסִיכָתָא וּבִישָׁתָא יָת שְׁבַע תּוֹרְתָּא קַדְמָיָתָּא פַּטִּימָתָא
(no public-domain English translation for this verse)
Targum Onkelos — Aramaic: “Onkelos Genesis” (public domain); “Onkelos Exodus” (public domain); “Onkelos Leviticus” (public domain); “Onkelos Numbers” (public domain); “Onkelos Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “J.W. Etheridge. The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch. London: Longmans, Green, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
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Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)
וַאֲכִילָן תּוֹרָתֵי חֲשִכְתָּא וּבִישְׁתָא יַת שְׁבַע תּוֹרָתֵי קַמְיָיתָא וּפַטִימָתָא
And the wasted and evil oxen devoured the first seven fat oxen.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan — Aramaic: “Targum Jonathan on Genesis” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Exodus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Leviticus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Numbers” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, trans. J. W. Etheridge, London, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
Lesson kit
Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.
Genesis, in the Pentateuch, opens this verse with 9 words (8 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is raq (“thin”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.
Discussion questions
- What does “thin” (raq) contribute to the verse as a whole?
- How does Genesis 41:19, which shares the word «thin», read alongside this verse?
- What does the repetition of “cow” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
- These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
- «וַתֹּאכַ֨לְנָה֙» is a Qal Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
- Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and John Gill's Exposition read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?
Things to notice
- These translations choose different wording for 13 words in this verse.
- “cow” occurs 2× in this single verse.
- 8 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 9 words in this verse.
Commentary
Notes on Genesis 41:20 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.
Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →
Trapp's Complete Commentary
John Trapp
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill's Exposition
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Radak
Rabbi David Kimhi (Radak)
Radak on the Tanakh — English translations: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash” (CC BY 4.0); “Rabbi Mike Feuer, Jerusalem Anthology” (CC BY 4.0); and “R. David Kimhi on the first book of Psalms, Translated by R.G. Finch, London, 1919” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.