Stored up grain in great abundance: here again it may be necessary to say, for example, “Joseph commanded people and they stored up lots of grain.”

Like the sand of the sea: this simile was used in promises of numerous descendants in 22.17 and 32.12.

Until he ceased to measure it … measured: it is not known how the grain was counted or measured; but this is not really important for the story, and translators may use a very general expression or an expression for measuring grain that is known to their readers. Another way of expressing the sense of this clause is to say, for example, “the grain that was stored increased so much that the people no longer wrote down how much it was.”

We may translate verse 49, for example, “The grain that Joseph ordered the people to store was so great in amount that they stopped trying to measure how much there was. Counting it was like counting grains of sand on the seashore.”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .