For the famine has been in the land these two years: the function of this statement is to compare the amount of time since the famine began with the longer period of time before it will end. We may translate, for example, “We have had only two years of famine in this country,” “People have been hungry here for only two years,” or “This is only the second dry year.”

And there are yet five years: a contrastive link such as “but” or “however” may better connect these two clauses: “but for five more years there will be…” or “but there are five more years of it still to come, when….”

Neither plowing nor harvest: plowing translates a noun that refers both to the act of plowing and to the time of plowing: “the plowing season.” Harvest may mean “the harvest” (the crop that is harvested), “the process of harvesting,” or “the harvesting season.” This expression is used with the preposition “in” in Exo 34.21, where it refers to the seasons, as Good News Translation says, “during plowing time or harvest [time].” Whatever is the precise sense, Joseph is saying that for the next five years there will be no crops produced.

In language areas where plowing with a work animal is unknown, and the ground is not turned over in preparation for planting, translators may use an expression equivalent to planting and harvesting (collecting). In areas where hoe cultivation is practiced, it may be necessary to say “five more years when nobody will hoe the ground or harvest crops.” If no suitable expression is available in regard to working the earth and harvesting, we may have to say, for example, “For the next five years there will be no crops grown,” or actively “… people will not be able to raise a crop.” Some examples of recent translations are “five years yet when people can’t get food from their gardens,” “… when no one can work the ground or grow food,” and “five years … in which people can’t make gardens or harvest food.”

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 .