Only the land of the priests he did not buy: that is, “Joseph bought everyone’s farm except the ones that belonged to the priests.” This kind of sentence is often expressed as “Joseph bought everyone’s farm; he did not buy the priests’ farms.”

For the priests had a fixed allowance from Pharaoh: allowance refers to a set amount of money, or perhaps food and grain, given at regular intervals. We may translate this, for example, “because the king regularly gave the priests their provisions” or “… gave the priests a fixed amount of money.”

Lived on the allowance which Pharaoh gave them: we may say, for example, “they lived on the grain [money] that the king gave them.”

Therefore they did not sell their land: this consequence is essentially the same in meaning as the opening statement in this verse. In a fuller form we may translate, for example:

• The only farms that Joseph did not buy were those the priests owned. This is because the king regularly gave them provisions of grain that they ate, and so they did not have to sell their farms to get grain from Joseph.

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 .