Life Preserved and Power Concentrated

Joseph reports that his family is already “in the land of Goshen” before Pharaoh has granted it (verse 6). The request that follows is made with the settlement already in place, which is a courtier’s way of asking for something.

“Some of his brethren” is miqtseh echav, which can mean “from among” or “from the end of” his brothers. A Talmudic reading has Joseph choose the weakest-looking, so Pharaoh would not draft them into service; the text does not say how he chose.

Joseph told them to say they were “men of cattle” (46:34). They answer with the blunter ro’eh tson, “shepherds”, the very word he warned the Egyptians despised, though he had meant to use it himself (46:32). They do not soften it.

“To sojourn” is lagur, to live as a resident foreigner, the status Abraham claimed at Hebron: “I am a stranger and a sojourner with you” (23:4). They ask for a stay, not a homeland, as God had told Abraham his descendants would be strangers “in a land that is not theirs” (15:13).

Pharaoh answers the brothers’ request by speaking to Joseph, not to them. The Greek Bible has a longer and differently ordered text at this point, with an extra sentence on the family’s arrival, which suggests the passage was copied in more than one form.

“Men of activity” is anshei chayil, capable men, the phrase Jethro uses for the “able men” Moses should appoint (Exodus 18:21). Overseers of the royal herds were real officials in Egypt, and Pharaoh offers the shepherds a post in his own service.

“Blessed” is barak, which can also mean a formal greeting; the KJV renders the same verb “salute” when Samuel meets Saul (1 Samuel 13:10). Either way, an old herdsman speaks first before the king, and speaks a blessing.

The Hebrew is longer: “How many are the days of the years of thy life?” To Egyptians the ideal lifespan was a hundred and ten, the age Joseph dies at (50:26), so an old man of a hundred and thirty was remarkable in the court.

The phrase “days of the years” comes four times in one sentence, a ceremonious answer to a king. Jacob calls his life a sojourning, megurim, not a settled stay. Hebrews 11:13 takes up the thought: the patriarchs “confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth”.

The audience ends with a second blessing, and it is Jacob who takes his leave. Rashi reports a midrash that the blessing was for the Nile to rise to meet Pharaoh; the text records only that it was given.

“The land of Rameses” names the region by the city Israel will later build for Pharaoh (Exodus 1:11), a royal name famous from the thirteenth century BC. It is most likely the later name for the area, like “Dan” in Abraham’s day (14:14). “A possession” is achuzzah: Israel’s first land holding is in Egypt.

“According to their families” is literally “according to the little ones”, lefi hattaf: bread handed out by the number of mouths, children included. Joseph feeds his father’s house the way Egypt’s grain will be rationed to everyone else.

“Fainted” is lahah, a rare word for being worn out and dazed. Both lands, Egypt and Canaan, languish together. The family’s ration in Goshen in verse 12 is set directly against a country with no bread.

Every piece of silver goes “into Pharaoh’s house”, none into Joseph’s. The man who once had silver secretly put back into his brothers’ sacks now brings in the silver of two countries and keeps nothing.

“Why should we die in thy presence?” appeals to the ruler’s eyes: a people dying in front of him. “Faileth” is afes, to come to an end, run out. The silver is gone before the famine is.

Joseph’s answer is two words in Hebrew, havu miqneikhem, “give your cattle”. There is no speech, only terms, and a fallback: “if money fail”.

This is the first mention of horses in the Bible, and they belong to Egypt; horses and chariots were a newer arrival there. “He fed them” is yenahalem, “he led them”, the shepherd’s verb of Psalm 23:2, “he leadeth me beside the still waters”.

“The second year” means the year after the cattle were sold. “Our bodies” is geviyyah, a word often used of a corpse, as of Saul’s body on the wall at Beth-shan (1 Samuel 31:10). The people describe themselves as all but dead.

“We and our land” is said three times: the people and the soil will die or live together. “Desolate” is tesham, the word for a land laid waste. The people propose the sale themselves, and ask for seed as well as bread.

Egyptian records do show a country where most land was held by the crown and the temples, and farmers worked it as tenants. Genesis gives an account of how that came about. “Prevailed” is chazaq, to be strong, the famine stronger than any owner.

The Hebrew says he “removed them to cities”. The Samaritan text and the Greek read instead “he made them slaves”, a difference of a letter or two. Rashi held that the resettling taught the people they no longer owned their ancestral land.

“Portion” is choq, a fixed allowance, and the same word becomes “law” in verse 26. Egyptian temples held vast estates, recorded in later papyri, and received regular allowances from the king. The priests who gave Joseph his wife (41:45) keep their land.

“This day” is the language of a legal purchase, as when Boaz tells the elders “Ye are witnesses this day, that I have bought” (Ruth 4:9). Joseph’s first act as owner is to hand out seed.

Samuel will warn Israel that a king “will take the tenth of your seed” (1 Samuel 8:15). Pharaoh takes a fifth, twice that. Seed stands first in the list of what the four parts are for, ahead of households and little ones.

“Thou hast saved our lives” is the verb Joseph used to his brothers, “to save your lives” (45:7), and will use again, “to save much people alive” (50:20). The Egyptians say of Joseph what Joseph said of God.

Herodotus heard in Egypt that an early king divided the land into equal plots and drew a yearly rent from them (Histories 2.109), a Greek memory of crown land and royal taxes. Genesis gives its own account of the origin, set in Joseph’s time.

“Grew, and multiplied exceedingly” is paru vayyirbu me’od, the words of the first blessing, “be fruitful, and multiply” (1:28), now reported as happening. Exodus 1:7 repeats them to open its account. “Had possessions” is from achaz, to take hold; the Egyptians have just let go of theirs.

Scholars have noticed a pattern in the three ages: Abraham 175 is 7 × 5 × 5, Isaac 180 is 5 × 6 × 6, Jacob 147 is 3 × 7 × 7. Whatever the pattern means, the numbers were not assembled carelessly.

“Put thy hand under my thigh” is the oath Abraham asked of his servant (24:2). “Kindly and truly” is chesed ve’emet, the pair the servant used when his prayer was answered (24:27). Rashi called kindness to the dead “true kindness”, because it can never be repaid.

“Lie with my fathers” is a way of speaking of death. Joseph promises, and Jacob still asks for an oath. It turns out to matter: when Joseph needs Pharaoh’s leave to go, his argument is “My father made me swear” (50:5).

“Bed” is mittah in the Hebrew vowels; the same consonants read as matteh mean staff. The Greek took it that way, and Hebrews 11:21 follows it: Jacob “worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff”. The written letters allow both.