Bible Commentaries

Genesis 47:18. When that year was ended— The sixth year of the famine; they came the second year, i.e.. the next year after the sale of their cattle, which was the last of the famine, as appears from the next verse, compared with Genesis 47:23.

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Genesis 47:19. Wherefore shall we die—we, and our land— Land may be said, metaphorically, to die, when it lies uncultivated and desolate: this is agreeable, says Calmet, to the language of the poets, and of the best elastic writers. So Martial says, suburbanus ne moriatur ager.* Seneca, sata et vivere et mori dicimus.† See Job 14:7-8.

• That the land about the city may not die.

† We say that the corn-land either lives or dies.

Buy us and our land for bread— It is to be observed here, that this is the voluntary offer of the people, not the demand of Joseph. We observed in a former note, that the land was divided among the king, the priests, and the people: but this national calamity, as Bishop Warburton observes, made a great revolution in property, and brought the whole possessions of the people into the king's hands, which must needs make a prodigious accession of power to the crown. But Joseph, in whom the offices of a minister and patriot supported each other, and jointly concurred to the public service, prevented, for some time, the ill effects of this accession, by his farming out the new domain to the old proprietors on very easy conditions. We may well suppose this wise disposition to have continued till that new king arose who knew not Joseph, that is, who would obliterate his memory, as averse to his system of policy. He greatly affected despotic government; to support which, he established a standing militia, and endowed it with lands formerly the people's, who now became a kind of villains to this order.

And give us seed— This proves that the present was the last year of the famine. The AEgyptians, full of confidence in the predictions of Joseph, offered to sell themselves, and their land, to their king, that they might have seed to sow, in hopes of a crop the next year: for Joseph had told them there would be but seven years of famine; and possibly the Nile, the source of plenty, had begun to overflow the land as usual.

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Genesis 47:21. As for the people, he removed them to cities— Chandler, in his Vindication, observes well, "that in ch. Genesis 41:48. we are told, that Joseph gathered up the food, and laid it up in the cities; the food of the field, which was round about every city, laid he up in the same: so that, instead of suffering the people to live in the country, where it would have been difficult to have taken due care of them, he removed them into the cities where the corn was laid up, for the better conveniency of feeding them; an act of the greatest prudence, compassion, and generosity!" which account of Joseph's conduct is so natural, and so consistent with the rest of his character, that it renders equally vain the objections urged against him for thus transplanting the people, and the political and far-fetched reasons urged by many writers for his doing so. The text does not say, nor give the least hint to suppose, that he removed families from one city to another, and transplanted them to places most remote from their former possessions, which would have bred infinite confusion, been attended with great difficulties, and have made Joseph universally detested. We only read that he removed the people TO CITIES, from one end of the borders of AEgypt, even to the other end thereof, i.e.. very plainly, did cause the people throughout all the land of AEgypt to leave the country, and come to the cities where the corn was deposited, where they might more easily be fed, and when their absence from the country would be of no detriment, as tillage was at a stand. See Delaney's Revelation Examined, vol. 3: p. 227.

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Genesis 47:22. Only the land of the priests bought he not— Lord Shaftesbury has from this circumstance taken occasion to observe, in his usual way, "to what height of power the established priesthood was arrived, since the crown offered not to meddle with the church-lands: and that, in this great revolution, nothing was attempted, so much as by way of purchase or exchange, in prejudice of this landed clergy; the prime minister himself having joined his interest with theirs, and entered, by marriage, into this alliance." But his lordship seems to have forgotten, 1st, That the priesthood, in those days, was confined to the heads of families who were persons of the highest rank and power, almost equal to the king, consulted upon all matters of consequence, and who, upon a vacancy, were often raised to the throne. 2nd, That in consequence of their birth and dignity, and not of their priesthood, this great privilege was founded long before Joseph's time, and not by his indulgence and partiality to them. 3rdly, That out of their estates they defrayed all the charges of the sacrifices, ornaments, utensils, and other religious ceremonies, which were here performed with the highest and most costly splendor. And, 4thly, That they were the king's chief assistant counsellors, ministers, recorders, &c. as well as the professors and teachers of all arts and sciences, and the judges, chief magistrates, and officers of the kingdom; whose estates, therefore, how great soever we suppose them, could hardly exceed the expence necessary to support them in all those offices. So that it could not but have been unjust, as well as imprudent and dangerous, for the king, or his prime minister, to have made such an attempt to have alienated them. Univ. Hist.

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Genesis 47:26. Joseph made it a law— Chandler remarks, that Joseph, to his honour, was so far from enslaving the country, that, with the consent of king and people, he settled both the rights of the crown and of the subject upon the foundation of an irrepealable law, and was the first who limited the power of their princes. This circumstance seems confirmed by Diodorus, who, among other instances of the good government of AEgypt, mentions this, b. 1: "That the people were not oppressed with taxes; and that the husbandmen rented their lands, at a small price, of the king, the priests, and the soldiers:" a happiness which they seem to have derived from Joseph's constitution.

Except the land of the priests only— i.e.. Except the fifth part of the land of the priests only, their land not becoming subject to the payment of any taxes.

REFLECTIONS.—Business must interrupt the pleasing intercourse of friends: now Jacob is settled, Joseph returns to his employment. The famine was severe; the years of plenty had been neglected by the improvident people, and now they are ready to die for want: their money, their stock, their land, are first parted with; and, rather than perish, they offer themselves for meat: better live servants, they thought, than die of famine. Learn from the whole, (1.) How suddenly all our worldly comforts may leave us. If God withholds but the dew of heaven from us, all we possess cannot keep us from starving. (2.) To defraud the ministry, or render it despicable by want, was regarded even by the heathens as impious. Let those remember, who possess the revenues of churches where the minister scarcely eats bread from the altar which he serves, and they who pay a scandalous pittance for the service, while themselves live on the fleeces of the sheep they never feed, that even the AEgyptian Pharaoh shall rise up in judgment to condemn them.

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Genesis 47:29. Put—thy hand under my thigh— See note on ch. Genesis 24:2.

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Genesis 47:30. I will lie with my fathers— Jacob's desire to be buried with his fathers is easily accounted for, both from that natural inclination which men have to be buried with their ancestors, and from his faith in the Divine promise that his posterity should inherit the land.

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Genesis 48:3. God Almighty appeared unto me at Luz— Jacob, now approaching near his end, dispatched a messenger, Gen 48:1 to inform his son Joseph of his state, who immediately, full of filial affection, hastened to his aged father with his two sons, in order to obtain his blessing; dispatching first a messenger, Gen 48:2 to notify his arrival. The intelligence of his beloved son's approach revived the languishing spirits of old Jacob, who strengthened himself to receive him, and to communicate to him and his that blessing which God had heretofore promised him at Luz, or Beth-el, where God appeared twice to him, (ch. Genesis 28:13.Genesis 35:6; Genesis 35:6; Gen 35:9) and blessed him; i.e.. renewed the original blessing given to Abraham, ch. Genesis 13:15, &c.

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