Commentaires bibliques

Verse 13. - And there was no bread in all the land; for the famine was very sore (literally, heavy), so that the land of Egypt and all the land of Canaan fainted (literally, was exhausted, had become languid and spiritless) by reason of the famine. The introduction of the present section, which first depicts the miseries of a starving population, and then circumstantially describes a great political revolution forced upon them by the stern necessity of hunger, may have been due to a desire

(1) to exhibit the extreme urgency which existed for Joseph's care of his father and brethren (Bush),

(2) to show the greatness of the benefit conferred on Joseph's house (Baumgarten, Keil, Lange), and perhaps also

(3) to foreshadow the political constitution afterwards bestowed upon the Israelites (Gerlach).

Verse 14. - And Joseph gathered up - the verb, used only here of collecting money, usually signifies to gather things lying on the ground, as, e.g., ears of corn (Ruth 2:3), stones (Genesis 31:46), manna (Exodus 16:14), flowers (Song of Solomon 6:2) - all the money (literally, silver) that was found in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, for the corn which they bought: and Joseph (who in this matter was simply Pharaoh's steward) brought the money into Pharaoh's house (i.e. deposited it in the royal treasury).

Verse 15. - And when money failed (literally, and the silver was consumed, or spent) in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, all (literally, and all) the Egyptians came unto Joseph, and said, Give us bread: for why should we die in thy presence? for the money faileth (literally, and why should we die in thy presence because silver faileth? i.e. seeing that thou art able to support us).

Verses 16, 17. - And Joseph said, Give (literally, bring) your cattle; and I will give you (sc. bread) for your cattle, if money fail. And they brought their cattle unto Joseph: and Joseph gave them bread in exchange for horses, and for the flocks (literally, and for cattle of the flocks), and for the cattle of the herds, and for the asses (the severity of these terms of sale and purchase was not so great as at first sight appears, since to a famishing people under-fed cattle and starving horses must have been comparatively worthless): and he fed them - literally, led, in the sense of cared for and maintained, them (cf. Psalm 23:2; Isaiah 40:11) - for all their cattle for that year - this was the sixth year of the famine (vide ver. 23).

Verses 18, 19. - When that year was ended, they came unto him the second year (not the second from the commencement of the dearth, but the second from the consumption of their money), and said unto him, We will not hide it from my lord, how that - literally, for if (so we should speak openly), hence equivalent to an intensified but - our money (literally, the silver) is spent; my lord also hath our herds of cattle; - literally, our herds of cattle also (sc. have come) to my lord - there is not ought left in the sight of my lord, but our bodies, and our lands: wherefore shall we die before thine eyes, both we and our land? buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants unto Pharaoh: and give us seed, that we may (literally, and we shall) live, and not die, that the land be not desolate (literally, and the land shall not be desolate).

Verse 20. - And Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh; for the Egyptians sold every man his field, because the famine prevailed over them: so (literally, and) the land became Pharaoh's. From this it may be concluded that originally Pharaoh had no legal claim to the soil, but that the people had a valid title to its absolute possession, each man being regarded as the legitimate proprietor of the portion on which he had expended the labor of cultivation.

Verse 21. - And as for the people, he removed them - not enslaved them, converted them into serfs and bondmen to Pharaoh (LXX., Vulgate), but simply transferred them, caused them to pass over - to cities - not from cities to cities, as if changing their populations (Onkelos, Rosenmüller, Kalisch), but either from the country districts to the towns (Targums Jonathan and Jerusalem, Lange, Schumann, Gerlach, Murphy), or according to the cities, i.e. in which the grain had been previously collected (Keil) - from one end of the borders of Egypt even to the other end thereof. Not that the people were transported from one side of the country to the other as a high stroke of policy to complete their subjugation (Jarchi, Grotius, Rosenmüller, Kalisch, and others), but that throughout the land they were moved into the nearest cities, as a considerate and even merciful arrangement for the more efficiently supplying them with food (Calvin, Keil, Lange, Wordsworth, Speaker's Commentary).

Verse 22. - Only the land of the priests (so the LXX., Vulgate, and Chaldee render cohen, which, however, sometimes signifies a prince) bought he not; for the priests had a portion - not of land (Lange, Kalisch), but of food (Keil, Murphy) - assigned them of Pharaoh (not of Joseph, who must not, therefore, be charged with the sin of extending a State allowance to an idolatrous priesthood), and did eat their portion which Pharaoh gave them: wherefore they sold not their lands, - that is, in consequence of the State aliment which they enjoyed (during the period of the famine) they did not require to alienate their lands.