Commentari biblici

Verses 23, 24. - Then Joseph said unto the people, Behold, I have bought you this day and your land for Pharaoh: lo, here is seed for you, and ye shall sow the land. This proves the time to have been the last year of the famine; and since the people obtained seed from the viceroy, it is reasonable to suppose that they would also have their cattle restored to them to enable them to till the ground. And it shall come to pass in the increase, that ye shall give the fifth part unto Pharaoh, and four parts shall be your own, for seed of the field, and for your food, and for them of your households, and for food for your little ones. This verse is a sufficient refutation of the oft-preferred charge that Joseph had despoiled the Egyptians of their liberties, and converted a free people into a horde of abject slaves. Slave-owners are not usually content with a tax of only twenty percent on the gross revenues of their estates. Nor does it seem reasonable to allege that this was an exorbitant demand on the part either of Joseph or of Pharaoh. If in the seven years of plenty the people could afford to part with a fifth part of their produce, might not an improved system of agriculture enable them, under the new regulations, to pay as much as that in the shape of rent, and with quite as much ease? At all events the people themselves did not consider that they were being subjected to any harsh or unjust exaction.

Verse 25. - And they said, Thou hast saved our lives (literally, thou hast kept us alive): let us find grace in the sight of my lord (i.e. let us have the land on these favorable terms), and we will be Pharaoh's servants. "That a sort of feudal service is here intended - the service of free laborers, not bondmen - we may learn from the relationship of the Israelites to God, which was formed after the plan of this Egyptian model" (Gerlach).

Verse 26. - And Joseph made it a law over the land of Egypt unto this day (i.e. the day of the narrator), that Pharaoh should have the fifth part; except the land of the priests only, which became not Pharaoh's. The account here given of the land tenure in Egypt, viz.,

(1) that after the time of Joseph the kings of Egypt became lords paramount of the soil,

(2) that the only free landholders in the country were the members of the priestly caste, and

(3) that the population generally occupied their farms at the uniform fixed rent of one fifth of their yearly produce, is abundantly corroborated by the statements of Herodotus (2. 109), that Sesostris divided the soil of Egypt among the inhabitants, "assigning square plots of equal size to all, and obtaining his chief revenue from the rent which the holders were required to pay him year by year; of Diodorus Siculus (1. 73), that the land in Egypt belonged either to the priests, to the king, or to the military order; and of Strabo (17. 787), that the peasants were not landowners, but occupiers of ratable land; as also by the monuments, which represent the king, priests, and warriors alone as having landed property (Wilkinson, Ken). Dr. Robinson quotes a modern parallel to this act of Joseph's, which both illustrates its nature and by way of contrast exhibits its clemency. Up to the middle of the present century the people of Egypt had been the owners as well as tillers of the soil. "By a single decree the Pasha (Mohammed Ali) declared himself to be the sole owner of all lands in Egypt; and the people of course became at once-only his tenants at will, or rather his slaves." "The modern Pharaoh made no exceptions, and stripped the mosques and other religious and charitable institutions of their landed endowments as mercilessly as the rest. Joseph gave the people seed to sow, and required for the king only a fifth of the produce, leaving four-fifths to them as their own; but now, though seed is in like manner given out, yet every village is compelled to cultivate two-thirds of its lands with corn and other articles for the Pasha, and also to render back to him, in the form of taxes and exactions in kind, a large proportion of the produce remaining after" ('Biblical Researches,' 1:42).

Verse 27. - And Israel (i.e. the people) dwelt in the land of Egypt, in the country of Goshen; and they had possessions therein (i.e. acquired holdings in it), and grew (or became fruitful), and multiplied exceedingly - or became very numerous. This was the commencement of the promise (Genesis 46:3).

CHAPTER 47:28-31

Verse 28. - And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years: so the whole age of Jacob was (literally, the days of Jacob, the years of his life, were) an hundred forty and seven years. He had lived seventy-seven years in Canaan, twenty years in Padanaram, thirty-three in Canaan again, and seventeen in Egypt, in all 147 years.

Verse 29. - And the time drew nigh that Israel (i.e. Jacob) must die (literally, and the days of Israel to die drew near): and he called his son Joseph, and said unto him, If now I have found grace in thy sight (not as if Jacob doubted Joseph's affection, but simply as desiring a last token of his love, perhaps also as unconsciously recognizing his son's greatness), put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh, - an ancient form of adjuration (cf. Genesis 24:2) - and deal kindly and truly with me; bury me not, I pray thee, in Egypt. On the root קָבַר, to bury (cf. Eng. cover), vide Genesis 23:4.

Verse 30. - But I will lie with my fathers, and thou shalt carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their burying-place. The request of the venerable patriarch, while due in some respect to the deeply-seated instinct of human nature which makes men, almost universally, long to be buried in ancestral graves, was inspired by the clear faith that Canaan was the true inheritance of Israel, and that, though now obtaining a temporary refuge in Egypt, his descendants would eventually return to the land of promise as their permanent abode. And he (i.e. Joseph) said, I will do as thou hast said - literally, according to thy word.

Verse 31. - And he (i.e. Jacob) said, Swear unto me (in the manner indicated in ver. 29). And he (i.e. Joseph) sware unto him. And (having concluded this touching and impressive ceremonial) Israel bowed himself upon the bed's head. Though supported by many eminent authorities (Chaldee Pard. phrase, Symmachus, Vulgate, Calvin, Willet, Rosenmüller, Delitzsch, Keil, Kalisch, &c., &c.), the present rendering is not entirely free from difficulty, since not until the next chapter is there any mention of Jacob's sickness; while in favor of the reading, "And Israel bowed himself on the top of his staff" (LXX.), it may be urged

(1) that it is adopted by the writer to the Hebrews (Hebrews 11:21),

(2) that the Hebrew words for staff and bed differ only in the punctuation, and

(3) that the action of leaning on his staff was quite as suitable to Jacob's circumstances as turning over and bowing on his bed's head.