[This is a wild guess, but there must have been 8 or more pharaohs throughout the whole 430 years that the Israelites were destined to live in Egypt. Why 8 and not 5, wouldn’t the pharaohs have enjoyed longevity just like other biblical figures? They could, if they followed the biblical diet.
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elites’ prophesied stay in Egypt, the only 2 pharaohs who matter in the history of the chosen people are the first and the last, neither of whom are named. We can characterize this one as the good pharaoh and the latter one as the bad pharaoh.
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[RA] And from the pick of his brothers. The Hebrew prepositional phrase, miqtseh ‘eaw, has elicited puzzlement, or evasion, from most commentators. The common meaning of miqtseh is “at the end of,” but it is also occasionally used in the sense of “from the best of” or “from the pick of,” which would be appropriate here, since Joseph wants to introduce the most presentable of his brothers to Pharaoh. The use of miqtseh in Judges 18:2 in reference to elite soldiers nicely illustrates the likely meaning in our own text: “and the Danites sent from their clan five men of their pick [miqtsotam,] capable men . . . to spy out the land.” It might be noted that this term in Judges is associated with “capable men” (benel ayil) —a phrase that in a military context might also be rendered “valiant men”—just as an equivalent phrase, ‘ansei ayil, is associated with Josephs brothers at this point. There are, however, other occurrences of miqtseh or miqtsot that suggest it might also have the sense of “a representative sample.”
five men. The insistence of various modern commentators that “rive” both here and earlier in the story really means “several” is not especially convincing. One should note that the whole Joseph story exhibits a fondness for playing with recurrent numbers: the fraternal twelve, first signaled in Joseph’s dreams, then subtracted from by his disappearance, with the full sum made up at the end; the triple pairs of seven. Five is one half the number of the brothers who enslaved Joseph; Benjamin was given a fivefold portion at Joseph’s feast and five changes of garments; and the Egyptians are obliged to pay a tax of one-fifth of their harvest.
3 Pharaoh said to his brothers: What is it that you do? They said to Pharaoh: Your servants are shepherds of flocks, so we, so our fathers. 4 And they said to Pharaoh: It is to sojourn in the land that we have come, for there is no grazing for the flocks that are your servants’, for the famine is heavy in the land of Canaan. So now, pray let your servants settle in the region of Goshen![EF] It is to sojourn: Are they still sensitive to the accusation in 42:12. “For it is the nakedness of the land that you have come to see?”
[RA] to sojourn in the land . . . dwell in the land. First they use a verb of temporary residence, then one of fixed settlement.
5 Pharaoh said to Yosef, saying: (So) your father and your brothers have come to you:[RA] 5a-6b. The Masoretic Text is clearly problematic at this point because it has Pharaoh speaking to Joseph, appearing to ignore the brothers who have just addressed a petition to him, and also announcing, quite superfluously in light of verse 1, “Your father and your brothers have come to you.” Coherence in the sequence of dialogues is improved by inserting the clauses italicized here, which are reflected in the Septuagint and by changing the order of the verses.
6 the land of Egypt is before you; in the goodliest-part of the land, settle your father and your brothers, let them settle in the region of Goshen. And if you know that there are able men among them, make them chiefs of livestock over what is mine.the best of the land. Is to be placed at their disposal. This was Pharaoh’s gratitude to Joseph for his eminent services to Egypt.
make them rulers over my cattle. A further sign of the king’s gratitude. Joseph’s relatives are to be appointed royal officers, superintendents of the king’s herdsmen.
7 Yosef brought Yaakov his father and had him stand in Pharaoh’s presence. And Yaakov gave Pharaoh a blessing-of-greeting.7-11. Joseph presents his father to the king.
set him. Or, ‘presented him.”
Jacob blessed Pharaoh. The aged Patriarch asks the blessing of God for the king who had befriended his beloved son.
[RA] and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. The Hebrew verb here also has the simple meaning of “to greet,” but it seems likely that in this context it straddles both senses. Jacob of course accords Pharaoh the deferential greeting owed to a monarch, but it would be entirely in keeping with his own highly developed sense of his patriarchal role that he–a mere Semitic herdsman chief addressing the head of the mighty Egyptian empire—should pronounce a blessing on Pharaoh.
8 Pharaoh said to Yaakov: How many are the days and years of your life?[EF] days and years: See the note on 25;7.
9 Yaakov said to Pharaoh: The days and years of my sojourn are thirty and a hundred years; few and ill-fated have been the days and years of my life, they have not attained the days and years of my fathers’ lives in the days of their sojourn.sojournings. Jacob does not say ‘my life’. ‘All the days of my life I have been a sojourner’ (Rashi). To the Patriarch this earthly life is but a pilgrimage, the real life is Beyond; cf. Ps. XXXIX,13.
few and evil. ‘Few’, as compared with the long life of his father and grandfather; ‘evil,’ sad or unhappy.
[EF] in the days of: Others use “during.”
[RA] The days of the years of my sojourning. The last noun here probably has a double connotation: Jacob’s life has been a series of wanderings or “sojournings,” not a sedentary existence in one place,, and human existence is by nature a sojourning, a temporary dwelling between non-being and extinction.
Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life. Jacob’s somber summary of his own life echoes with a kind of complex solemnity against all that we have seen him undergo. He has, after all, achieved everything he aspired to achieve: the birthright, the blessing, marriage with his beloved Rachel, progeny, and wealth. But one measure of the profound moral realism of the story is that although he gets everything he wanted, it is not in the way he would have wanted, and the consequence is far more pain than contentment. From his “clashing” (25:22) with his twin in the womb, everything has been a struggle. He displaces Esau, but only at the price of fear and lingering guilt and long exile. He gets Rachel, but only by having Leah imposed on him, with all the domestic strife that entails, and he loses Rachel early in childbirth. He is given a new name by his divine adversary, but comes away with a permanent wound. He gets the full solar-year number of twelve sons, but there is enmity among them (for which he bears some responsibility), and he spends twenty-two years continually grieving over his favorite son, who he believes is dead. This is, in sum, a story with a happy ending that witholds any simple feeling of happiness at the end.
and they have not attained the days of the years of my fathers. In fact, Jacob, long-lived as he is, will not attain the prodigious life spans of Abraham and Isaac. At this point, however, he can scarcely know how much longer he has to live (seventeen years, as it turns out ), and so his words must reflect that feeling of having one foot in the grave that he has repeatedly expressed before. One should not exclude the possibility that Jacob is playing up the sense of contradiction, making a calcualted impression on Pharaoh, in dismissing his own 130 years as “few.” The ideal life span for the Egyptians was 110.
10 Yaakov gave Pharaoh a blessing-of-farewell and went out from Pharaoh’s presence. 11 So Yosef settled his father and his brothers, giving them holdings in the land of Egypt, in the goodliest-part of the land, in the region of Ra’meses, as Pharaoh had commanded.and Joseph placed. Or, ‘settled.’
in the land of Rameses. i.e. the district round the town Rameses. This town is mentioned in Ex. I,11. Its name was given to it in the reign of Ramesis II, who is held by some to be the Pharaoh of the Oppression.
[RA] the land of Rameses. Medieval and modern commentators agree that this designation is a synonym for Goshen. The term looks like an anachronism because Rameses is the city later built with Israelite slave labor. Perhaps its use here is intended to foreshadow the future oppression.
12 Yosef sustained his father, his brothers, and his father’s entire household with bread, in proportion to the little-ones.sustained. Supported.
13 But bread there was none in all the land, for the famine was exceedingly heavy, and the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan were exhausted by the famine.13-17. The famine in Egypt.
in all the land. lit. ‘in all the earth’.
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languished. Dean Stanley recalls the descriptions of similar famines in Egypt, which enable us to realize the calamity from which Joseph delivered the country. ‘The eating of human flesh became so common as to excite no surprise,’ writes a medieval eyewitness of one of these famines; ‘the road between Syria and Egypt was like a vast field sown with human bodies.’
[RA] And there was no bread in all the earth. The tension with the preceding verse, in which Joseph is reported sustaining his whole clan, down to the little ones, with bread, is of course pointed, and recalls a similar surface contradiction between verses 54 and 55 in chapter 41. The writer shuttles here between the two common meanings of ‘erets, “earth” and “land,” as in his previous accounts of the famine.
14 Yosef had collected all the silver that was to be found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, from the rations that they had bought, and Yosef had brought the silver into Pharaoh’s house.Pharaoh’s house. i.e. the royal treasury.
15 When the silver in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan had run out, all the Egyptians came to Yosef, saying: Come-now, (let us have) bread! Why should we die in front of you, because the silver is gone?faileth. lit. ‘is at an end.’
[RA] why should we die before your eyes? The last term in the Hebrew is literally “opposite you.” In the parallel speech in verse 19, the Egyptians actually say “before your eyes.”
16 Yosef said: Come-now, (let me have) your livestock, and I will give you (bread) for your livestock, since the silver is gone.for your cattle. In exchange for your cattle.
17 So they brought their livestock to Yosef, and Yosef gave them bread (in exchange) for the horses, the sheep-livestock, the oxen-livestock, and the donkeys; he got-them-through with bread (in exchange) for all their livestock in that year.horses. As articles of luxury, the horses are mentioned first.
[EF] got-them-through: Lit. “led them.”
[RA] he carried them forward with bread. The usual meaning of the verb is “to lead” the context here suggests it may also mean something like “to sustain.”
18 But when that year had run out, they came back to him in the second year and said to him: We cannot hide from my lord that if the silver has run out and the animal-stocks are my lord’s, nothing remains for my lord except for our bodies and our soil!the second year. The year following the year after the five years, i.e., the seventh year (Luzzatto).
our bodies, and our lands. Which they offer in exchange for bread.
[RA] our carcasses and our farmland. Previous translations have rendered the first of these terms blandly as “our bodies” or “our persons.” But the Hebrew gewiyah refers specifically to a dead body and is often used in quite negative contexts. The Egyptians here are speaking sardonically of their own miserable condition: they have nothing left but their carcasses, they have been reduced to walking corpses. The present translation uses “farmland” for the Hebrew ‘adamah. That term usually means arable land—it is the reiterated “soil” of the Garden story—but “soil” would be a little off in these sentences. It cannot be rendered throughout simply as “land” because that would create a confusion with “land” (‘erets), which is also used here several times to refer to Egypt as a country. The act that the farmland referred to by the Egyptians is not yielding much produce suggests that in their eyes it is scarcely worth more than the “carcasses” with which it is bracketed.
19 Why should we die before your eyes, so we, so our soil? Acquire us and our soil for bread, and we and our soil will become servants to Pharaoh. Give (us) seed-for-sowing that we may live and not die, that the soil may not become desolate!both we and our land. ‘The old feudal nobility of Egypt disappeared in the Hyksos period, and from the time of the eighteenth Dynasty onward we find the land, which had formerly been held by local proprietors, belonging either to the Pharaoh or to the temples. At the same time public granaries make their appearance, the superintendent of which became one of the most important of Egyptian officials’ (Sayce).
[RA] slaves to Pharaoh. The reduction of the entire population to a condition of virtual serfdom to the crown in all likelihood was meant to be construed not as an act of ruthlessness by Joseph but as an instance of his administrative brilliance. The subordination of the Egyptian peasantry to the central government, with the 20 percent tax on agriculture, was a known fact, and our story provides an explanation (however unhistorical) for its origins.
that the farmland not turn to desert. As the famine continues, without seed-grain to replant the soil, the land will turn to desert.
20 So Yosef acquired all the soil of Egypt for Pharaoh -for each of the Egyptians sold his field, for the famine was strong upon them- and the land went over to Pharaoh.bought all the land of Egypt. In this manner Pharaoh became the feudal lord of all Egypt.
21 As for the people, he transferred them into the cities, from one edge of Egypt’s border to its other edge.city by city. The cities became depots for facilitating the distribution of food.
[EF] transferred them: Hebrew difficult; some read “enslaved them.”
[RA] And the people he moved town by town. Despite many English versions, it is problematic to construe the last term as “into the towns,” for it would make no sense to move all the farmers into the cities of there are to be crops in the future, unless one imagines a temporary gathering of the rural population in the towns for the distribution of food. But the Hebrew particle le in le’arim can also have the sense of “according to”—that is, Joseph rounded up rural populations in groups according to their distribution around the principal towns and resettled them elsewhere. The purpose would be to sever them from their hereditary lands and locate them on other lands that they knew were theirs to till only by the grace of Pharaoh, to whom the land now belonged.
22 Only the soil of the priests he did not acquire, for the priests had a prescribed-allocation from Pharaoh, and they ate from their allocation which Pharaoh had given them, therefore they did not sell their soil.only the land of the priests. The priests had a fixed portion from the royal granaries; so there was no occasion for them to sell their lands.
23 Yosef said to the people: Now that I have acquired you and your soil today for Pharaoh, here, you have seed, sow the soil! 24 But it shall be at the ingatherings, that you shall give a fifth to Pharaoh, the four other parts being for you as seed for the field and for your eating-needs, for those in your households, and for feeding your little-ones.a fifth. This tax was not excessive. The Jews, in the time of the Maccabees, paid the Syrian government one-third of the seed (I Macc. X,30).
[RA] a fifth: Here is the ubiquitous “five” again.
25 They said: You have saved our lives! May we find favor in my lord’s eyes: we will become servants to Pharaoh.Pharaoh’s bondmen. To pay the tax as ordained (Rashi).
[RA] in being Pharaoh’s slaves. Most translations construe this as a future verb “we shall be.” But the introductory clause of obeisance, “May we find favor . . .” does not necessarily preface a declaration about a future action, and the Egyptians are already Pharaoh’s slaves, both by their own declaration (verse 19) and Joseph’s (verse 23). In point of historical fact, Egypt’s centralization of power, so unlike tribal Israel and Canaan with its city-states, must have astounded and perhaps also troubled the Hebrew writer.
26 And Yosef made it a prescribed-law until this day, concerning the soil of Egypt: For Pharaoh every fifth part! Only the soil of the priests, that alone did not go over to Pharaoh.unto this day. In the days of Moses, the arrangement described was still in force.
27 Now Yisrael stayed in the land of Egypt, in the region of Goshen; they obtained holdings in it, bore fruit, and became exceedingly many.got them possessions. Acquired property by purchase (Kimchi).
In this concluding Sedrah of Genesis, we see the sunset of Jacob’s career. We behold this storm-tossed soul on his deathbed, blessing his children. He is not afraid to die: ‘I will sleep with my fathers,’ he says. He is at peace with God. II wait for Thy salvation O LORD,’ are among the last words he utters. He knows that he can never travel beyond God’s care. He is at peace with man. Esau, Dinah, Joseph—what a world of strife and suffering and anguish did each of these tragedies bring him—and yet he dies blessing. Though starting as ‘a plain man dwelling in tents’, his is no cloistered virtue, and he certainly is no sinless being. But he possesses the rare art of extracting good from every buffeting of Destiny. He errs and he stumbles, but he ever rises again; and on the anvil of affliction his soul is forged.
28 And Yaakov lived in the land of Egypt for seventeen years. And the days of Yaakov, the years of his life, were seven years and a hundred and forty years.And Jacob lived. Heb. Of how few men, asks a famous modern Jewish preacher, can we repeat a phrase like, ‘And jacob lived”? When many a man dies, a death-notice; because but for it, the world would never have known that man had ever been alive. Only he who has a force for human goodness, and abides in hearts and souls made better by his presence during his pilgrimage on earth, can be said to have lived, only such a one is heir to immortality.
[RA] And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen. The symmetry with Joseph’s seventeen years until he has sold into Egypt was aptly observed in the Middle Ages by David Kimhi: “Just as Joseph was in the lap of Jacob seventeen years, Jacob was in the lap of Joseph seventeen years.”
29 Now when Yisrael’s days drew near to death, he called his son Yosef and said to him: Pray, if I have found favor in your eyes, pray put your hand under my thigh- deal with me faithfully and truly: pray do not bury me in Egypt!and the time drew near. lit. ‘and the days of Israel drew near to die’. The ‘days’ play an important part int he story of Jacob. He lived every day; every moment counted.
kindly and truly. Heb. ‘chesed ve-emess’. ‘Deal in true kindness with me even after my death by carrying out my wishes as regards my burial.’ ‘Which is the highest form of lovingkindess?’ ask the Rabbis. ‘The kindness shown to one who is dead.’
bury me not, I pray thee, in Egypt. His one thought, oftentimes repeated, was that his bones should not rest in that strange land; not in pyramid or painted chamber, but in the cell that he had digged for himself in the primitive sepulchre of his fathers (Stanley).
30 When I lie down with my fathers, carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their burial-site! He said: I will do according to your words.but when I sleep with my fathers. Better, so that I sleep with my fathers. His burial in Canaan would keep alive the wish of his descendants to return to the Promised Land.
31 But he said: Swear to me! So he swore to him. Then Yisrael bowed, at the head of the bed.
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swear unto me. The actual oath seems to be independent of the ceremony of placing the hand under the thigh, in v. 29. The oath was to enable Joseph to overcome any objections that might be raised by Pharaoh.
bowed down upon the bed’s head, i.e. he worshipped God on the pillow of the bed. During the taking of the oath, Jacob was sitting up in bed. He now lies down again in his bed, and thanks God for the assurance given by Joseph to bury him in Canaan (Ibn Ezra, Sforno).
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