Commentaria in Genesim
Chapter Forty-seven
Joseph presents his father and brothers to Pharaoh, who gives them the land of Goshen. Secondly, verse 15, the Egyptians in the famine sell their cattle and lands to Joseph and Pharaoh for grain. Thirdly, verse 29, the dying Jacob makes Joseph swear to bury him in Canaan.
1. Joseph went in and told Pharaoh, saying: My father and my brethren, their sheep and their herds, and all that they possess, are come out of the land of Canaan: and behold they are in the land of Goshen. 2. And he set five men, the last of his brethren, before the king: 3. and he asked them: What is your occupation? They answered: We your servants are shepherds of sheep, both we, and our fathers. 4. We are come to sojourn in your land: because there is no grass for the flocks of your servants, the famine being very grievous in the land of Canaan, and we pray you to let us be your servants in the land of Goshen. 5. The king therefore said to Joseph: Your father and your brethren are come to you. 6. The land of Egypt is before you: make them dwell in the best place, and give them the land of Goshen. And if you know that there are skilful men among them, make them rulers over my cattle. 7. After this Joseph brought in his father to the king, and set him before him: and he blessed the king, 8. and being asked by him: How many are the days of the years of your life? 9. He answered: The days of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty years, few and evil, and they have not attained to the days of the pilgrimage of my fathers. 10. And blessing the king, he went out. 11. But Joseph gave a possession to his father and his brethren in Egypt, in the best place of the land, in Ramesses, as Pharaoh had commanded. 12. And he nourished them, and all his father’s house, giving food to every one. 13. For in the whole world there was want of bread, and a famine had oppressed the land, especially of Egypt and of Canaan. 14. Out of which he gathered up all the money for the selling of corn, and brought it into the king’s treasury. 15. And when the price was wanting to the buyers, all Egypt came to Joseph, saying: Give us bread: why do we die before you, for want of money? 16. And he answered them: Bring your cattle, and for them I will give you food, if you have no money. 17. And when they had brought them, he gave them food in exchange for their horses, and sheep, and oxen, and asses: and he maintained them that year for the exchange of their cattle. 18. They came also the second year, and said to him: We will not hide from our lord, that our money is gone; our cattle also are gone: neither is it hid from you that we have nothing left but our bodies and our lands. 19. Why then shall we die in your sight? we and our land will be yours: buy us to be servants of the king, and give us seed, lest by reason of the husbandman’s dying the land be turned into a wilderness. 20. So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt, every man selling his possessions, because of the greatness of the famine. And he brought it under Pharaoh, 21. and all its people, from one end of the borders of Egypt to the other, 22. except the land of the priests, which had been given them by the king: to whom also a certain allowance of food was given out of the public stores, and therefore they were not forced to sell their possessions. 23. Then Joseph said to the people: Behold, as you see, both you and your land belong to Pharaoh: take seed, and sow the fields, 24. that you may have corn. The fifth part you shall give to the king: the four other I leave to you for seed, and for food for your families and children. 25. And they answered: Our safety is in your hand: only let our lord look favourably upon us, and we will gladly serve the king. 26. From that time to this day, in the whole land of Egypt, the fifth part is paid to the kings, and it has grown into a law, except the land of the priests, which was free from this condition. 27. So Israel dwelt in Egypt, that is, in the land of Goshen, and possessed it, and grew, and was multiplied exceedingly. 28. And he lived in it seventeen years: and all the days of his life came to a hundred and forty-seven years. 29. And when he saw that the day of his death drew near, he called his son Joseph, and said to him: If I have found favour in your sight, put your hand under my thigh; and you shall show me this kindness and truth, not to bury me in Egypt; 30. but I will sleep with my fathers, and you shall take me away out of this land, and bury me in the burying place of my ancestors. And Joseph answered him: I will do what you have commanded. 31. And he said: Swear then to me. And as he was swearing, Israel adored God, turning to the bed’s head.
2. FIVE MEN, THE LAST OF HIS BRETHREN—the Hebrew is, from the extremity of his brethren he took five men; as if to say: Joseph did not choose carefully among his brothers, designating this one or that out of the midst of the brothers, but took five of the extremes, and the most readily to hand. So Vatablus.
Second, Lyra, Abulensis and Thomas Anglicus interpret “the last” as the most excellent.
Third, the Hebrews, Oleaster, Hamer and Pereira understand by the extremes the meaner and more abject in appearance: for these Joseph showed to Pharaoh, and not the more comely and elegant, lest Pharaoh should enrol them in his court or army, which Joseph did not wish, lest his brothers be imbued with the faith and manners of the Egyptians. The first sense is the simplest, and corresponds most closely to the Hebrew phrase.
4. THERE IS NO GRASS FOR THE FLOCKS—If it was so in Canaan, why not also in Egypt? For this was a common and public drought and barrenness. Abulensis answers that the case of Canaan and Egypt is unlike, because Egypt is watered by many ditches drawn from the Nile; but Canaan lacks these. St. Augustine adds, Question 160, that the marshes of Egypt are of themselves sufficiently moist: so that the less the Nile overflows, the more they abound in grass; but the more the Nile overflows, the less grass they bear.
6. IS BEFORE YOU—as if to say: I offer you the whole of Egypt; choose the part you will for your father.
MAKE THEM RULERS OVER MY CATTLE.—Philo and Josephus assert that this was in fact done.
7. HE BLESSED THE KING—saluting him and wishing him good fortune, by saying, for example: O king, live for ever, may God keep you safe and bless you. The same is meant in verse 10. On this phrase see Martin de Roa, book 1 of the Singulars, chapter 9.
9. THE DAYS OF THE PILGRIMAGE OF MY LIFE—because Jacob often changed his soil. For from Canaan he went into Mesopotamia, and returning from there he again wandered through Canaan, so that his whole life seems to have been a continual pilgrimage. St. Augustine and St. Jerome note that the just in this life are pilgrims, because they have heaven for their country; whereas sinners are called and are inhabitants of the earth. See what was said on Hebrews, chapter 11, verse 13, and here chapter 12, verse 1, at the end.
THE HUNDRED AND THIRTY YEARS.—In this year, the hundred and thirtieth of Jacob, Joseph was 39 years old, Reuben 46, Simeon 45, Levi 44, Judah 43, as is plain from what was said in chapters 29 and 30. From this it is again clear that Jacob’s descent into Egypt took place 215 years after Abraham’s call out of Chaldea into Canaan: for when Abraham was called, he was 75 years old; in Abraham’s hundredth year Isaac was born; Isaac in his sixtieth year begot Jacob; and Jacob, when he went down into Egypt, was 130. If, then, you add to these 130 years of Jacob those 25 of Abraham up to the birth of Isaac, and those 60 of Isaac up to the birth of Jacob, you will have the 215 years already mentioned.
FEW.—In the Hebrew they are few, that is, when compared with the far more numerous years of Isaac, Abraham, Thare and my other forefathers.
Learn here, morally, how brief is the whole length of this life. For we are all born into life on this condition, that having tarried in it a little while we must presently depart; and that saying of David to Ethai may be applied here: Yesterday thou camest, and today thou art compelled to go forth with us. “What else,” says St. Augustine, “is life but a race toward death?” And St. Gregory Nazianzen says:
The very life I live is like a most rapid river, which, rising on high, ever flows down to the depths.