Genesis 47:13-22

And there was no bread in all the land; for the famine was very sore, so that the land of Egypt and all the land of Canaan fainted by reason of the famine.

There was no bread ... This probably refers to the second year of the famine (Genesis 45:6), when any little stores of individuals or families were exhausted, and when the people had become universally dependent on the government. At first they obtained supplies for payment. Before long the money failed.

Verse 16. And Joseph ... Give your cattle. 'This was the wisest course that could be adopted for the preservation both of the people and the cattle, which, being bought by Joseph, were supported at the royal expense, and very likely returned to the people at the end of the famine, to enable them to resume their agricultural labours.'

Verse 20. The land became Pharaoh's. The people parted with it permanently under that dynasty; because Herodotus ('b. 2:, chapter 109: cf. Diodorus Siculus, 1:, 73; Strabo, 17:, with Wilkinson's 'Ancient Egypt,' 1:,

263) speaks of the land as being in the absolute possession of the monarch; and the account in the book of Genesis explains how this came to pass. On the supposition that the events described in it took place under the dynasty of the shepherd kings, "the people" in this passage will denote the Egyptians; and this will further explain the statement of Herodotus, that Sesostris, the great conqueror of the eighteenth dynasty, gave (or rather restored) to the people the ground which the usurpers had taken from them (Drew's 'Scripture Lands').

Verse 21. As for the people ... The removal, obviously for the convenience of the country people who were doing nothing, was to the cities where the grain stores were situated.

Verse 22. Only the land of the priests ... These lands were inalienable, being endowments by which the temples were supported. The priests for themselves received a daily allowance of provision from the state, and it would evidently have been the height of cruelty to withhold that allowance when their lands were incapable of being tilled (cf. Rawlinson's 'Herodotus,' b 2:, chapter 37:, note 4; also chapter clxviii., note

8).