Genesis 47:18-20

‘And when that year ended they came to him the second year and said to him, “We will not hide from my lord how that our silver is all spent, and the herds of cattle are my lord's. There is nothing left in the sight of my lord but our bodies and our lands. Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants to Pharaoh. And give us seed that we may live and not die, and that the land be not desolate.” So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh, for the Egyptians sold every man his field because the famine was severe on them, and the land became Pharaoh's.'

“And when that year ended they came to him the second year.” This is not the second year of the famine. We have already seen that Jacob and his family tribe have had sufficient silver to tide them through two years. This is ‘the second year' after the one in which the silver had run out and the majority pledged their animals. It is thus well into the famine.

Now the people pledge themselves and their land to Pharaoh. In one sense nothing changes. They still live on the land and they still serve Pharaoh and pay taxes. It is the conception that is different. There is a new sense in which they are no longer freeholders and they are no longer freemen, although the old social distinctions between men would not change. This especially affects the ‘nobility' who have been jealous of their influence and independence but whose power is now crushed.

“Give us seed that the land be not desolate.” This may indicate attempts to maintain some kind of crops on the land. Some would certainly attempt to use what water there was to irrigate land and grow some kind of meagre crop. The Nile was not completely empty. Or it may signify that at this stage they see the end of the famine in sight. The former seems more likely. They are bravely trying to keep some form of normality on the land, some signs of life among the continuing deadness.