Genesis 47:13-26

Joseph Takes Advantage of the Famine to Secure for the Crown the Money, the Cattle, and the Lands of the Egyptians. If this belongs to one of the main documents, J is the most probable. But it may be an independent piece. It is an æ tiological story (p. 134). The system of land tenure in Egypt must have struck the Hebrews as strange; they accounted for it in this way. The system is not attested in the inscriptions, but there is confirmatory evidence, and it probably existed much as represented. Apparently the events described belong to the closing years of the famine, for the distribution of seed was of no avail till the seven years of famine were drawing to an end (Genesis 45:6). The money presumably lasted for about five years, the cattle paid for corn in the sixth, in the seventh year they sold their land and became serfs, on their own suggestion, the need was so desperate. The priests were exempt because Pharaoh supported them, so they had no need to sell their lands. Joseph allows the people to farm their lands on a 20 per cent, rental.

Genesis 47:21. Read with VSS (mg.), he made bondmen of them, from, etc.