NOTES for Gen 47:1-31
1 Then Joseph came and told Pharaoh, and said, My father and my brethren, and their flocks, and their herds, and all that they have, are come out of the land of Canaan; and, behold, they are in the land of Goshen. |
2 And he took some of his brethren, even five men, and presented them unto Pharaoh. |
3 And Pharaoh said unto his brethren, What is your occupation? And they said unto Pharaoh, Thy servants are shepherds, both we, and also our fathers. |
4 They said moreover unto Pharaoh, For to sojourn in the land are we come; for thy servants have no pasture for their flocks; for the famine is sore in the land of Canaan: now therefore, we pray thee, let thy servants dwell in the land of Goshen. |
5 And Pharaoh spake unto Joseph, saying, Thy father and thy brethren are come unto thee: |
6 The land of Egypt is before thee; in the best of the land make thy father and brethren to dwell; in the land of Goshen let them dwell: and if thou knowest any men of activity among them, then make them rulers over my cattle. |
7 And Joseph brought in Jacob his father, and set him before Pharaoh: and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. |
8 And Pharaoh said unto Jacob, How old art thou? |
9 And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage. |
10 And Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from before Pharaoh. |
11 And Joseph placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded. |
12 And Joseph nourished his father, and his brethren, and all his father's household, with bread, according to their families. |
13 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. |
14 And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, for the corn which they bought: and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh's house. |
15 And when money failed in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came unto Joseph, and said, Give us bread: for why should we die in thy presence? for the money faileth. |
16 And Joseph said, Give your cattle; and I will give you for your cattle, if money fail. |
17 And they brought their cattle unto Joseph: and Joseph gave them bread in exchange for horses, and for the flocks, and for the cattle of the herds, and for the asses: and he fed them with bread for all their cattle for that year. |
18 When that year was ended, they came unto him the second year, and said unto him, We will not hide it from my lord, how that our money is spent; my lord also hath our herds of cattle; there is not ought left in the sight of my lord, but our bodies, and our lands: |
19 Wherefore shall we die before thine eyes, both we and our land? buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants unto Pharaoh: and give us seed, that we may live, and not die, that the land be not desolate. |
20 And Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh; for the Egyptians sold every man his field, because the famine prevailed over them: so the land became Pharaoh's. |
21 And as for the people, he removed them to cities from one end of the borders of Egypt even to the other end thereof. |
22 Only the land of the priests bought he not; for the priests had a portion assigned them of Pharaoh, and did eat their portion which Pharaoh gave them: wherefore they sold not their lands. |
23 Then Joseph said unto the people, Behold, I have bought you this day and your land for Pharaoh: lo, here is seed for you, and ye shall sow the land. |
24 And it shall come to pass in the increase, that ye shall give the fifth part unto Pharaoh, and four parts shall be your own, for seed of the field, and for your food, and for them of your households, and for food for your little ones. |
25 And they said, Thou hast saved our lives: let us find grace in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh's servants. |
26 And Joseph made it a law over the land of Egypt unto this day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth part; except the land of the priests only, which became not Pharaoh's. |
27 And Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt, in the country of Goshen; and they had possessions therein, and grew, and multiplied exceedingly. |
28 And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years: so the whole age of Jacob was an hundred forty and seven years. |
29 And the time drew nigh that Israel must die: and he called his son Joseph, and said unto him, If now I have found grace in thy sight, put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me; bury me not, I pray thee, in Egypt: |
30 But I will lie with my fathers, and thou shalt carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their buryingplace. And he said, I will do as thou hast said. |
31 And he said, Swear unto me. And he sware unto him. And Israel bowed himself upon the bed's head. |
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Joseph carries out his plan for gathering the land into the state land fund quite successfully. So successfully that the people who lost their land consider him their savior; after all, he really did save them from starvation. This way of looking at things is generally characteristic of those who see, instead of God's great world, only a small part of it, the little world with which they come into contact. Those whom Joseph settled on the newly acquired lands, giving them grain for sowing, of course could know nothing about the plans discussed several years earlier in Pharaoh's palace. They knew only what they saw.
Yet it is not necessary to know all the details of events in order to have a full vision of reality. What matters here is precisely the point of view, this or that angle of perception of that reality. More precisely, awareness, not only perception, since perception alone is not enough for full vision. For this one needs the ability, as it were, to step back, to look at the situation from the outside, and to step back not only with regard to what is happening here and now, but also with regard to habitual models of perceiving reality in general. Only when one is outside their limits can one realize what is truly happening before one's eyes. From such a view, no one would have looked at Joseph as a savior; they would have seen in him only an effective state administrator who managed to use a situation favorable to him, that is, they would have seen him for what he in fact was.
Of course, Joseph's role in saving particular people from starvation would not have become any smaller from such a view, but it would have become clear to those who were saved that they should thank not Joseph himself, but the One who placed him in the position of first minister in a country that was not even his homeland.
Meanwhile, for God and for Joseph himself, the center of attention was still not Egypt or the Egyptians, but his own tribesmen, for whose sake, as he himself understands, God sent him to Egypt. Through Joseph's hands God carries out His plan, and in carrying it out He saves, by the same hands, many inhabitants of the country connected with the fulfillment of His plan from death by starvation. This is how God acts: saving at once as many people as can be saved.
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