Now there was no food in all the land,1 for the famine was very severe. The land of Egypt and the land of Canaan languished because of the famine. Joseph collected all the money to be found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, in exchange for the grain that they bought; and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh's house. When the money from the land of Egypt and from the land of Canaan was spent, all the Egyptians came to Joseph, and said, "Give us food! Why should we die before your eyes? For our money is gone."
And Joseph answered, "Give me your livestock,2 and I will give you food in exchange for your livestock, if your money is gone."
So they brought their livestock to Joseph; and Joseph gave them food in exchange for the horses, the flocks, the herds, and the donkeys. That year he supplied them with food in exchange for all their livestock.
When that year was ended, they came to him the following year, and said to him, "We can not hide from my lord that our money 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. Shall we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land in exchange for food. We with our land will become slaves to Pharaoh;3 just give us seed, so that we may live and not die, and that the land may not become desolate."
So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh. All the Egyptians sold their fields, because the famine was severe upon them; and the land became Pharaoh's. As for the people, he made slaves of them from4 one end of Egypt to the other. Only the land of the priests he did not buy; for the priests had a fixed allowance from Pharaoh, and lived on the allowance that Pharaoh gave them; therefore they did not sell their land.
Then Joseph said to the people, "Now that I have this day bought you and your land for Pharaoh, here is seed for you; sow the land. And at the harvests you shall give one-fifth to Pharaoh, and four-fifths shall be your own,5 as seed for the field and as food for yourselves and your households, and as food for your little ones."
They said, "You have saved our lives; may it please my lord, we will be slaves to Pharaoh."
So Joseph made it a statute concerning the land of Egypt, and it stands to this day,6 that Pharaoh should have the fifth. The land of the priests alone did not become Pharaoh's.
[1] Except what is in Joseph's storehouses, of course.
[2] Why? Is there a just reason for this, or is Joseph just looking to amass all the wealth and possessions of Egypt into the hands of Pharaoh?
[3] This time the desperate solution comes directly from the mouths of the people.
[4] Again, why does he do this? Is it just considered natural that those who cannot buy food must pay for it with their very selves? Joseph only has the food because of the tax he took from all of them - why should he charge them to recover it?
[5] It could certainly be worse, though 20% of their gross product is a heavy levy to maintain in perpetuity.
[6] Feels like this is the point of the passage.
Take-home: Joseph's actions feel somewhat unjust to me, though I don't think that's supposed to be the point of the story at all. My Study Bible states that this story is told to emphasize Joseph's wisdom as a shrewd manager and possibly also to explain Egypt's centralized economy. However, the Study Bible also notes that the events of the story do not correspond to any known period in Egyptian history, and the details of taxation and priestly holdings do not match Egyptian records.
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