Genesis 41:33-36 - Exposition

Now therefore (adds Joseph, passing on to suggest measures suitable to meet the extraordinary emergency predicted) let Pharaoh look out a man discreet ( נָבוֹן , niph. part. of בִּין , intelligent, discerning), and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt. Let Pharaoh do this, and let him appoint officers (literally, let him set overseers, פְקִדִים , from פָּקַד , to look after, in hiph. to cause to look after) over the land, and take up the fifth part of the land of Egypt— literally, let him fifth the land, i.e. levy. a tax upon its produce to that extent ( LXX ; Vulgate), which was double the annual impost exacted from Egyptian farmers, but which the unprecedented fertility of the soil enabled them to bear without complaint, if, indeed, adequate compensation was not given for the second tenth (Rosenmüller)— in the Seven plenteous years . Diodorus mentions the payment of a fifth in productive years as a primitive custom. And let them (the officers) gather all the food of those good years that come, and lay up corn under the hand of Pharaoh, and lot them keep feed in the cities (or, food in the cities, and let them keep it). And that food shall be for store (literally, something deposited ) to the land against the seven years of famine, which shall be in the land of Egypt; that the land perish not through the famine —literally; and the land ( i.e. the people of the land) shall not be cut off in, or by, the famine .