And Joseph said, Give your cattle, and I will give you for your cattle, if [your] money be all gone.
The famine has emptied every purse in Egypt. The people come back to Joseph with a plain problem: money can no longer buy bread. His answer does not turn them away. It names a new price, and it begins a process that will cost them everything they own.
Joseph does not hand out grain for free. Each time one resource runs out, he asks for the next one, and the people keep coming.
All the wealth of Egypt passes into his hands. We read, "Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan" (vv. 13, 14). Then when the money failed, Joseph claims their livestock. He said, "Give your livestock," and we read, "So they brought their livestock to Joseph" (vv. 15-17). Then the money is spent and the livestock is gone. They say there is nothing left but "our bodies and our land." So they add, "Buy us and our land for food." And we read that Joseph "bought all the land of Egypt."
Need takes one thing after another. Nothing a person owns or inherits holds up against an empty stomach.
The money went into Joseph's treasury. The livestock became his. The lands fell into his hand. And last of all, Joseph acquired the people themselves for Pharaoh. Nothing brings a man down like hunger. Neither a man's pride nor his family background can fill him in the day of hunger and need… Nothing brings a man down like soul-hunger. It is a great thing when that hunger takes over — when a man feels that he is a sinner, that he needs Christ, and that he must have Christ.
One writer draws a lesson for us out of Egypt's emptying.
But when they had spent it all and still needed food, Joseph told them to bring their livestock to exchange for food. This arrangement continued for a year. Then the people came to Joseph again. They told him they had nothing left except their bodies and their lands… Are we not to learn from this that it is good for us to be brought down to nothing?
Joseph could have enriched himself. The livestock he asks for here ends up where everything else ends up.
If Joseph gathers up all the money, we read that he "brought the money into Pharaoh's house" (v. 14). If the land comes under Joseph's control, we read that he "bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh" (v. 20). Of the people too Joseph can say, "I have this day bought you and your land for Pharaoh." So Joseph uses his supreme power for the glory of Pharaoh, not for his own gain.
Commentators differ on how to judge Joseph's terms. One calls the arrangement oppressive, yet still finds a picture of Christ in it.
Though this action of Joseph strikes us as oppressive… we cannot help thinking it has value as a picture. It shows how completely he was "lord of all Egypt," and so a figure of Christ. Now the Lordship of Christ is absolute, for if He is not Lord of all and of every detail, He is not Lord at all.
Another reads the same events as kindness, and points to people left happier than before — and not treated as slaves.
The famine in Egypt ended with the people becoming the property of Pharaoh. In the same way, the great famine of the tribulation period will end with Jews and Gentiles realizing they are really the property of the Lord Jesus, the King of kings. Because of their great trouble they will become more content and happy than they have ever been before, just as the people of Egypt all found blessing through the wisdom and kindness of Joseph. Joseph's plan would make the people more equal, with everyone having at least enough for their needs… The people of Egypt said they were willing to be Joseph's slaves (v. 25), but Joseph did not treat them like mere slaves.
The Egyptians got bread only by handing over what they held.
On the one hand, Joseph uses his power to subdue all for Pharaoh. On the other hand, he uses his supreme place over everything for the blessing of the people. If Pharaoh's glory is kept up, the people's blessing is made sure — but only as they submit to Joseph without holding anything back.
- Money fails. The famine first takes what people trust most. When the money is gone, Joseph is still the only source of bread.
- Livestock follows. The famine does not lift, so the claim goes one step deeper each time — money, then herds, then land, then the people themselves.
- Hunger humbles. Pride and family name feed no one. The writers apply this to soul-hunger — the moment a person feels he must have Christ.
- Emptiness qualifies. Having nothing left is not ruin. It is the state in which a person finally receives real supply.
- Surrender blesses. Joseph claims everything for Pharaoh's glory and uses that power for the people's good. The blessing comes only as they submit and hold nothing back.
And they brought their cattle to Joseph; and Joseph gave them bread for horses, and for flocks of sheep, and for herds of cattle, and for asses; and he fed them with bread for all their cattle that year.
Joseph's storehouses hold the only bread left, and Egypt's money is gone. Now the trade is livestock for bread. Commentators read in it a lesson about human need and a picture of Christ's coming rule.
The livestock are the second step in a sequence. One writer lists all four steps and names what drove them:
Read the forty-seventh chapter of Genesis and you will find four points. When there was no bread in all the land, the people fainted because of the famine and had to go to Joseph to buy grain. So first, Joseph "gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt" (v. 14). Second, he supplied them with food in exchange for all their livestock that year (v. 17). Third, he "bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh" (v. 20). And last, he says, "I have this day bought you" (v. 23). The money went into Joseph's treasury. The cattle became his. The lands fell into his hands. And last of all, Joseph acquired the people themselves for Pharaoh. Nothing brings a man down like hunger. Neither a man's pride nor his parentage can fill him in the day of hunger and need.
Losing everything is not the disaster it looks like. One commentator retells the trade and ends with a question for the reader:
The people continued to buy food from Joseph as long as they had money (vv. 13-14). But they spent it all and still needed food. So Joseph told them to bring their livestock to exchange for food. This arrangement continued for a year. Then the people came to Joseph again and told him they had nothing left except their bodies and their lands... Are we not to learn from this that it is good for us to be brought down to nothing?
The verse names horses, flocks, herds and donkeys — living creatures, not just goods. Christ makes the same claim over them:
Just as the livestock also became the property of Joseph, so the Lord says, "Every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills" (Ps. 50:10).
Another writer sets this buying of the animals in a longer line. Animals keep sharing in what God does for people:
Noah carried them, "two of every sort," with himself and his household through the waters into the new world. The same covenant that settled him and his descendants there provided for them too (Gen. 9:10). Joseph bought all the cattle as well as the people of Egypt for Pharaoh (Gen. 47:17)... In the coming kingdom they will still acknowledge Him, for all will be in subjection to Him, and beasts and all cattle will praise the Lord (Ps. 148:10; Heb. 2:8; Rev. 5:13).
What makes this remarkable is not the scale but that nobody resisted:
So everything passes under Joseph's absolute control — money, cattle, the land, and last of all the people themselves. Pharaoh's words come true word for word: "without your consent no one shall lift up hand or foot in all the land of Egypt" (Gen. 41:44). Joseph uses his power to bring all into subjection... Many a ruler has made crushing claims, but not one has ever dared to claim everything the way Joseph did. Others who made large claims on their subjects could not make them good. Some who tried provoked rebellion and revolution. Joseph not only makes unheard-of claims; he also makes them good, and no one raises a voice in rebellion.
Commentators differ on how this policy looks today. One calls it "oppressive legislation." He still reads Joseph as a picture of Christ, whose "Lordship is absolute, for if He is not Lord of all and of every detail, He is not Lord at all" (F. B. Hole). Another sees grace in it, because Joseph's rule kept the people alive:
In chapter 47 Joseph becomes the one who upholds the world in life and order. Through him life in the earth is preserved and order kept. And he makes all the people willing in the day of his power... Their money, their cattle, their lands, and themselves all pass to Pharaoh; and yet it all pleases them, for they owe their lives to Joseph. Egypt in those days was a sample of the new world, the world brought back to God by redemption. It was a "purchased possession," just what the millennial earth is to be (Eph. 1:14). It was creation reconciled, delivered from the doom of famine, from death and the curse, by the hand of a saviour. Joseph's corn had bought the land, the cattle, and the people.
- Famine. Hunger strips a man of pride and parentage; it drove Egypt to Joseph when nothing else would have.
- Surrender. Money went first, then the livestock, then the land, then the people themselves. And it is good to be brought down to nothing.
- Purchase. What Joseph's grain bought became his by right. Christ claims the beasts of the field on the same ground.
- Subjection. No ruler before or since has claimed everything and made the claim good without a single voice raised in rebellion.
- Blessing. The stripping ended in lives saved. That is why commentators see here a sample of the world redeemed and reconciled under Christ.