So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and Joseph gave them food in exchange for the horses, the flocks, the herds, and the donkeys. He supplied them with food in exchange for all their livestock 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 Slow Stripping of Egypt
The livestock are the second step in a sequence. One writer lists all four steps and names what drove them:
W. T. P. WolstonRead 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 as Mercy
Losing everything is not the disaster it looks like. One commentator retells the trade and ends with a question for the reader:
L. M. GrantThe 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?
His Claim on the Animals
The verse names horses, flocks, herds and donkeys — living creatures, not just goods. Christ makes the same claim over them:
L. M. GrantJust 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:
J. G. BellettNoah 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).
Claims No Other Ruler Could Make
What makes this remarkable is not the scale but that nobody resisted:
Hamilton SmithSo 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.
A Sample of the Kingdom
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:
J. G. BellettIn 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.
Summary
- 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.