Page:A critical and exegetical commentary on Genesis (1910).djvu/574

 had no lack of bread, and consequently no need to apply to Joseph, though they were indebted to his forethought. In $55$ they are famishing, and have to buy their food from Joseph: this view is connected with 47$13ff.$.—56. opened all that was in them] Read with G 'all the granaries,' though the Hebrew text cannot be certainly restored (v.i.)—57 prepares for the next scene of the drama (ch. 42).

State granaries, for the sustenance of the army, the officials and the serfs, were a standing feature of Egyptian administration (Erman, LAE, 107 f.; cf. 433 f.), and were naturally drawn upon for the relief of the populace in times of scarcity (ib. 126). The 'superintendent of the granaries' was a high officer of state, distinct, as a rule, from the vizier or T'ate (p. 469); but a union of the two dignities was just as easy under exceptional circumstances as the combination of the Premiership with the Chancellorship of the Exchequer would be with us (see Erman, 89). We can readily understand that such a wise and comprehensive provision impressed the imagination of the Israelites, and was attributed by them to a divine inspiration of which one of their ancestors was the medium (cf. Gu. 384).—Besides these general illustrations of the writer's acquaintance with Egyptian conditions, two special parallels to this aspect of Joseph's career are cited from the monuments: (1) Ameny, a monarch under Usertsen (12th dynasty), records on his grave at Beni-Hasan that when years of famine came he ploughed all the fields of his district, nourished the subjects of his sovereign and gave them food, so that there was none hungry among them. (2) Similarly, on a grave of the 17th dynasty at El-Kab: "When a famine arose, lasting many years, I distributed corn to the city in each year of the famine" (see ATLO$2$, 390; Dri. 346 f.). For the sale of grain to foreigners, we have the case of Yanḫamu, governor of Yarimutu, in the Amarna letters (see below on 47$13ff.$).—It is impossible to desire a fuller demonstration of the Egyptian background of the Joseph-stories than ch. 41 affords. The attempt to minimise the coincidences, and show that "in a more original and shorter form the story of Joseph had a N Arabian and not a Palestinian and Egyptian background, and consequently that 'Pharaoh, king of Egypt,' should be 'Pir'u, king of Miṣrim'" (TBI, 454-473), tends to discredit rather than confirm the seductive Muṣri-theory, which is pushed to such an extravagant length.

demands a noun [G, S [Syrian: **]). Lagarde (Sym. i. 57) suggested a Heb. equivalent of Talmud. ; We. some derivative of ; De. Ba. and Kit. (combining [E] and S) .—] Pt. (Hi.); cf. 42$6$.—] G om.—57. $1$] Better  as G (cf. $54$).
 * understanding.—56. ] [E] . The context imperatively