Genesis 47:18

Genesis 47:18, in plain English

At the start of the second year, the Egyptians return and admit that their money and livestock are gone—all they have left are their bodies and their land.

Why it's here

Notice the honesty here: 'We cannot hide from our lord.' The Egyptians aren't trying to deceive Joseph; they're laying out their actual situation. After two years of famine, they've been stripped down to almost nothing. They have land they can't farm and bodies that need feeding.

Who's speaking

The Egyptians, speaking to Joseph

Where it sits in the story

The famine's devastation is complete. What people once thought was permanent wealth (livestock, money) is gone. Only land and their own lives remain. The question now is whether they'll retain their land and their freedom.

The scholarly reading

When the second year arrives, the people again come to Joseph, acknowledging that their money and livestock are gone and only their bodies and land remain.

Language and setting

The progression continues inexorably. The language 'we cannot hide from our lord' (lō'-nikhḥadeh mē-adōnī) indicates both respect and resignation. They make an accounting: money exhausted, livestock exhausted, nothing left but themselves and their land. The phrase 'nothing left for our lord except our bodies and our land' (ʾen-l'adonī kī-ʾim-gufenu w'ʾadmātenû) uses the Hebrew terms guf (body, literally 'corpse') and ʾadmāh (land, literally 'earth'), suggesting a kind of existential reduction to bare biological existence and territorial attachment.

Voice

The Egyptian people

Significance

The people's honest assessment of their situation sets up the final stage of consolidation. They are now prepared to surrender the two things that had remained outside Pharaonic control: land ownership and personal liberty. The narrator presents their desperation as the precipitating condition for what amounts to a fundamental restructuring of Egyptian social relations.

16“Then bring me your livestock,” said Joseph. “Since the money is gone, I will sell you food in exchange for your livestock.”

17So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and he gave them food in exchange for their horses, their flocks and herds, and their donkeys. Throughout that year he provided them with food in exchange for all their livestock.

18When that year was over, they came to him the second year and said, “We cannot hide from our lord that our money is gone and all our livestock belongs to you. There is nothing left for our lord except our bodies and our land.

19Why should we perish before your eyes—we and our land as well? Purchase us and our land in exchange for food. Then we, along with our land, will be slaves to Pharaoh. Give us seed that we may live and not die, and that the land may not become desolate.”

20So Joseph acquired for Pharaoh all the land in Egypt; the Egyptians, one and all, sold their fields because the famine was so severe upon them. The land became Pharaoh’s,

Read all of Genesis 47 — Joseph settles his family in the best land in Egypt. A season of flourishing — but the seeds of future oppression are already planted.