“Now therefore let Pharaoh look out a man discreet and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt. Let Pharaoh do this. And let him appoint overseers over the land and take up the fifth part of the land of Egypt in the seven plenteous years. And let them gather all the food of these good years that come and lay up corn under the hand of Pharaoh for food in the cities, and let them keep it. And the food shall be for a store to the land against the seven years of famine which shall be in the land of Egypt, that the land perish not through famine.”
As all are listening to his words Joseph now brings his organisational powers to work. Firstly Pharaoh should appoint one man to take over the whole operation. He will need to be discreet and wise because he will need to obtain people's cooperation and will need to plan wisely.
Then he should appoint overseers throughout the land. The ‘him' could be either Pharaoh or the appointed man, but it makes little difference as Joseph hardly expected Pharaoh himself to appoint the overseers directly. But he wants Pharaoh to feel that what is done is done by him.
Then these overseers should gather up all the corn produced in the land of Egypt and lay up a fifth part in silos for the coming bad years. They are to ‘take a fifth part' to be put to one side. And they are to do this by gathering all the food of the good years and laying up part under Pharaoh's control for food in the cities. This food will be a store against the seven years of famine.
“Lay up corn.” This is clearly to be understood in terms of what went before, the fifth part. (It is quite clear that under no circumstance would anyone suggest that all the food of the good years should be stored for the future as that would leave the Egyptians without food for the present). In Egypt the storing of grain in public silos by the government was quite customary, and such silos have been discovered, but what is required here is the same measure on a vast scale. One inscription from c 100 BC recalls a seven year famine in the reign of Zoser, a thousand years before the time of Joseph, and at another time one civic authority is quoted as saying, “when famine came for many years I gave grain to my town in each famine” This on a larger scale was what would now be required. Various other Egyptian writings speak of famines and at least two officials, proclaiming their good deeds on the walls of their tombs, tell of distributing food to the hungry ‘in each year of want'.