Joseph made it a law— Chandler remarks, that Joseph, to his honour, was so far from enslaving the country, that, with the consent of king and people, he settled both the rights of the crown and of the subject upon the foundation of an irrepealable law, and was the first who limited the power of their princes. This circumstance seems confirmed by Diodorus, who, among other instances of the good government of AEgypt, mentions this, b. 1: "That the people were not oppressed with taxes; and that the husbandmen rented their lands, at a small price, of the king, the priests, and the soldiers:" a happiness which they seem to have derived from Joseph's constitution.
Except the land of the priests only— i.e.. Except the fifth part of the land of the priests only, their land not becoming subject to the payment of any taxes.
REFLECTIONS.—Business must interrupt the pleasing intercourse of friends: now Jacob is settled, Joseph returns to his employment. The famine was severe; the years of plenty had been neglected by the improvident people, and now they are ready to die for want: their money, their stock, their land, are first parted with; and, rather than perish, they offer themselves for meat: better live servants, they thought, than die of famine. Learn from the whole, (1.) How suddenly all our worldly comforts may leave us. If God withholds but the dew of heaven from us, all we possess cannot keep us from starving. (2.) To defraud the ministry, or render it despicable by want, was regarded even by the heathens as impious. Let those remember, who possess the revenues of churches where the minister scarcely eats bread from the altar which he serves, and they who pay a scandalous pittance for the service, while themselves live on the fleeces of the sheep they never feed, that even the AEgyptian Pharaoh shall rise up in judgment to condemn them.