And Pharaoh said unto his brethren, what [is] your occupation?.... Which is the question he had told his brethren beforehand would be asked them, and prepared them to give an answer to it, Genesis 46:33; which was perhaps an usual question Pharaoh asked of persons that came to settle in his dominions, that he might have no idle vagrants there, and that he might know of what advantage they were like to be of in his kingdom, and might dispose of them accordingly:
and they said unto Pharaoh, thy servants [are] shepherds, both we [and] also our fathers; see Genesis 46:34.