Gen 47:19 | CPDV | STEP | Therefore, why should you watch us die? Both we and our land will be yours. Buy us into royal servitude, but provide seed, lest by the dying off of cultivators the land be reduced to a wilderness.”

Genesis 47:19

19 Therefore, why should you watch us die? Both we and our land will be yours. Buy us into royal servitude, but provide seed, lest by the dying off of cultivators the land be reduced to a wilderness.” ^{▼▼47:19In this unusual situation, the people needed seed to grow crops. Ordinarily, they would save some seed from one crop in order to grow the next crop. But the famine was caused by an inability to grow crops, almost certainly due to a lack of rain. This drought would reduce the amount of crops that could be grown to the extent that they could not (or would not) save some seed for the next crop. The drought would also keep the Nile from flooding its banks (which would have provided water and rich soil for crops grown in the flood plain).(Conte)}