Genesis 47:3

3 And Pharaoh said to them, What is your business? And they said, Your servants are keepers of sheep, as our fathers were before us.

Genesis 47:3 Meaning and Commentary

Genesis 47:3

And Pharaoh said unto his brethren, what [is] your occupation?
&c.] 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 Genesis 46:34 ) ; 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 ) .

Genesis 47:3 In-Context

1 Then Joseph went to Pharaoh, and said, My father and my brothers with their flocks and their herds and all they have, are come from Canaan, and are now in the land of Goshen.

2 And he took five of his brothers to Pharaoh.

3 And Pharaoh said to them, What is your business? And they said, Your servants are keepers of sheep, as our fathers were before us.

4 And they said to Pharaoh, We have come to make a living in this land, because we have no grass for our flocks in the land of Canaan; so now let your servants make a place for themselves in the land of Goshen.

5 And Pharaoh said to Joseph, Let them have the land of Goshen; and if there are any able men among them, put them over my cattle.