was, and they told Pharaoh that they were shepherds and asked to live in the land of Goshen. Pharaoh told Joseph that his family could live in the best of the land, in Goshen, and if he knew any able men among them, then he could appoint them to watch over Pharaoh's cattle. Joseph set Jacob before Pharaoh, and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. Pharaoh asked Jacob how old he was, and Jacob answered that he was 130 years old and that few and evil had been the years of his life. Jacob blessed Pharaoh and left. The sixth reading ends here. Seventh reading—Genesis 47:11–27 In the seventh reading, Joseph placed his father and brothers in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded, and sustained them with bread while the famine became sore in the land. Joseph gathered all the money in Egypt and Canaan selling grain and brought the money into Pharaoh's house. When the Egyptians exhausted their money and asked Joseph for bread, Joseph sold them bread in exchange for all their animals. When they had no more animals, they offered to sell their land to Joseph and become bondmen in exchange for bread. So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh—except for that of the priests, who had a portion from Pharaoh—and in exchange for seed, Joseph made all the Egyptians bondmen. At harvest time, Joseph collected for Pharaoh a fifth part of all the people harvested. In the maftir () reading that concludes the parashah, it continued as a statute in Egypt that Pharaoh should have a fifth of all produced outside of the priests' land. And Israel lived in Egypt, in the land of Goshen, accumulated possessions, and was fruitful and multiplied. The seventh reading and the parashah end here. Readings according to the triennial cycle Jews who read the Torah according to the triennial cycle of Torah reading read the parashah according to the following schedule: In ancient parallels The parashah has parallels in these ancient sources: Genesis chapter 45 Gerhard von Rad argued that the Joseph narrative is closely related to earlier Egyptian wisdom writings. Von Rad likened the theology of Joseph's statement to his brothers in , “And now be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. . . . So now it was not you who sent