창세기 47:8의 주석

כמה ימי שני חחייך?, Pharaoh was utterly amazed at Yaakov’s age as the Egyptians did not know of any life-prolonging ingredients and people of Yaakov’s age simply did not exist in Egypt.

ויאמר פרעה כמה ימי שני חייך?, “Pharaoh said to Yaakov: ‘how old are you?’” It is puzzling why Pharaoh suddenly displays such interest in Yaakov’s age. At the same time, it is puzzling why Yaakov, instead of simply telling Pharaoh his age, prefaces his answer with a description of the quality of his life before revealing the quantitative aspect of it. Yaakov meant to explain to Pharaoh that if, contrary to norm, he appeared far older than his actual years this was due to the many trials and tribulations he had experienced in his years on earth. When Yaakov had arrived in Egypt and his sons had described themselves as coming לגור בארץ, to sojourn for a while, this created the impression that Yaakov expected to be around on this planet for quite some time yet. Pharaoh was therefore almost bound to ask him how old he was already, seeing that he had such plans for the future. Yaakov reassured him, that as of this day he was far younger in terms of years, than had been either his father or his grandfather at the time of their respective deaths. The fact that Yaakov really intended to return to Canaan after the famine would have passed had really thrown Pharaoh for a loop. According to the Midrash, G’d reacted angrily when He heard that after having been saved by Him miraculously a number of times during his life, Yaakov had the nerve to complain about the quality of his life on earth up until then in the presence of Pharaoh. As a result, Yaakov’s lifespan was reduced by 33 years when compared to the 180 years his father Yitzchok had lived. The number 33 corresponds to the number of words in our verse.

כמה ימי שני חייך, “how old are you?” Yaakov appeared to Pharaoh as considerably older than anyone he had seen in Egypt. When Yaakov replied he was careful not to equate the years he had been on earth as “life.” He said: “the days of my sojourn on earth, etc.” This is typical of the righteous. They consider themselves as merely transients in this world. Having established how he related to the experience of living within a body here on earth, he did say: “the days of my life are fewer and have been marked by sorrow.” He used the word “life” in contrast to his fathers who had not experienced such sorrows and who could therefore describe their days of life on earth as “life.” In order for Pharaoh to understand that the term “life” applied to his fathers was merely relative, Yaakov reverted again to describing even the lives of his fathers as “the days of their sojourn.”

Auch heute sprechen Fürsten, deren Zeit natürlich höchst kostbar ist, bei einer Audienz in der Regel nur ein paar kurze hingeworfene Fragesätze, die aus gleichgültigen Verhältnissen des Anzuredenden herausgegriffen sind. Selten hat aber wohl ein Fürst mehr Feinheit in ein paar Frageworte zu bergen verstanden, als hier Pharao, und noch seltener ein Angeredeter in einem kurzen Antwortsatz mehr Weisheit ausgesprochen, als hier Jakob. Wenn man nach Jahren zählt, rechnet man nicht mehr nach Tagen. Nur bei wenigen auserlesenen Menschen geschiehts, bei denen jeder Tag bedeutungsvoll und von ihnen als besondere Aufgabe betrachtet wird. Der wahre Mensch lebt nicht Jahre, sondern Tage. So in dem großen Psalm Moschehs, wo die ganze Weltgeschichte wie ein Traum vorüberzieht, heißt es zuletzt: wenn selbst tausend Jahre Weltgeschichte nichts mehr als eine Minute bedeuten, dann bedeuten die Tage gar nichts. Nur wo die תורה eingezogen und die Tätigkeit des Menschen im Dienste Gottes bestimmt und weiht, da lebt der Mensch Tage, heute hat er Kraft, heute wirkt er, um den Zusammenhang und die Folge völlig unbekümmert, der Tag ist Gott zugezählt und unverloren. "למנות ימינו כן הודע!" "Lehre uns so unsere Tage zählen!" — So spricht auch Pharao hier: Wie viel Tage hast du in den Jahren deines Lebens gelebt? und gibt in dieser Fragestellung den tiefen Eindruck kund, den die ganze Erscheinung Jakobs auf ihn gemacht.

כמה ימי שני חייך, “for how many years have you lived thus far?” Pharaoh was probably prompted to ask this unusual question of his guest as he looked as if he was exceedingly old. Yaakov, when replying, did not refer to his having “lived” at all, but described his sojourn on earth as something of a very temporary nature, ימי מגורי, “the days of my being a stranger,” as opposed to ימי שני חיי, “the days of the years the life,” the way the Torah had described the life of his grandmother Sarah at her death, reported in Genesis 23,1. He indicated that as opposed to his forefathers, he had had a very troubled life thus far. This resulted in his features reflecting this. An explanation by the Midrash of this strange sounding conversation between the ruler of the civilised world at the time and Joseph’s father: As soon as Yaakov had uttered the words that his life compared unfavourably with that of his father and grandfather, G–d told him “I have saved you from Esau and Lavan, I restored your daughter Dinah to you, as well as your son Joseph, and you have the nerve to describe your life on earth in negative terms when speaking to Pharaoh? I am now forced to make sure that you did not tell a lie, by shortening your lifespan when compared to that of your father and grandfather. He therefore deducted a year for each of the words in this reply by Yaakov, i.e. 33 words, so that he died at 147 years, 33 years younger than the lifespan of his father who had lived for 180 years. [This includes the opening blessing and the concluding blessing Yaakov gave to Pharaoh. Ed.]

?כמה ימי שני חייך, “how old are you?” Pharaoh was under the impression that Yaakov was extremely old, as he bore the marks of his sorrow filled life marked on his facial features. Yaakov replied: “do not be surprised that I look so old, the experiences that I have undergone during my life thus far have left their mark on me.” A Midrash quote G-d as responding to Yaakov describing his life as a series of harsh experiences by pointing out that no one before had been protected from as many dangers facing him as had Yaakov. According to these Midrash, the reason why Yaakov lived 33 years less than his father and 28 years less than his grandfather was onaccount of his not having appreciated all that G-d had done for him. The number 33 is arrived at by counting the number of words in verse 8 of our chapter commencing from the word: ויאמר up to and including the word: מגוריהם in verse 9.