Komentarz do Rodzaju 41:57

וכל הארץ באו מצרימה —Transpose the words and explain it thus: “and all the countries came into Egypt אל יוסף to Joseph לשבר to buy corn”, for if you explain the words in the order in which they are written it ought to state לשבור מן יוסף to buy from Joseph.

וכל הארץ באו מצרימה אל יוסף לשבור, [dear reader please note that the author’s commentary consists of his reversing the sequence of the words לשבור אל יוסף, written in the text of the Torah. If the meaning had been as it appears from the written text at first glance, instead of writing אל יוסף, the Torah should have written מן יוסף, from Joseph. Ed.]

לשבור אל יוסף, the words have been inverted and mean the same as if the Torah had written באו אל יוסף לשבור, “they came to Joseph to trade in grain.”

כי חזק הרעב, “for the famine had become very severe.” Joseph did not start selling until the famine had really become severe, He did not sell because the people had come to Pharaoh to complain, but because he convinced himself that the shortages had become real, and they did not hoard their private stocks.

כי חזק הרעב בכל הארץ, “for the famine was severe all over the earth.” The Torah refers to the part of the earth under Pharaoh’s control.

לשבור אל יוסף, “to buy grain from Joseph;” the unusual construction here, when we would have expected the Torah to write: לשבור מיוסף “to Joseph in order to buy food;” is similar to construction Genesis 30,39: אל המקלות where the word אל also means: “from,” “as a result of,” (seeing the sticks that had been peeled by Yaakov).