Берешит 41:56 Мидраш: Midrash Tanchuma, Sefer HaYashar (midrash) & Bereshit Rabbah

When the famine grew more serious in Egypt, the Egyptians assembled, and went to Joseph crying: “Give us bread!” He replied: “My God does not feed the uncircumcised; go circumcise yourselves and I will give you bread.” Whereupon they went to Pharaoh, crying and wailing, as it is said: When all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread; Pharaoh said unto all the Egyptians: “Go unto Joseph” (Gen. 41:55). They replied: “We have gone to Joseph, and he told us to do a ridiculous thing. He said: ‘Go circumcise yourselves.’” “You fools,” he retorted, “did I not advise you at the very outset to serve him and to accumulate grain for yourselves at the same time? Did he not warn you repeatedly, through the years of plenty, that the famine was coming? Since you have neglected your own welfare, why do you complain to me? Why did you not store up grain in your homes during the past two or three or four years?” “All the grain we had in our homes,” they replied, “has rotted away.” “Have you no flour left even from yesterday?” he asked. “Even the bread in our baskets has become moldy,” they answered. Thereupon he told them: Go unto Joseph: what he saieth to you, do (ibid.). “If he is able to decree that our grain should rot and it does rot, we may well fear that if he should decree that we die, we will all die.” Hence, what he saith to you, do. And the famine was over all the face of the earth (ibid., v. 56). Surely it would have been sufficient for Scripture to say “upon the earth”; why does it say over all the face of the earth? R. Samuel declared: This teaches us that the famine began among the wealthy, since the phrase the face of the earth alludes to the wealthy.⁵In midrashic usage, the word panim (“face”) is a designation of wealth. Thus it says: He that withholdeth corn.

And Joseph opened his storehouses and placed officers over them, and they sold food to all ‎comers day after day. And Joseph knew that his brothers also would come into Egypt to buy ‎food, for the famine prevailed in all the earth. And Joseph commanded his people to ‎pronounce it through all Egypt saying: It is the pleasure of the king and his second and their ‎great men that everyone wishing to buy corn in Egypt should not send his servants but his ‎sons. And any man in Egypt or Canaan that cometh from all these lands to purchase corn in ‎Egypt, and he will go and sell it in any land the same shall be put to death. For no man will be ‎allowed to buy more than to supply his household. And further, every man that cometh ‎leading two or three beasts shall die, for no man shall bring more than his own beast. And ‎Joseph placed guards in the gates of Egypt, and he commanded them, saying: Every man that ‎cometh to buy food shall not be permitted until he hath written down his name, and the ‎name of his father, and the name of his father's father, and all the names registered through ‎the day shall be forwarded unto me in the evening, that I may know their names. And Joseph ‎did all these things and he made all these laws in order to know when his brothers. should ‎come to Egypt to buy food. And day after day Joseph’s men announced these laws through ‎the land so that all the people in the country east and west and all the earth knew the laws ‎which Joseph made in Egypt. And all the people, from all the ends of the earth came to buy ‎food in Egypt, and then they went on their way. And the princes of Egypt did as Joseph had ‎commanded, and all that came into Egypt to buy food were caused by the guards to write ‎down their names and the names of their father, and the register was brought unto Joseph in ‎the evening of each day. ‎And Jacob heard after this that there was food for sale in Egypt, and he called upon his sons to go into ‎Egypt to purchase corn, for the famine was heavy upon them likewise. And he said unto them: Behold, ‎I have heard there is corn for sale in Egypt, and all the world goes thither to purchase, and now why ‎should ye seventy be better than all the people of the earth? Go ye likewise down into Egypt and ‎purchase a little food among the many that go thither.

“The seven years of plenty that was in the land of Egypt concluded” (Genesis 41:53).
“The seven years of famine ensued, as Joseph had said; there was famine in all lands, but in all of the land of Egypt there was bread” (Genesis 41:54).
“Concluded [vatikhlena]…” – they emerged perfect [mekholalot].
“Ensued [vateḥilena]…” – they entered ill [ḥolaniyot].¹⁴Although the Egyptians had eaten on the final day of the seventh year of plenty, on the first day of the first year of famine, they were already afflicted with hunger. By the time they sat at the table, they sought even coarse bread, but could find none. They said: ‘Is this not what Joseph said: “The food will be as a security [for the land for the seven years of famine]”? (Genesis 41:36).¹⁵They needed the security from the beginning of the seven years.
“There was famine in all lands” – in three lands: Phoenicia, Arabia, and Philistia.
“The entire land of Egypt was hungry, and the people cried out to Pharaoh for bread; Pharaoh said to all the Egyptians: Go to Joseph; what he says to you, you shall do” (Genesis 41:55).
“The entire land of Egypt was hungry…what he says to you, you shall do” – Rabbi Abba bar Kahana said: He compelled them to circumcise themselves.¹⁶When a Jew purchases a gentile slave, he is obligated to circumcise him. Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥman said: “Ḥiyitanu” is not written here, but rather, “you have saved our lives [heḥeyitanu]” (Genesis 47:25)¹⁷When the Egyptians tell Joseph “you have saved our lives,” the Hebrew term used is heḥeyitanu instead of the similar form ḥiyitanu. The extra heh in the word implies that something additional is included, and is interpreted as an allusion to life in the World to Come: By seeing to it that they became circumcised, Joseph assured them of life in the World to Come; alternatively, the meaning is that some Egyptians converted and thereby merited life in the World to Come (see Yefeh To’ar). – you have given us life in this world, and in the World to Come.
“The famine was on the entire face of the earth, and Joseph opened all that was in them, and sold grain to the Egyptians. The famine was intensified in the land of Egypt” (Genesis 41:56).
“The famine was…everything that [asher] was in them” – the best [hame’usharim] of them.