Genesis 41:34

Gen 41:34 Let Pharaoh do [this], and let him appoint officers over the land, and take up the fifth part of the land of Egypt in the seven plenteous years.

Ver. 34. And take up the fifth part of the land.] For so much money as it is worth. The Egyptians might well spare it, and the king might as well buy it, since he should sell it again for very good profit. Neither would Joseph advise, nor Pharaoh be advised, to take his subjects’ goods by violence. When Samuel tells the people that their king, whom they called for, would take their fields and vineyards, the best of them, and give them to his servants, &c., loquitur non tam de iure quam de more, he speaks not of the right of kings, as if all were theirs, and no man had anything of his own, but of the manner, and illimited power that some kings take over their subjects’ goods; as in Turkey, Persia, &c. Let it be the voice of a Nero, whensoever he put any one in office, Scis quid mihi opus sit, et hoc agamus, nequis quicquam habeat: {a} of a Seleucus, to proclaim that the king’s pleasure is the only law; {b} as if it were not enough to be above men, but above mankind: as those princes would be, saith our English chronicler, {c} that would have their will to be law. Melancthon tells us of a certain prince in those parts, that extorted money from his miserable subjects, by knocking out their teeth. First he knocked out one tooth, {d} threatening to do so by the rest, unless they brought him in such a sum, by such a time, as he demanded. The same author elsewhere {d} relates, that he was at a sermon on the birthday of our Saviour. The preacher took his text out of Luk 2:1, "There went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed." And whereas the audience expected that the preacher should have discoursed of Christ’s nativity, of the hypostatical union, &c., he spent his whole hour (the weather being extremely cold) in this subject, that obedience must be yielded to the higher powers; that they must have as much money given them as they call for; with a great deal of such like stuff, little to the purpose, but much to the pleasure of some princes then and there present. Such court parasites many times do much mischief in a state; as well by seducing good princes, qui essent alii, si essent apud alios, as by stickling against them, when the world doth not favour them. When Edward II, surnamed Carnarvan, was pursued by his Queen and son, the Bishop of Hereford being to preach before her at Oxford, and to deliver the cause of her proceeding, took for his text, "My head acheth, my head acheth"; {2Ki 4:19} and concluded most undivinely, that an aching and sick head of a kingdom, was, of necessity, to be taken off, and no otherwise cured. {f}