Genesis 45:6

Neither be earing nor harvest. “Earing” does not refer to the collection of ears of corn, which would make the word a synonym for harvest. It means, literally, “plowing,” from the Anglo-Saxon erian, probably borrowed from the Latin aro, “to plow.” This is also the meaning of the Hebrew word so translated. In other countries the failure to plant and to harvest would be due to a lack of rain; in Egypt, to a marked deficiency in the rise of the Nile (see on ch. 41:34). That Joseph spoke of there being neither sowing nor reaping in a general, rather than in an absolute, sense is evident from ch. 47:19, which states that the Egyptians came to Joseph to buy seed. It is probable that even during this famine they sowed some of the ground, particularly near the banks of the river, from which a crop, though small, might be reaped.