Genesis 47:12

According to their families. Literally, “according to the mouth of the little ones.” It probably means “in proportion to the size of their families.” Some commentators, however, have thought that it refers to Joseph as providing food for his relatives as a father would for his offspring, and others, that it means all were fed, from the greatest to the least. The benefits Joseph was in a position to confer upon his family become all the more apparent from the description of the distress into which the inhabitants of Egypt and Canaan were plunged by the continuation of the famine for five years more.