Genesis 47:3 (BSB)

“What is your occupation?” Pharaoh asked Joseph’s brothers. “Your servants are shepherds,” they replied, “both we and our fathers.”

From Genesis 47. Also in the ESV.

Commentary on Genesis 47:3

• John Calvin (Reformed), Calvin's Commentaries on Genesis 47:3: 3. Thy servants are shepherds. This confession was humiliating to the sons of Jacob, and especially to Joseph himself, whose high, and almost regal dignity, was thus marked with a spot of disgrace: for among the Egyptians (as we have said) this kind of life was disgraceful and infamous.
• Matthew Henry (Presbyterian), Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary on Genesis 47:1-12: Here is, I. The respect which Joseph, as a subject, showed to his prince. Though he was his favourite, and prime-minister of state, and had had particular orders from him to send for his father down to Egypt, yet he would not suffer him to settle till he had given notice of it to Pharaoh, Gen 47:1.
• John Gill (Reformed Baptist), Exposition of the Old and New Testaments on Genesis 47:3: And Pharaoh said unto his brethren, what is your occupation?.... Which is the question he had told his brethren beforehand would be asked them, and prepared them to give an answer to it, Gen 46:33; which was perhaps an usual question Pharaoh asked of persons that came to settle in his dominions, that he might have no idle vagrants there, and that he might know...
• Keil & Delitzsch (Lutheran), Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament on Genesis 47:3-6: Gen 47:3-6 Pharaoh asked them about their occupation, and according to Joseph’s instructions they replied that they were herdsmen (צאן רעה, the singular of the predicate, see Ges. §147c), who had come to sojourn in the land (גּוּר, i.e., to stay for a time), because the pasture for their flocks had failed in the land of Canaan on account of the famine.