With regard to the revelation at Sinai, Rabbi Yoḥanan said: What is the meaning of that which is written: “The Lord gives the word; the women that proclaim the tidings are a great host” (Psalms 68:12)? It means that each and every utterance that emerged from the mouth of the Almighty divided into seventy languages, a great host. And, similarly, the school of Rabbi Yishmael taught with regard to the verse: “Behold, is My word not like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that shatters a rock?” (Jeremiah 23:29). Just as this hammer breaks a stone into several fragments, so too, each and every utterance that emerged from the mouth of the Holy One, Blessed be He, divided into seventy languages. The Gemara continues in praise of the Torah. Rav Ḥananel bar Pappa said: What is the meaning of that which is written: “Listen, for I will speak royal things, and my lips will open with upright statements” (Proverbs 8:6)? Why are matters of Torah likened to a king? To teach you that just as this king has the power to kill and to grant life, so too, matters of Torah have the power to kill and to grant life.
Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Abba says that Rabbi Yoḥanan says: When Pharaoh said to Joseph: “And without you no man shall lift up his hand or his foot in all the land of Egypt” (Genesis 41:44), Pharaoh’s astrologers said: You will appoint a slave whose master bought him for twenty silver coins to rule over us? He said to them: I perceive royal characteristics [ginnunei malkhut] in him and see that he was not initially a slave.
They said to him: If that is so and he is a child of royalty, he should know the seventy languages that all kings’ children learn. The angel Gabriel then came and taught him the seventy languages, but he could not learn all of them. Gabriel then added one letter, the letter heh, to Joseph’s name from the name of the Holy One, Blessed be He, and then he was able to learn the languages, as it is stated: “He appointed it in Joseph [Yehosef] for a testimony, when he went forth against the land of Egypt, the speech of one that I did not know I heard” (Psalms 81:6). And the next day, when he appeared before Pharaoh, in every language that Pharaoh spoke with him, he answered him. Joseph then spoke in the sacred tongue, Hebrew, and Pharaoh did not know what he was saying. Pharaoh said to him: Teach me that language. He taught him, but he could not learn it. Pharaoh said to him: Take an oath for my benefit that you will not reveal that I do not know this language. He took an oath for his benefit.
Years later, when Joseph said to Pharaoh: “My father made me swear, saying” (Genesis 50:5) that I would bury him in Eretz Yisrael, Pharaoh said to him: Go request the dissolution of your oath. Joseph said to him: And should I also request dissolution for the oath that I took for your benefit? And consequently, even though Pharaoh was not amenable to letting Joseph go, he worried that Joseph would then request dissolution for the oath that he had taken for his benefit, and Pharaoh therefore said to him: “Go up and bury your father according to what he made you swear” (Genesis 50:6).