Bible Commentaries
Genesis 46

Verses 1-27

XXXI

JACOB AND HIS FAMILY MIGRATE TO EGYPT

Genesis 46:1-47:27

Concerning this eventful migration, we consider just now several important matters:

IT WAS BY DIVINE APPOINTMENT
This appears first from the revelation made to Abraham when he was yet childless (Genesis 15:13-16); and here again in a vision to Jacob at Beer-sheba (Genesis 46:1-4). There is much interplay of human passion and purpose (Genesis 37:18-36) and natural causes, as the famine, and high above all God is reigning, making the envious brothers and Joseph their victim (Genesis 46:4-7), the famine itself, the Midianite, Ishmaelite, Potiphar and wife, the prison, the butler and baker, and Pharaoh himself – all subservient to his plan of the ages concerning the redemption of the race.

THE NUMBER OF THE IMMIGRANTS
Two totals are given in the Hebrew text, sixty-six and seventy. The sixty-six are those descending from Jacob’s own loins and who went with him. This, of course, does not include Jacob himself, nor Joseph and his two sons, already in Egypt: they, added, make the seventy. In detail we have as descendants of Leah, his first wife: Reuben and four sons, five; Simeon and six sons, seven; Levi and three sons, four; Judah, three living sons, and two grandsons, six; Issachar and four sons, five; Zebulun and three sons, four; his daughter Dinah, one; total, thirty-two, Jacob himself making thirty-three. Of Zilpah, Leah’s maid, we have Gad and seven sons, eight; Asher, four sons, a daughter, and two grandsons, eight; total, sixteen. Of Rachel, Joseph, and two sons, three; Benjamin and ten sons, eleven; total fourteen. Of Bilhah, Rachel’s maid, we have Dan and one son, two; Naphtali and four sons, five; total, seven. Then thirty-three plus sixteen plus fourteen plus seven equals seventy. You will observe that neither Jacob’s surviving wives, nor any of his sons’ wives, nor any slaves, nor other dependents, are counted in this register. Judging from the numerous following of Abraham and Isaac, the dependents must have been a little army. It is remarkable that only one daughter and one granddaughter appear in the list. When we compare ages that are expressly given, for example, Jacob 130 (Genesis 47:9), and that all of the children except Benjamin were born in the sojourn of twenty years in Haran, we may agree with Murphy that the respective ages must have been at this time: Jacob 130; Joseph 30 (Genesis 41:26) ; Reuben 46; Simeon 45; Judah 43; Naphtali 42; Gad 42; Asher 41; Issachar 41; Zebulun 40; Dinah 39; Benjamin 26. We must conclude that both Judah and his son married at about fourteen, and Benjamin, to have ten sons, must have married at fifteen.

But we now fall upon more serious difficulties, at least to some commentators. These arise from (1) the Septuagint Version of Genesis 46: which gives the number seventy-five instead of seventy, and Stephen in Acts 7:14, gives seventy-five. How shall we reconcile these accounts with the Hebrew? The explanation is not very difficult. The Septuagint, not inspired, itself explains the discrepancy between it and the Hebrew text by adding five additional names, descendants of Joseph’s children, Ephraim and Manasseh. The usual explanation of the passage in Acts is that Stephen merely quoted from the Septuagint. But this is more than doubtful. Stephen’s words, quoting from the American Standard Version, are: "And Joseph sent and called to him Jacob his father, and all his kindred, three score and fifteen souls." In this seventy-five neither Joseph nor his children may be counted. We readily see how Jacob and sixty-six descendants, sixty-seven in all, are counted in the seventy-five, but where do we get the other eight? We must look for them in the words, "All his kindred." But who are these? They may well be the surviving wives of Jacob and his sons, none of them given in the Genesis list. We know that two of Jacob’s wives are dead, Rachel, buried near Bethlehem (Genesis 31:19), and Leah, buried in the cave of Machpelah (Genesis 49:31). Judah’s wife was also dead (Genesis 38:12), and possibly Reuben’s. But we may reasonably count that at least eight wives of Jacob and his sons were living, and this would better explain Stephen’s words, "All his kindred," than to suppose that he quoted from the Septuagint.

But some critics find difficulties from another source, to wit: the enumerations in Numbers 26:5-51, and in 1 Chronicles 4-8. The enumeration in Numbers, hundreds of years later, under different time conditions, deals with the later descendants of Jacob’s children, and would not naturally fit exactly into the Genesis list. It nowhere contradicts Genesis, and the slight variation in the spelling of certain names is easily explicable. The Chronicles enumeration, still more remote in time, and for other purposes, presents no difficulty except for one looking for discrepancies.

There is a difficulty in chronology concerning the length of the sojourn in Egypt, already considered in Genesis 15:13, and it will come up again in Exodus 12:40; Acts 7:6; and Galatians 3:17, which will be considered when we come to Exodus 12:40.

THE AFFECTING MEETING OF JACOB AND JOSEPH
The sorrow of Jacob for the loss of Joseph has become proverbial in the East. It was a sorrow that could not be comforted: "I have grief like that which Jacob felt for the loss of Joseph" (see Arabian Nights, Vol. 2, pp. 112, 206, 222). Scriptural expressions of his sorrow are Genesis 37:33-35; Genesis 42:36-38; Genesis 47:9.

When his sons returned from Egypt and announced that Joseph was alive, he fainted. Note Genesis 45:25-28: "And they went up out of Egypt, and came into the land of Canaan unto Jacob their father. And they told him, saying, Joseph is yet alive, and he is ruler over all the land of Egypt. And his heart fainted, for he believed them not. And they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said unto them; and when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived: and Israel said, It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go and see him before I die." He was also greatly assured with these words of Jehovah, Genesis 46:2-4: "And God spake unto Israel in the visions of the night, and said, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, Here am 1. And he said, I am God, the God of thy father: fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation; I will go down with thee into Egypt; and I will also surely bring thee up again: and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes."

Their affecting meeting is thus described in Genesis 46:29-30: "And Joseph made ready with his chariot, and went up to meet Israel his father, to Goshen; and he presented himself unto him, and fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while. And Israel said unto Joseph, Now let me die, since I have seen thy face, and thou art yet alive." Under widely different circumstances our Lord, in the parable of the prodigal son, described the touching meeting of a long-separated father and son.

JOSEPH PRESENTS HIS FATHER AND BROTHERS TO PHARAOH
Taking with him five of his brothers, after instructing them what to say, Joseph introduces them to Pharaoh, and so manages to secure the land of Goshen for them (Genesis 46-47:6). The advantages of the land of Goshen were these: (1) It was the best in Egypt for pasturage; (2) it isolated the children of Israel from the Egyptians, thus enabling them to preserve uncontaminated the exclusive religious faith, and hedged against giving offense to the Egyptians by either religion or occupation and tended to prevent intermarriage; (3) it was the frontier gateway into their Promised Land.

According to Herodotus (2:164), the Egyptians were divided into seven distinct classes or castes: Priests, warriors, cowherders, swine-herders, interpreters, boatmen and shepherds. Our text says: "Every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians." It is certain that Egyptian sculpture represents the shepherds in a most degrading way. So the two peoples would be mutually repulsive on many grounds. The favor accorded to Jacob’s family and dependents being attributable to the esteem of the royal family for Joseph, all the dreams of Joseph were thus fulfilled. His brethren now bow down before him, and the father is nourished by him.

JACOB AND PHARAOH (Genesis 47:7-11)
The meeting between these two men, so strongly alike in every way, presents both of them in a favorable light. Pharaoh is very courteous and Jacob is full of dignity. It is he that blesses Pharaoh. The sincerity of Jacob’s famous words has been questioned. "The days of the years of my pilgrimage are thirty and a hundred years: few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage." Marcus Dods, on Genesis, quotes Lady Duff-Gordon: "Old Jacob’s speech to Pharaoh really made me laugh (don’t be shocked), because it is so exactly like what a fellah says to a pasha – Jacob being a most prosperous man, but it is manners to say all that." Lady Duff-Gordon may indeed be amused at the Oriental manners of her time, as the Orientals were doubtless amused at hers, only they were too polite to show it. But you might make a great sermon on Jacob’s words) and find in them evidences of deepest sincerity.

(1) He correctly represents his life as a "pilgrimage," whose destination, rest and home, and reward, are in the world above, and so testifies the New Testament (Hebrews 11:8-10; Hebrews 11:13-16). It was from the New Testament Scriptures, descriptive of this feeling of the patriarch life, that Bunyan derived the idea immortalized in his Pilgrim’s Progress. There is no mere mannerism or perfunctory custom in Jacob’s reference to his life as a pilgrim. (2) It is strictly true that he had not attained to the days of his fathers. Relative fewness of days was his when compared with either patriarchal longevity, or eternity. (3) While brightened here and there by divine visitations, his days were full of evil. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with hardships and griefs. Remorse of conscience for his own sins clouded his life, and the chastening therefore was a heavy burden. His apprehension of Esau’s violence, his separation from his mother never to see her again in this life, his exile from home, and lonely, friendless life, counted much. No gem of literature is more exquisite, pathetic and tragic than his own simple statement to Laban of his twenty years of trial in Padan-Aram, as follows: "And Jacob was wroth, and chode with Laban; and Jacob answered and said to Laban, What is my trespass? what is my sin, that thou hast holly pursued after me? Whereas thou hast felt about all my stuff, what hast thou found of all thy household stuff? Set it here before my brethren and thy brethren, that they may judge betwixt us two. These twenty years have I been with thee; thy ewes and thy she-goats have not cast their young, and the rams of thy flocks have I not eaten. That which was torn of beasts I brought not unto thee; I bare the loss of it; of my hand didst thou require it, whether stolen by day or stolen by night. Thus I was; in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep fled from mine eyes. These twenty years have I been in thy house; I served thee fourteen years for thy two daughters, and six years for thy flock: and thou hast changed my wages ten times. Except the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely now hadst thou sent me away empty. God hath seen mine affliction and the labour of my hands, and rebuked thee yesternight." His troubles from the polygamy forced upon him were many. The sin of Reuben wounded him to the heart. The dishonor done to Dinah, and the violence of Simeon and Levi left lasting scars never to be forgotten. His anxieties about hostile neighbors never left him. His loss of his beloved Rachel was irreparable, and his loss of Joseph broke his heart. It was shallow pertness and affected smartness on the part of Lady Duff Gordon to ridicule a speech so eloquently and so sublimely true.

JOSEPH’S ADMINISTRATION OF THE AFFAIRS OF EGYPT (Genesis 41:37-57; Genesis 47:13-26)
More than once has the world been surprised at the wise administration of national affairs by alien Jews, promoted for merit alone to the highest political offices. It commenced with Joseph’s rule over Egypt; it is followed by Daniel’s rule over Babylon, and Mordecai’s and Nehemiah’s influence at the court of Persia. We have modern examples in the sway of the Rothschilds over the finances of many nations, Disraeli in England creating the British Empire, and Judah P. Benjamin in the Confederate States. There are multitudes of examples on a smaller scale.

Joseph’s administration in Egypt gave it world pre-eminence. His bringing all the land to Pharaoh has been questioned. But it was not only an unavoidable expedient, but greatly simplified the government of a turbulent population, and gave to the people themselves a definite one-fifth tribute, instead of uncertain, oppressive taxation and much tyrannical oppression. If they paid the one-fifth, a land rent far cheaper than prevails here, their burdens were ended. His gathering the people into cities was to simplify the distribution of stores. There will doubtless always be difference of opinions about the wisdom of agrarian laws. The abolition of private ownership in land has been argued in our time and country by Henry George and his followers. A political economist will find it difficult to answer satisfactorily his Progress and Poverty. The accumulation of large landed interests, mines, minerals, timbers, oil, etc., in the hands of a few men, or irresponsible syndicates, menaces today the peace of the world. Isaiah prophesies woe to those who add house to house and land to land until there is no room for the people. Jefferson claimed that the earth in usufruct belongs to the living. Goldsmith well says in his Deserted Village:

III fares the land to hastening ills a prey,

Where wealth accumulates and men decay.

The Gracchi perished in trying to remedy the land evil in ancient Rome. The ancient Germans, according to Caesar, prevented private ownership of lands, as, according to Prescott, did the ancient Peruvians. England passed through the throes of this very burning question. It is certain that Egypt was happier under Joseph’s rule than ever before or since. So were the Peruvians under the land policy of the Incas. In the United States today the battle is on to the death to preserve to the people the water courses, the forests, the natural resources; and to relax the choking grasp of monopolies that prey, in selfish, insatiable greed, upon the very vitals of the people. Joseph, being an alien, did not attempt to destroy the landownership of the priesthood, the most plausible and yet the most dangerous monopoly known to a free people. Other nations have been compelled to abolish their ownership. The successful fight in Mexico on that point is the most notable in history. The priesthood held one-half the land in fee simple, and not only paid no taxes, but forced the people owning the other half to support them. They ruled the cradle, the grave and futurity itself. Their holidays drove labor from the calendar. This ownership in the Philippines constituted one-half of the gravest problems in our government of those islands, in the solution of which, mainly by President Taft when in charge there, more unwise statesmanship was displayed than was ever before exercised by our country’s rulers, the end of which in fateful consequences is not yet.

Under all circumstances, the administration of Egyptian affairs by Joseph is the wisest record in the annals of time. A writer cited by Marcus Dods mentions an inscription on the tomb of an Egyptian, supposed to refer to this famine in Joseph’s time: "When a famine broke out for many years I gave corn to the city in each famine." Smith’s Bible Dictionary, article "Famine," cites the only other seven years of famine known to Egyptian history. It lasted from A.D. 1064-1071.

QUESTIONS
1. What is the proof that Jacob’s migration to Egypt was of divine appointment?

2. Show the interplay of human passion, the natural causes and name the actors who played any part in this matter.

3. How do you reconcile the two totals of sixty-six and seventy given in the Hebrew text?

4. How do you reconcile the numbers in Genesis 46:26-27, with the addition of Genesis 46:15; Genesis 46:18; Genesis 46:22; Genesis 46:25, and Acts 7:14?

5. What difficulties from another source puzzle the critics and what the explanation?

6. What proverb is based on Jacob’s loss of Joseph?

7. What are the scriptural expressions of his sorrow?

8. How did the news that Joseph was alive affect him?

9. How was he assured in this matter?

10. Describe the affecting meeting of Joseph and Jacob. What New Testament illustration of this incident cited?

11. What land did Joseph secure for his father and brothers, and what the advantages of this land?

12. According to Herodotus, what were the classes of the Egyptians?

13. What was the position of the shepherd among the Egyptians, the evidence and how account for the favor accorded Jacob and his family?

14. What were his famous words to Pharaoh and what Lady Duff Gordon’s remark about them?

15. What evidences of the sincerity of his words?

16. What New Testament evidence that Jacob correctly represented his life as a pilgrimage?

17. In what famous allegory is this idea immortalized?

18. How old was Jacob when he stood before Pharaoh and how do his days compare with the days of the other patriarchs?

19. What the evidence that his days were full of evil?

20. Itemize Jacob’s troubles somewhat.

21. What ancient Jews became powerful in the affairs of foreign governments?

22. What modern ones have made their influence felt likewise?

23. What were the blessings of Joseph’s administration to the people?

24. What are agrarian laws? Who wrote Progress and Poverty and what was its aim?

25. Cite Isaiah’s prophecy in point.

26. What was Jefferson’s position on it?

27. What said Goldsmith about it?

28. Cite illustrations of this in ancient and modern history.

29. How does the administration of Joseph in Egypt compare with other administrations of like nature?

30. What is the meaning of "Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes"? (Genesis 46:4.)

31. The meaning of "And Pharaoh took off his ring and put it on Joseph’s hand"?

32. Cite other Bible instances of the use of the signet ring.