Genesis 47

Genesis 47:1

9. Joseph’s Family in Egypt (Chap. 47)47:1-6 When five of Joseph’s brothers told Pharaoh that they were shepherds, he responded, as expected, by telling them to settle in the lush pasturelands of Goshen. He also asked Joseph to find some competent men from among his relatives to tend the royal herds. 47:7-12 Joseph arranged for his father, then one hundred and thirty, to be presented to Pharaoh. The fact that Jacob blessed Pharaoh means that this aged, obscure Jew was greater than the potentate of Egypt, because the lesser is blessed by the greater (Heb_7:7). Jacob said that his days had been few and evil. Actually he had brought most of the evil upon himself! Joseph settled his family in the best part of Egypt, and provided all they needed. Theirs was truly the more abundant life. 47:13-26 When the people of Egypt and Canaan had spent all their money for food, Joseph accepted their livestock in payment. Then later he bought all the land, except that belonging to the Egyptian priests, gave the people seed with which to plant crops, and charged them one-fifth of the crop for land rental, a very fair arrangement. 47:27-31 As Israel neared the end of his life, he made Joseph promise to bury him in Canaan. Then he bowed himself on the head of his bed (or “on the top of his staff,” Heb_11:21). Actually the same Hebrew consonants can be read either “bed” or “staff,” depending on which vowels are supplied. The traditional Hebrew text reads bed, but here the Septuagint, quoted in the Hebrews passage, reads “staff.” Kidner comments: While both versions have “bed” at Gen_48:2, the present occasion tells of Jacob before his last illness (cf. Gen_48:1), and “staff” may well be the right meaning. It would be an appropriate object to mention as the symbol of his pilgrimage (cf. his grateful words in Gen_32:10), worthy of the prominence it receives in the New Testament passage. And thus the ex-supplanter was to end his life in an act of worship. He is the only hero of faith of Hebrews 11 to be commended as a worshiper. He had come a long way by the grace of God, and would soon go out in a blaze of glory.