Genesis 45

When one sees such passages related by men who affect no art, and who lived long after the parties who first uttered them, we cannot conceive how all particulars could be so naturally and fully recorded unless they had been suggested by his Spirit who gives mouths and speech unto men; who, being alike present to all successions, is able to communicate the secret thoughts of forefathers to their children, and put the very words, never registered before, into the mouths or pens of their successors for many ages after, and that exactly, and distinctly. For it is plain, that every circumstance is here related with such natural specifications as if Moses heard them talk. Jackson.

32. Judah, in honor to the justice of Joseph’s sentence, and to show his sincerity in this plea, offers himself to become a bondman instead of Benjamin. Thus the law would be satisfied: Joseph would be no loser; and Jacob would better bear the loss of him than of Benjamin. Now, so far was he from grieving at his father’s particular fondness for Benjamin, that he is himself willing to be a bondman, to indulge it. Judah’s faithful adherence to Benjamin, now in his distress, was recompensed long after by the constant adherence of the tribe of Benjamin to the tribe of Judah, when all the other ten tribes had deserted it. H.—As Judah spoke, so the rest felt. They could not bring themselves to inflict a new sorrow on their aged father: neither could they bear to leave their young brother in the hands of strangers. There is now discernible a common feeling that binds them together, and a common object for which they willingly sacrifice themselves. They are, therefore, now prepared to pass into that higher school to which God called them in Egypt. Dods.

1. THEN Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him; and he cried, Cause every man to go out from me. And there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren. And he wept aloud: and the Egyptians heard, and the house of Pharaoh heard. And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am Joseph; doth my father yet live? And his brethren could not answer him; for they were troubled at his presence. And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. And now be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life. For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and there are yet five years, in the which there shall be neither plowing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve you a remnant in the earth, and to save you alive by a great deliverance. So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and ruler over all the land of Egypt. Haste ye, and go up to my father, and say unto him, Thus saith thy son Joseph, God hath made me lord of all Egypt: come down unto me, tarry not; and thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be near unto me, thou, and thy children, and thy children’s children, and thy flocks, and thy herds, and all that thou hast: and there will I nourish thee; for there are yet five years of famine; lest thou come to poverty, thou, and thy household, and all that thou hast. And, behold, your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that it is my mouth that speaketh unto you. And ye shall tell my father of all my glory in Egypt, and of all that ye have seen; and ye shall haste and bring down my father hither. And he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck, and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck. And he kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them: and after that his brethren talked with him.

16. And the fame thereof was heard in Pharaoh’s house, saying, Joseph’s brethren are come: 17 and it pleased Pharaoh well, and his servants. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Say unto thy 18 brethren, This do ye; lade your beasts, and go, get you unto the land of Canaan; and take your father and your households, and come unto me: and I will give you the good of the land 19 of Egypt, and ye shall eat the fat of the land. Now thou art commanded, this do ye; take you wagons out of the land of Egypt for your little ones, and for your wives, and bring your 20 father, and come. Also regard not your stuff; for the good of all the land of Egypt is yours. 21 And the sons of Israel did so: and Joseph gave them wagons, according to the commandment 22 of Pharaoh, and gave them provision for the way. To all of them he gave each man changes of raiment; but to Benjamin he gave three hundred pieces of silver, and five changes of rai- 23 ment. And to his father he sent after this manner; ten asses laden with the good things of 24 Egypt, and ten she-asses laden with corn and bread and victual for his father by the way. So he sent his brethren away, and they departed: and he said unto them, See that ye fall not out by the way.

1. The pleading of Judah has conquered, not the determination of Joseph, which had no real existence, but his power of repressing his feelings. But he will not have the Egyptians know the details of his brethren’s crime and his own secret history. Alf.

Joseph could not refrain himself. The repentance of his brothers and their attachment to Benjamin have been demonstrated in the most satisfactory manner. This is all that Joseph sought. It is evident throughout the whole narrative, that he never aimed at exercising any supremacy over his brothers. As soon as he has obtained an affecting proof of the right disposition of his brothers, he conceals himself no longer. Judah has painted the scene at home to the life; and Joseph can hold out no longer. M.—Joseph could no longer constrain himself to act a feigned part—all the brother and the son rose up in him at once; he felt for his father—he realized his disappointment and agony, and he felt for his brethren; and, that he might give free and full scope to his feelings, he ordered all his attendants to go out, while he made himself known to his brethren.

3-8. The speech of Joseph to his brethren is inferior only to that of Judah, in the preceding chapter. He saw that his brethren were confounded at his presence—that they were struck with his present power—and that they keenly remembered, and deeply deplored, their own guilt. How delicate and finely wrought is the apology he makes for them! the whole heart of the pious and affectionate brother is at once seen in it—art is confounded, and swallowed up by nature—“Be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves—it was not you that sent me hither, but God.” What he says also concerning his father, shows the warmest feelings of a filial heart. Indeed, the whole chapter is a masterpiece of composition; and it is the more imimpressive, because it is evidently a simp’e relation of facts just as they occurred: for no attempt is made to heighten the effect, by rhetorical coloring, or philosophical reflections; it is all simple, sheer nature from beginning to end. It is a history that has no fellow, crowded with incidents as probable as they are true; where every passion is called into action, and where every one acts up to its own character. A. C.

The proof of their love to their aged father and to Benjamin is unmistakable; Joseph is satisfied. They are penitent for their long past crime against him, and he can therefore at length break the secret and show himself their long-lost brother! How do their ears tingle as they hear him say—“I am Joseph: Doth my father yet live?” The first shock is almost stunning: they cannot answer him, for they are troubled at his presence. More kind words and the kindest possible manner are now in place. “Joseph said to his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you; and they came near.” Again he says—“I am Joseph, your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt.” Then with a turn which evinces the exquisite tenderness of his heart, he begs them “not to be grieved nor angry with themselves;” but to think rather of the design of God in permitting and providentially shaping this wonderful series of events. “God did send me before you to preserve life. There are five more years of famine yet to come; God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God.” The best thing he could say under just those circumstances to soothe their minds and assure them of his full forgiveness. H. C.

Never any word sounded so strangely as this in the ears of the patriarchs. Wonder, doubt, reverence, joy, fear, hope, guiltiness, struck them at once. It was time for Joseph to say,

“Fear not :” no marvel if they stood with paleness and silence before him ; looking on him, and on each other : the more they considered, they wondered more ; and the more they believed, the more they feared : for those words, “I am Joseph,” seemed to sound thus much to their guilty thoughts ; “You are murderers, and I am a prince in spite of you : my power and this place give me all opportunities of revenge ; my glory is your shame, my life your danger ; your sin lives together with me.” But now the tears and gracious words of Joseph assure them of pardon and love. Bp. II.

A less delicate mind would have talked of forgiving them ; but he entreats them to forgive themselves, as though his forgiveness was not in question. They were not to consider their crime too great to be forgiven, either by that God or that brother whom they had offended. Indeed his main object seems now to be to bring them to eye the hand of an overruling providence in all that had happened, so as to be reconciled to the event, though they might weep in secret for the part which they had acted. Bush.

5-8. It might have been an injudicious speech to impenitent men ; but no further view of sin can lighten its heinousness to a really penitent sinner. Prove to him that his sin has become the means of untold good, and you only humble him the more, and more deeply convince him that while he was recklessly gratifying himself and sacrificing others for his own pleasure, God has been mindful of others, and, pardoning him, has blessed them. God does not need our sins to work out His good intentions, but we give Him little other material ; and the discovery that through our evil purposes and injurious deeds God has worked out His beneficent will, is certainly not calculated to make us think more lightly of our sin or more highly of ourselves. Joseph in thus addressing his brethren did, in fact, but add to their feelings the tenderness that is in all religious conviction, and that springs out of the consciousness that in all our sin there has been with us a holy and loving Father, mindful of His children. This is the final stage of penitence. The knowledge that God has prevented our sin from doing the harm it might have done, does relieve the bitterness and despair with which we view our life, but at the same time it strengthens the most effectual bulwark between us and sin—love to a holy, overruling God. Dods.

When a man is truly penitent, and seems almost paralyzed by the perception of his guilt, to show him that God has brought good out of his evil will exalt God’s grace and wisdom in his eyes, and lead him more implicitly to cling to him. It is a comforting thought, that while we cannot undo the sin, God has kept it from undoing us, and has overruled it for greater good to ourselves and greater blessing to others than, perhaps, might otherwise have been attained. We can never be as we were before we committed it. Always there will be some sadness in our hearts and lives connected with it, and springing out of it. But still, if we really repent of it and return to God, there may come to us “meat out of the eater, and sweet out of the bitter.” It may give us sympathy with others, and fit us for being helpful to others, so that, though we may be sadly conscious of the evil of our course, we may yet see that through it all God was preparing us for the saving of those who, humanly speaking, but for our instrumentality would have gone down to perdition. But mark the condition—if we truly repent. There is no comfort otherwise. W. M. T.

7. On every word here a strong emphasis may be laid. It is not you, but God—it is not you that sold me, but God who sent me—Egypt and Canaan must both have perished, had not a merciful provision been made—you were come down hither, and God sent me before you—sent me here to preserve life. A. C.—To save you alive. God’s Israel is the particular care of God’s providence. Joseph reckoned that his advancement was designed, not so much to save a whole kingdom of Egyptians, as to preserve a small family of Israelites : for the Lord’s portion is his people ; whatever goes with others, they shall be secured. Providence looks a great way forward, and has a long reach ; even long before the years of plenty, Providence was preparing for the supply of Jacob’s house in the years of famine. The psalmist praises God for this (105 : 17), He sent a man before them, even Joseph. God sees his work from the beginning to the end, but we do not. H.

So far as his brethren were concerned, their machinations were malignant ; yet were they all threads in that wonderful web of Providence which was partially unfolded in the four hundred years’ captivity, and more fully in the fortunes of the Jewish nation, and the plan of redemption. J. W. A.—Joseph’s career is just predestination made familiar, and the Providence of God made palpable. It burns and shines with present Deity, and while it says to the sinner, Be sure your sins will find you out, and tells that what man means for evil God manages for good, it also proclaims—“The counsel of the Lord standeth forever.” Hamilton.

8. He hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord and ruler.** You might have fancied that these words would have been uttered first. The dignity seemed so much the greater to be lord over a great kingdom, than to preserve a little Palestine family. But it could not be greater in the mind of Joseph; his human affections made the support of that little family a dearer object to him than Pharaoh and all Egypt. And his affections did not give out a false note, they responded to God’s own teaching and inspiration; the support of that family was not only a higher and nearer duty to himself, it was a mightier service to mankind. He was maintaining, so he believed, a seed in which all families of the earth were to be blessed; a witness for the divine order upon earth; a witness against all contradictions and subversions of that order. But though this obligation was first, it did not exclude the other. His glory in Egypt had not been sought for by himself, it had been thrust upon him. God, who had sent him to save his own family by a great deliverance, had surely just as much proposed that he should be a father to Pharaoh and a lord of his land. So Joseph judged; on that faith he acted. Maurice.—It was God that brought him to the knowledge of Pharaoh, and gave him favor in his sight. It was God that exalted him, and endowed him with knowledge, and wisdom, and authority, to be an eminent benefactor to Pharaoh and his kingdom. He looked beyond his brethren to God when he thought upon his affections, and beyond Pharaoh to God when he thought of his exaltation. Thus he bears his affliction with meekness and his elevation with humility. Bush.

9. There is one quality which runs like a thread through Joseph’s whole history, his affection for his father. When his brethren first came before him, his question was, “Is your father yet alive?” Again the question was, “Is your father well, the old man of whom ye spake, is he yet alive?” Afterward Judah came near unto him, and entreated him for his brother, telling him how that he had been “surety to his father” to bring him back, how that “his father was an old man,” and that this was the “child of his old age, and that he loved him,"—how it would come to pass that if he should not see the lad with him he would die, and his gray hairs be brought with sorrow to the grave; for “how shall I go to my father, and the lad be not with me?—lest, peradventure, I see the evil that shall come on my father.” Then Joseph’s firmness forsook him—he could not refrain himself any longer, and made himself known to his brethren. Then, even in the paroxysm which came on him (for he wept aloud so that the Egyptians heard), still his first words uttered from the fulness of his heart were, “Doth my father yet live?” He now bids them hasten and bring the old man down, bearing to him tokens of his love and tidings of his glory. He goes to meet him—he presents himself unto him, and falls on his neck and weeps on his neck a good while—he provides for him and his household out of the fat of the land—he sets him before Pharaoh. By and by he hears that he is sick, and hastens to visit him—he receives his blessing—watches his death-bed. And afterward it is the father’s memory which his brethren count upon and appeal to, in, their fear lest Joseph should requite to them the evil they had done. Brunt.

14,15. After sending a warm request to Jacob to come and see all his glory in Egypt, he turned to Benjamin, and fell upon his neck and wept. “Moreover, he kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them, and after that his brethren talked with him.” How natural it all is! How exquisitely told! and how remarkable that there should be no effort on the part of the narrator to describe the surprise of the brothers at the unexpected revelation, or to recount the conversation which followed on the reconciliation! W. M. T.—The narrative contains no evidence that there was any recital of past wrongs. They had been many, and had left arrows of anguish within the soul. But they are left unrecounted. Their rehearsal could effect no good. The past is irreparable. Let the waters of oblivion bury the crimes and their consequences; conscience has done its work, and now human intermeddling may do more injury than good. J. S. V.

24. See that ye fall not out by the way.** Chaldee: Do not contend. The brothers were in effect forbidden to accuse each other with respect to the past. Joseph had seen the violent agitation of their minds, both when they were put in prison, and when he made himself known to them. He had already heard from Reuben some severe reflections on his brethren, and he was afraid lest they should either feel more uneasiness than he wished them to do, or exasperate one another by reflections on their former conduct. In the course of their long journey their conversation would turn naturally on the remarkable events that

45 : 25 And they went up out of Egypt, and came into the land of Canaan unto Jacob their 26 father. And they told him, saying, Joseph is yet alive, and he is ruler over all the land 27 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 28 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.

46 : 1 And Israel took his journey with all that he had, and came to Beer-sheba, and offered 2 sacrifices unto the God of his father Isaac. And God spake unto Israel in the visions of 3 the night, and said, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, Here am I. 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 4 nation : I will go down with thee into Egypt ; and I will also surely bring thee up again : 5 and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes. And Jacob rose up from Beer sheba : and the sons of Israel carried Jacob their father, and their little ones, and their wives, 6 in the wagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him. And they took their cattle, and their goods, which they had gotten in the land of Canaan, and came into Egypt, Jacob, 7 and all his seed with him : his sons, and his sons’ sons with him, his daughters, and his sons’ daughters, and all his seed brought he with him into Egypt.

8. And these are the names of the children of Israel, which came into Egypt, Jacob and 9 his sons : Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn. And the sons of Reuben : Hanoch, and Pallu, and 10 Hezron, and Carmi. And the sons of Simeon ; Jemuel, and Jamin, and Ohad, and 11 Jachin, and Zohar, and Shaul the son of a Canaanitish woman. And the sons of Levi ; 12 Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. And the sons of Judah ; Er, and Onan, and Shelah, and Perez, and Zerah : but Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan. And the sons of Perez 13 were Hezron and Hamul. And the sons of Issachar ; Tola, and Puvah, and Iob, and 14 Shimron. And the sons of Zebulun ; Sered, and Elon, and Jahleel. These are the sons 15 of Leah, which she bare unto Jacob in Paddan-aram, with his daughter Dinah : all the 16 souls of his sons and his daughters were thirty and three. And the sons of Gad ; Ziphion, 17 and Haggi, Shuni, and Ezbon, Eri, and Arodi, and Arel. And the sons of Asher ; Imnah, and Ishvah, and Ishvi, and Beriah, and Serah their sister : and the sons of 18 Beriah ; Heber, and Malchiel. These are the sons of Zilpah, which Laban gave to Leah 19 his daughter, and these she bare unto Jacob, even sixteen souls. The sons of Rachel 20 Jacob’s wife ; Joseph and Benjamin. And unto Joseph in the land of Egypt were born Manasseh and Ephraim, which Asenath the daughter of Poti-phera priest of On bare unto 21 him. And the sons of Benjamin ; Bela, and Becher, and Ashbel, Gera, and Naaman, 22 Ehi, and Rosh, Muppim, and Huppim, and Ard. These are the sons of Rachel, which 23 were born to Jacob : all the souls were fourteen. And the sons of Dan ; Hushim. And 24 the sons of Naphtali ; Jahzeel, and Guni, and Jezer, and Shillem. These are the sons of 25 Bilhah, which Laban gave unto Rachel his daughter, and these she bare unto Jacob : all 26 the souls were seven. All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of

27 his loins, besides Jacob’s sons’ wives, all the souls were threescore and six; and the sons of Joseph, which were born to him in Egypt, were two souls: all the souls of the house of Jacob, which came into Egypt, were threescore and ten.

45 : 25-28. Two things his sons told him; that Joseph was alive, and that he was governor of Egypt. But for Joseph’s glory and dominion Jacob does not rejoice as one greatly affected with it. It was his life that gave him the joy: he said, “It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive.” Bp. Kidder.

Ch. 43. The removal of the chosen family to Egypt was an essential part of the great plan which God had traced out to their father Abraham. The promise had now been given two hundred years, and they had neither possessions nor family alliances in the promised land. But they would soon have sought for both; and the character already manifested by Jacob’s sons augured ill for their preserving either purity or piety amid the Canaanites. Their present relation to Canaan must be broken off, that it might be formed anew in due time. They must be placed among a people with whom they could not mix, but from whom they might learn the arts of civilization and industry; and there, under the discipline of affliction, the family must be consolidated into a nation. P. 8.—The promise God made to Abraham, to give his posterity the land of Canaan, could not be performed till that family was grown strong enough to take and keep possession of it. In the mean time they were necessitated to reside among idolaters, and to reside unmixed; but whoever examines their history will see that the Israelites had ever a violent propensity to join themselves to Gentile nations, and practise their manners. God, therefore, in his infinite wisdom, brought them into Egypt, and kept them there during this period, the only place where they could remain for so long a time safe and unconfounded with the natives, the ancient Egyptians being by numerous institutions forbidden all fellowship with strangers; and bearing a particular aversion to the profession of the Israelites, who were shepherds. Thus the natural dispositions of the Israelites, which in Egypt occasioned their superstitions and in consequence the necessity of a burdensome ritual, would in any other country have absorbed them into gentilism, and confounded them with idolaters. From the Israelites going into Egypt arises a new occasion to adore the footsteps of Eternal Wisdom, in his dispensations to his chosen people. Warburton.—In Egypt they could become a great nation without any difficulties or obstructions, and without the least interference with their national and religious peculiarities. Such was the fertility and extent of Goshen that there was no occasion for them to be scattered, and no inducement to the members of particular tribes to separate from the general body. There was no fear of their mixing with the Egyptians and giving up their national and religious integrity. As Goshen was just as well fitted for agriculture as it was for grazing, it naturally induced them to combine the pursuits of farming, gardening, and vine-growing with those of their earlier nomad life, and thus fostered a taste for that mode of life, which was afterward to form an essential part of their national existence. In the midst of the science, civilization, and industry of Egypt, Israel was in the best school for that general culture, which they would afterward require. K.—Egypt was the seat of the strongest worldly power, and therefore furnished the best instrumentality for the infliction of such severe sufferings as would awaken in the minds of the Israelites a longing for deliverance and a readiness to submit to their God; while, at the same time, it offered a splendid field for the manifestation of the power and justice and mercy of the God of Israel in the rescue of his people and the judgment of their enemies. Henga.—These two elements are expressly mentioned in the revelation which was made by God to Abraham (ch. 15 : 13-16). Thus Israel obtained the character of a redeemed people, which was of such great importance in its future destiny, and Jehovah then showed himself to be, what he was to continue to be in a constantly increasing degree, the Redeemer in Israel. K.

46 : 1. Jacob journeys from Hebron 25 miles south-west to Beersheba. This place had become memorable by the sojournings there of Abraham and Isaac, and himself also, and by the many testimonies there received of the favor and protection of their covenant God. This therefore he selects as the place for the offering up of his solemn sacrifices, a place lying on the borders of that land of promise which he was now leaving forever, and where so many familiar objects and sacred recollections would aid the devout sentiments of his heart. In his approaches to God he did not forget to avail himself of the covenant made with his fathers and of the promises already on record.

3. I am God, the God of thy father.**

As such the patriarch sought Jehovah, and as such he found him. He well knew that Isaac had ever found God faithful to all his gracious engagements, and nothing would yield him stronger consolation than to be assured that the same loving-kin-ness and truth would be extended to him also. This language, accordingly, was a virtual renewal of the covenant of Abraham, and would leave nothing to be desired on the score of assurance. Bush.

Fear not to go down into Egypt. On several accounts Jacob might fear to go, with his whole family especially, into Egypt. Abraham had been injured there; it had been foretold that his seed should be afflicted by the Egyptians: Isaac had been warned not to go into Egypt; the Egyptians were men of very different usages and manners from the Hebrews: they were also of a different religion, and Jacob besides might fear lest by this means his posterity should be deprived of the land of Canaan. Bp. Kibler.—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob had all been placed and settled in Canaan with a promise that they should in future possess the land. Moreover, Egypt was, not only a heathen land, but one in which heathenism was specially developed and systematized. Jacob might therefore naturally fear to find in it dangers both worldly and spiritual. Hence the promise of God’s presence and protection was signally needed. E. H. B.

3,4. Every doubt is dispelled by this divine manifestation. He may go down confidently, no evil shall befall him. Even in Egypt the covenant shall be fulfilled—God will make of him there a great nation. God himself will accompany him on his journey, be with him in the strange land, and even bring back his bones to rest with those of his fathers. He shall see Joseph, and this same beloved son shall be with him in his last hours, and do the last kind office for him: Joseph shall put his hands upon thy eyes. A. C.—Such a promise was not only an assurance, that God in love to him would order the circumstances of his latter end to his own satisfaction, but that he and Joseph should not be again separated. Long had this dear son been lost to him, though still alive, but now he learns that Joseph is to survive him, and that he should enjoy his society till death. Bush.

In Beersheba the patriarch offered “sacrifices unto the God of his father Isaac,” and there the faithful Lord spake to him “in the visions of the night.” His words gave Jacob this fourfold assurance, that God was the covenant-God, and that Jacob need not fear to go down into Egypt; that God would there make of him a great nation, in other words, that the transformation from the family to the nation should take place in Egypt; that God would go down with him; and, lastly, that he would surely bring him up again. And each of these four assurances was introduced by an emphatic I, to indicate the personal and direct source of all these blessings. Thus strengthened, Israel pursued his journey in confidence of spirit. A. E.

8-25. This document is one that would be of the highest importance to the Israelites when taking possession of Canaan, being, as it were, their title-deed to the land. Accordingly we find that it is drawn up in legal manner, representing as sons some who were really grandsons, but who took as heads of families the place usually held by sons. We next find that it represents them all as born in Canaan, not in a natural sense, but as the rightful heirs of the country. Technically every head of a family was born in Canaan, and thus the danger was obviated of an objection to the possession of this rank being accorded to one born in Egypt. R. P. S.

27. All the souls which came into Egypt were threescore and ten.** There is a remarkable difference between this verse and the foregoing; there those only are numbered who came with Jacob into Egypt, amounting to no more than threescore and six; but here are numbered all that came into Egypt, first and last, comprehending Jacob, Joseph, and his two sons, and making up threescore and ten. Bp. Patrick.—The whole account of Jacob’s sons and grandsons, who went along with him into Egypt, stands thus: by Leah, thirty-two; by Zilpah, sixteen; by Rachel, eleven; by Bilhah, seven; in all sixty-six, exclusive of Jacob himself, and of Joseph and his two sons, which make up the seventy; and it was necessary that these genealogies should be exactly registered, not only to distinguish each tribe, and thereby discover the Messiah, when he came; but (as it is in the case before us) to make it apparent, that the increase of Israel, even under oppression, should bear a fair proportion to the promise made to Abraham, concerning the multiplication of his seed. Sackhouse.

At Acts 7:14, they are said by Stephen, following the Septuagint, to have been in number seventy-five souls, because there, from 1 Chron. 7:14, the five sons of Manasseh and Ephraim are comprehended. The great Old Testament people sprang from twelve sons and seventy souls; the New Testament people from twelve apostles and seventy disciples. C. G. B.

[Yet another solution.] In this statement the wives of Jacob’s sons, who formed part of the household, are omitted; but they amounted to nine; for of the twelve wives of the twelve sons of Jacob, Judah’s wife was dead, and Simeon’s also, as we may collect from his youngest son Shaul by a Canaanites (ver. 10), and Joseph’s wife was already in Egypt. These nine wives therefore, added to the sixty-six, give seventy-five souls, the whole amount of Jacob’s household that went down with him into Egypt; critically corresponding with the statement in the New Testament, that “Joseph sent for his father Jacob and all his kindred, amounting to seventy-five souls.” Hales.

God’s special revelations in the three successive dispensations through which He has guided His Church. First was the Period of Patriarchs, of which we have the description and history in the Book of Genesis. It was adapted to the childhood of the race; but when the time came for it to give place to a written Law, and an established Ritual, not everything in it was abolished. The grand central doctrine of one God, the duty of religious obedience, the paternal Providence that leads men out and in all their days, the prophetic appointment of sacrifices pointing forward to the Cross of Christ, the promise of the Messiah at the Garden of Eden, the institution of the Sabbath when God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, the justifying faith of Abraham who believed and trusted God so that it was counted to him for righteousness, the covenant by which children are bound up in the same family blessing of Faith with their parents,—all these you find in that Book of Genesis, and in that first Biblical dispensation. Were they abolished when Moses came, with the Tables of the Law in his hands at Mount Sinai? Not one of them. Very much in that Mosaic age was new,—statutes, tabernacles, ordinances, and one national seat of the national worship. But much more was old than new,—and of every one of those “old things” just mentioned there remains some memorial and some hereditary power even now in our third and Christian age,—Christ promising, even of its final consummation, that His spiritual followers shall be privileged to sit down in the new kingdom above with the old believers and patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. There is a sublime and majestic unity in these revelations. Moses is, in turn, superseded by Christ; the Law by grace and truth; Jerusalem by the Church universal. The three dispensations of Holy Scripture are one, because within them all is the everlasting Christ, “the same yesterday, to-day and forever.” F. D. H.

We certainly possess among the recovered tablets of Chaldea, original inscriptions as old as the presumed date of Abram’s migration (somewhere about R.C. 2000), as well as later Assyrian translations made from Chaldean originals which must once have existed. There is, therefore, no inherent improbability in the conjecture that the emigrant carried with him from Ur, if not written documents in the shape of clay tablets, at least a knowledge of letters and the power to use them for literary purposes. So that the use of letters may have been imported into Canaan by the family of Abraham, although in his negotiations with the native tribes, under and more primitive methods had to be resorted to for recording transactions. Assuming, however, that the incidents of patriarchal life, which have been preserved to us in the Book of Genesis, had to be, in the first place, handed down by oral tradition alone, it is still possible to see how they might descend to a more literary age with no material change even in their form, and no change at all in their substance. Such a natural transmission of family narratives is, of course, by no means necessary to sustain the faith of those who, on quite other evidence, have received the book as part of a divine revelation. It is, however, of great value to the scientific student of Scripture; while even the uninquiring believer, who knows how sparing of needless miracle the divine procedure has always been, may find satisfaction in seeing that the history of the patriarchs might easily come into the hands of Moses in the shape of written memoirs pour servir, without calling for any supernatural communication of them to his mind.

The total period covered by three lives from the birth of Abraham to the death of Jacob is 315 years. But the three lives overlap each other very thoroughly. Isaac was seventy-five when he lost his father—the sole original witness to all the events which preceded (let us say) his own offering up on Mount Moriah. During these seventy-five years the son had been without interruption his father’s companion; so that long before the elder passed away, all that he had to tell of his memorable life experiences became, past all risk of being forgotten, the possession of the younger man. The events actually recorded are precisely those which it is most certain Abraham would repeat over and over again to his son. His call and emigration; his successive revelations from heaven; the raid of the Elamites and the fall of Sodom; the covenant with God and the rite of circumcision; these were things on which both the instincts of an old man and the duty he owed posterity would lead him to dwell with unwearied repetition. Oft-repeated tales tend to become fixed even in their details and modes of expression; and there is no reason to doubt that when Abraham died, Isaac remained as accurate and safe a repository for the sacred history as even the original actor and spectator in it all had been.