16 When the report was heard in Pharaoh’s house, “Joseph’s brothers have come,” it pleased Pharaoh and his servants. 17 And Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Say to your brothers, ‘Do this: load your beasts and go back to the land of Canaan, 18 and take your father and your households, and come to me, and I will give you the best of the land of Egypt, and you shall eat the fat of the land.’ 19 And you, Joseph, are commanded to say, ‘Do this: take wagons from the land of Egypt for your little ones and for your wives, and bring your father, and come. 20 Have no concern for1 your goods, for the best of all the land of Egypt is yours.’”
21 The sons of Israel did so: and Joseph gave them wagons, according to the command of Pharaoh, and gave them provisions for the journey. 22 To each and all of them he gave a change of clothes, but to Benjamin he gave three hundred shekels2 of silver and five changes of clothes. 23 To his father he sent as follows: ten donkeys loaded with the good things of Egypt, and ten female donkeys loaded with grain, bread, and provision for his father on the journey. 24 Then he sent his brothers away, and as they departed, he said to them, “Do not quarrel on the way.”
25 So they went up out of Egypt and came to the land of Canaan to their father Jacob. 26 And they told him, “Joseph is still alive, and he is ruler over all the land of Egypt.” And his heart became numb, for he did not believe them. 27 But when they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said to them, and when he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of their father Jacob revived. 28 And Israel said, “It is enough; Joseph my son is still alive. I will go and see him before I die.”
46 So Israel took his journey with all that he had and came to Beersheba, and offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. 2 And God spoke to Israel in visions of the night and said, “Jacob, Jacob.” And he said, “Here I am.” 3 Then he said, “I am God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you into a great nation. 4 I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again, and Joseph’s hand shall close your eyes.”
5 Then Jacob set out from Beersheba. The sons of Israel carried Jacob their father, their little ones, and their wives, in the wagons that Pharaoh had sent to carry him. 6 They also took their livestock and their goods, which they had gained in the land of Canaan, and came into Egypt, Jacob and all his offspring with him, 7 his sons, and his sons’ sons with him, his daughters, and his sons’ daughters. All his offspring he brought with him into Egypt.
8 Now these are the names of the descendants of Israel, who came into Egypt, Jacob and his sons. Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn, 9 and the sons of Reuben: Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi. 10 The sons of Simeon: Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jachin, Zohar, and Shaul, the son of a Canaanite woman. 11 The sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. 12 The sons of Judah: Er, Onan, Shelah, Perez, and Zerah (but Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan); and the sons of Perez were Hezron and Hamul. 13 The sons of Issachar: Tola, Puvah, Yob, and Shimron. 14 The sons of Zebulun: Sered, Elon, and Jahleel. 15 These are the sons of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob in Paddan-aram, together with his daughter Dinah; altogether his sons and his daughters numbered thirty-three.
16 The sons of Gad: Ziphion, Haggi, Shuni, Ezbon, Eri, Arodi, and Areli. 17 The sons of Asher: Imnah, Ishvah, Ishvi, Beriah, with Serah their sister. And the sons of Beriah: Heber and Malchiel. 18 These are the sons of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to Leah his daughter; and these she bore to Jacob—sixteen persons.
19 The sons of Rachel, Jacob’s wife: Joseph and Benjamin. 20 And to Joseph in the land of Egypt were born Manasseh and Ephraim, whom Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera the priest of On, bore to him. 21 And the sons of Benjamin: Bela, Becher, Ashbel, Gera, Naaman, Ehi, Rosh, Muppim, Huppim, and Ard. 22 These are the sons of Rachel, who were born to Jacob—fourteen persons in all.
23 The son3 of Dan: Hushim. 24 The sons of Naphtali: Jahzeel, Guni, Jezer, and Shillem. 25 These are the sons of Bilhah, whom Laban gave to Rachel his daughter, and these she bore to Jacob—seven persons in all.
26 All the persons belonging to Jacob who came into Egypt, who were his own descendants, not including Jacob’s sons’ wives, were sixty-six persons in all. 27 And the sons of Joseph, who were born to him in Egypt, were two. All the persons of the house of Jacob who came into Egypt were seventy.
28 He had sent Judah ahead of him to Joseph to show the way before him in Goshen, and they came into the land of Goshen. 29 Then Joseph prepared his chariot and went up to meet Israel his father in Goshen. He presented himself to him and fell on his neck and wept on his neck a good while. 30 Israel said to Joseph, “Now let me die, since I have seen your face and know that you are still alive.” 31 Joseph said to his brothers and to his father’s household, “I will go up and tell Pharaoh and will say to him, ‘My brothers and my father’s household, who were in the land of Canaan, have come to me. 32 And the men are shepherds, for they have been keepers of livestock, and they have brought their flocks and their herds and all that they have.’ 33 When Pharaoh calls you and says, ‘What is your occupation?’ 34 you shall say, ‘Your servants have been keepers of livestock from our youth even until now, both we and our fathers,’ in order that you may dwell in the land of Goshen, for every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians.”
Section Overview
For most of the previous chapters the narrative has focused on a significant threat to the fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise: internal conflict within the family, which led to some of the brothers’ being ejected or voluntarily leaving. This threat has now been satisfactorily resolved, and family harmony has been restored. Yet in the background another, longer lasting threat has reemerged: famine. It would not help the family to have its internal shalom restored if it then perished from hunger. In this passage that threat is removed as Joseph—at Pharaoh’s suggestion (45:17)—invites his father and brothers to come down to Egypt to live close to him. In this way they will not have to make the perilous journey from Canaan to Egypt repeatedly over the next five years in order to resupply themselves with food. Instead they will be given some of the best land of Egypt, so that they and their flocks may be sustained (47:6).
Yet journeying to Egypt to avoid a famine is not self-evidently a good option in Genesis. Abraham follows that route in 12:10, with near catastrophic consequences. Moreover, a generation later the Lord specifically instructs Isaac not to go to Egypt under similar circumstances (26:1–4). So it is fitting that Jacob should first consult the Lord at Beersheba about the journey (46:1). In response the Lord tells him to go down to Egypt without fear; the Lord will go with them, and in due time he will bring them back home to the Land of Promise as a multiplied nation (vv. 3–4). At this point the patriarchal narrative is beginning to connect clearly with the stories of the first hearers of the book, in the wilderness on their way back to the “home” none of them had ever seen.
Section Outline
XI. The Family History of Jacob (37:1–50:26) . . .
J. The Lord’s Blessing in Egypt (45:16–46:34)
Response
If the previous chapters might have tempted us to think of the Joseph narrative as essentially a story of timeless truths about God’s providence and the power of forgiveness, this passage firmly grounds Joseph’s experience within the unfolding narrative of the Pentateuch. Despite the human weakness and wickedness on full display in the midst of the chosen family, their numbers are growing and the Lord has brought them safely to Egypt, where they will grow further and remain a distinct people as they await the time when the sin of the Amorites will be full and the Lord will bring them back to the land of Canaan (Gen. 15:16). Despite Jacob’s preference for Joseph and Benjamin, the offspring of his beloved Rachel, the Lord has chosen Judah, the third child of unloved Leah, as the leader of the family through whose offspring the promise will descend. Providence is not merely at work to protect the lives of God’s chosen people from individual dangers but is shaping the course of economics and politics at the global level, as God sends a widespread drought and famine and positions Joseph to rise to power in Egypt. As with all nations, Egypt will find blessing only in bowing down to Abraham’s offspring (cf. 12:2–3). These are aspects of the Joseph narrative often overlooked by Christian readers.
The passage also addresses contemporary readers in the post-Christian West who are finding their place at the central table of society barred to them. Joseph could have brought his brothers and father into the center of Egyptian society, where their opportunities for personal comfort, advancement, and profit would have been far greater. Instead, he sends them to a backwater location in Egypt, where they will continue their poorly regarded but honest work as shepherds. As a result they maintain a reputation distinct from that of the wider culture around them. This paradigm of being strangers and aliens in a land not their own shapes much of Israel’s history, to the point that even in the land of Canaan they are to camp out every year at the time of the autumn Feast of Booths to remind themselves that the Promised Land itself is not their true home. Like their father, Abraham, they are not of this world, even while living in it (cf. Deut. 26:5).652 The same perspective ought to be ours as Christians as well (Heb. 11:13–16).
Even the genealogy in this passage has much to teach us. The similarity in number between the seventy family members who go down to Egypt and the seventy nations in Genesis 10 reminds us that the nascent Israel is a microcosm of the larger people of God of all times and places who will gather in heaven before the throne of the Lamb (cf. Revelation 4–5).653 The genealogy includes some whose names are well known even among those who have never read the Bible, as well as others whose identities are virtually unknown even to those who read the Bible annually. In the same way, relatively unknown saints are every bit as much members of God’s church as those saints are who happen to be household names. The list of God’s people includes notorious sinners such as Judah (Genesis 38), Reuben (35:22), and Simeon and Levi (cf. Genesis 34), as well as faithful servants such as Joseph, which reminds us that all may find a welcome in this “company of nations” (35:11), no matter one’s background. The patriarchs of old were saved by grace alone through faith in Christ alone every bit as much as we are.
Finally, Jacob’s joy over the “resurrection,” as it were, of Joseph invites us to think of the Father’s joy at the resurrection of Jesus on the third day. Sometimes Christians are so focused on Christ crucified that we forget that the same Christ was also raised from the dead and exalted to his Father’s right hand! There, all three members of the Trinity share in “the joy . . . set before him” (Heb. 12:2), which is not merely the resurrection of Christ himself but the resurrection of countless Christians united to him forever in glory. How great is the joy of our reconciliation to our heavenly Father!Genesis 45:16–46:34