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Genesis 46:

Reading #153  Safety in Egypt

Now we are told about the big move.

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Genesis 46:

1 And Israel took his journey with all that he had, and came to Beersheba [the well of the oath at the southern end of the Promised land], and offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac [to be assured of his course]. 2 And God spoke to Israel in the visions of the night, and said, “Jacob, Jacob [using his old name because of his uncertainty].” And he said, “Here am I.”

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Jacob was now worried about leaving his post of duty on what might be only an earthly whim, but the Son of God came to him in a dream and assured him that this was OK and part of His plan. 

Why dreams?  Why at night?  Normally our minds are so busy with our own thoughts that He has to wait till we slow down to get a word in!!  He is very polite and respects our privacy.  Very rarely can He give His people visions during the day.

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Genesis 46:

3 And He said, “I am God, the God of your father [this title means, “Come back close to Me.”]: fear not [don’t be frightened to leave this place] to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of you a great nation. 4 I will go down with you into Egypt; and I will also surely bring you up again [to your place of duty to be buried, Acts 7:15-16]: and Joseph shall put his hand upon your eyes [he will close your eyes when you die].”

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The assurance, "Fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will THERE make of you a great nation," was significant, for his post of duty had changed. The promise had been given to Abraham of a posterity numberless as the stars (Genesis 15:5), but the representative people had only increased slowly in the two hundred odd years since Abraham’s call. And the land of Canaan did not now offer a good place for the development of such a nation as had been foretold. It was populated by powerful heathen tribes fighting against the truth, which gave Satan great ability to work his evil plans.   But they would not reject God completely until "the fourth generation", a matter of another couple of hundred years. Genesis 15:16. 

Moreover, if the descendants of Israel were to become a numerous people in Canaan, they must either drive out the inhabitants of the land or disperse themselves among them, for it was well populated. The former, according to the ways of God, they could not do (He doesn’t encourage fighting, 

2 Corinthians 10:4); and should they mingle with the Canaanites, they would be in danger of being seduced into idolatry.

Egypt, however, offered the conditions necessary to the fulfilment of the divine purpose. A special section of country, well-watered and fertile, was open to them there, affording every advantage for their speedy increase.  (Two hundred years later they numbered six hundred thousand men which means about one and a half million altogether, counting women and children!  Exodus 12:37.)  And the antagonism they must encounter in Egypt on account of their occupation - for every shepherd was "an abomination to the Egyptians" - would enable them to remain a distinct and separate people and would thus serve to shut them out from participation in the idolatry of Egypt. 

But they liked the pageantry of the Egyptian way of worship!

Why were they an “abomination”?  The Egyptians considered those animals as unclean, and therefore, by extension, the shepherds were too.  Although Egyptians had flocks and herds, they employed others to look after them and didn’t mix socially with them. 

But, by living among the heathen and yet being separate (in the world but not of it), Israel offered a complete contrast with the pagans, and also made clearer the distinction between themselves and the counterfeit of Christianity.  There are only three religious groups in this world – we are in one of them.

We either worship in paganism where the many and varied gods are in the land, the trees, mountains, idols, ourselves etc., (this includes evolutionists who believe that nature creates itself):

or accept a professed Christian god who uses force and fear to control his followers and enemies:

or love a creator God who gives forgiveness and freedom to all  to choose, friend and foe alike.

We cannot be spiritually in two at the same time, although our minds can, because the principle that man can save himself by his own works lies at the foundation of all false religions, and we continually jump into that trap!

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Genesis 46:

5 And Jacob rose up from Beersheba: and the sons of Israel carried Jacob their father, and their little ones, and their wives, in the wagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him. 6 And they took their cattle, and their goods, which they had gotten in the land of Canaan, and came into Egypt, Jacob, and all his seed [descendants] with him. 7 His sons, and his sons' sons with him, his daughters, and his sons' daughters, and all his seed brought he with him into Egypt.

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Now we are given the list of some of the people who came with Jacob.  Here they are grouped under the cover of his wives, not birth order.

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Genesis 46:

8 And these are the names of the children of Israel, which came into Egypt, Jacob and his sons [and his grandsons]:

Reuben, Jacob's firstborn. 9 And the sons of Reuben; Hanoch, and Phallu, and Hezron, and Carmi.

10 And the sons of Simeon; Jemuel, and Jamin, and Ohad, and Jachin, and Zohar, and Shaul the son of a Canaanitish woman [Like Judah he had married outside of Israel too.]

11 And the sons of Levi; Gershon, Kohas, and Merari.

12 And the sons of Judah; Er, and Onan, and Shelah, and Pharez, and Zarah: but Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan [as we have read]. And the sons of Pharez were Hezron and Hamul. 

13 And the sons of Issachar; Tola, and Phuvah, and Job, and Shimron.

14 And the sons of Zebulun; Sered, and Elon, and Jahleel. 15 These be the sons of Leah, which she bare to Jacob in Padanaram, with his daughter Dinah [who was unmarried]: all the souls [persons] of his sons and his daughters were thirty-three [through Leah]. 

16 And the sons of Gad; Ziphion, and Haggi, Shuni, and Ezbon, Eri, and Arodi, and Areli. 

17 And the sons of Asher; Jimnah, and Ishuah, and Isui, and Beriah, and Serah their [unmarried] 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 bare to Jacob, even sixteen souls [through Zilpah].

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, which Asenath the daughter of Potipherah priest of On bare to him.

21 And the sons of Benjamin were Belah, and Becher, and Ashbel, Gera, and Naaman, Ehi, and Rosh, Muppim and Huppim, and Ard. 22   These are the sons of Rachel, which were born to Jacob: all the souls were fourteen [through Rachel]. 

23 And the son of Dan; Hushim. 

24 And the sons of Naphtali; Jahzeel, and Guni, and Jezer, and Shillem.

25 These are the sons of Bilhah, which Laban gave to Rachel his daughter, and she bare these to Jacob: all the souls were seven [through Bilhah]. 

26 All the souls [male and female persons] that came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins, besides Jacob's sons' wives [and not counting all the servants and sojourners], all the souls were sixty-six.

27 And the sons of Joseph, which were born him in Egypt, were two souls:

all the souls of the house of Jacob [his direct descendants], which came into [or were in] Egypt, were seventy. [His married daughters were counted as being in other families now.]

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Seventy people of one family (66 plus Jacob, Joseph, and Ephraim and Manasseh) with which to educate the world!  And many of them very faulty with their earthliness.  However, their job was NOT to convert the world as it is normally thought of today where men have tried to take over the work of the Holy Spirit.  As Joseph lived his religion, and spoke of his experiences with his Saviour wherever he could, leaving the result to the Holy Spirit, so would the entire nation of Israel do the same.  At least, that is what the Son of God intended.  In practise, when they returned to the Promised Land, the majority first of all tried to conquer the inhabitants by force of arms, and then when that failed, shut themselves off from them in their Pharisaical isolation!  Only a few carried on the holy line through which the true knowledge of the character of God is preserved and shared.

It was for the accomplishment of this grand purpose of blessing rejecters everywhere that God had called Abraham out from his idolatrous kindred and bade him dwell in the land of Canaan. "I will make of you a great nation," He said, "and I will bless you, and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing [to the political nations]." Genesis 12:2.  In God’s way Abraham’s “nation” would be a family, a tribal system with God-given leaders, not elected or taken by force.  Canaan was the physical centre of the world at that time and well suited for this purpose of witness by His people.

The descendants of Abraham, Jacob and his posterity, were brought down to Egypt, not just to protect their own lives, but also in response to Satan’s enslavement of that country.  In the midst of that great and wicked nation they were now to reveal the principles of God's kingdom. The integrity of Joseph and his wonderful work in preserving the lives of the whole Egyptian people were a representation of the life and character of God, and Jesus wanted to carry on the picture where it was most needed. 

Normally the Christian position is between non-believers (Egypt) and false Christianity (Babylon) so they can witness to the people in both systems, but sometimes it is necessary to be right in one or the other. 

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Genesis 46:

28 And he [Jacob] sent Judah before him to Joseph, to direct his face to Goshen [Judah had become the spiritual firstborn because of Reuben’s and the others’ crimes]; and they came into the land of Goshen. 29 And Joseph made ready his chariot, and went up to meet Israel his father, to Goshen, and presented himself to him; and he fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while. 30 And Israel said to Joseph, “Now let me die, since I have seen your face, because you are yet alive.”

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In his first greeting to Joseph, Jacob spoke as if, with this joyful ending to his long anxiety and sorrow, he was ready to die. But he was to live seventeen years in the peaceful retirement of Goshen. These years were in happy contrast to those that had preceded them. He saw in his sons evidence of true repentance; he saw his family surrounded by all the conditions needful for the development of a great nation; and his faith grasped the sure promise of their future establishment in Canaan and the new world.  See Romans 4:13.

He himself was surrounded with every token of love and favour that his son the prime minister of Egypt could bestow; and happy in the society of his long-lost child, he was to pass down gently and peacefully to the grave.  Joseph “closed his eyes” when he was one hundred and forty-seven.  Genesis 47:28; Acts 7:15-16.

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Genesis 46:

31 And Joseph said to his brethren, and to his father's house, “I will go up, and show Pharaoh, and say to him, My brethren, and my father's house, which were in the land of Canaan, are come to me; 32 and the men are shepherds, for their trade has been to feed cattle; and they have brought their flocks, and their herds, and all that they have.”

33 “And it shall come to pass, when Pharaoh shall call you, and shall say, ‘What is your occupation?’ 34 that you shall say, ‘Your servants' trade has been about cattle from our youth even until now, both we, and also our fathers’: that you may dwell in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians.”

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Joseph took five of his brothers, the senior ones, to present them to Pharaoh and receive from him the grant of land for their future home.  There is God-recognised rank (the first-born) in God’s kingdom.  Jesus did much the same thing when He took only Peter, James and John with Him on special occasions. See Matthew 17:1 as an example. 

Gratitude to his prime minister would have led the monarch to honour them with appointments to offices of state; but Joseph, true to the worship of the one true God, sought to save his brothers from the temptations to which they would be exposed at a heathen court; therefore he counselled them, when questioned by the king, to tell him frankly their occupation.

The sons of Jacob followed this advice, being careful also to state that they had come only to sojourn in the land, not to become permanent dwellers there, thus reserving the right to depart if they chose, for they had been well taught by their father as to where they would normally be.  Under these conditions the king assigned them a home, as offered, in "the best of the land," the country of Goshen, away from the centre of Egypt.

So they were to live for a time in a land of refuge where some of their descendants through slavery and hardship would learn valuable lessons similar to those which Joseph had learned.  But this is NOT God’s first choice.  Jesus always desires that we should learn His ways in good surroundings and freedom, and we can do so if we do not frustrate His grace.  Galatians 2:21.

See you next week,

RonP

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