Israel's Prosperity in Egypt
a commentary on Genesis 47
Welcome to another Biblit! Last week we witnessed the great reunion of Joseph and his father, Jacob. That means this week is move-in week! We get to see how Israel settles into the land of Goshen and how everyone survives in the remaining years of the famine. Let’s jump into this commentary on Genesis 47.
Context
Last week we left off with Joseph telling his family to inform Pharaoh that they are shepherds. Genesis 47 opens up with this conversation.
Pharaoh calls in 5 of the brothers who do exactly what Joseph said; they tell Pharaoh they are in charge of livestock and would like permission to live in the land of Goshen.
Pharaoh responds to Joseph and commands him to settle his family in the best land of Egypt, which is Goshen. He also asks them to take care of the royal livestock while they reside there.
Next, Pharaoh specifically requests to speak with the new celebrity in town, Jacob.
Jacob and Pharaoh have a short but powerful conversation. The first question the king asks is:
“How many are the days of the years of your life?” (Genesis 47:8 ESV).
Kind of an odd question in my opinion, but anyway that’s what he asks. Jacob’s response is easy to miss so I’ll record it word for word:
“The days of the years of my sojourning are 130 years. Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their sojourning.” (Genesis 47:9 ESV).
There is a lot of cool stuff in that response that I want to unpack, but we’ll get into that in a little bit. After their conversation, something odd happened; Jacob blessed Pharaoh. Oftentimes in this culture, it should have been Pharaoh (the greater) blessing Jacob (the lesser), but they both saw Jacob as the great patriarch and prophet of God, and Pharaoh accepted the blessing. I think that’s pretty neat.
After this Jacob and his family settle in the land of Goshen, which is recorded as the land of Ramses. This is most likely an editorial note by Moses or later scribes to update the land names so they made more sense to the audience. The land was not actually named Ramses until much later.
So, Jacob and his family made it! They moved into Egypt and are happy and prospering. In fact, it says that even in the midst of the famine,
“They gained possessions in it, and were fruitful and multiplied greatly.” (Genesis 47:27 ESV).
The fate of the Egyptians was not as great; however, they didn’t die either! That’s a huge distinction. Remember that Joseph was the one in charge of handing out the food at this time. If we jump back to Genesis 45, we recall that there are still roughly 5 years of famine left.
“For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there will be five more years without plowing or harvesting.” (Genesis 45:6 CSB).
This was right before Joseph told them to rush home and get Jacob.
In the remaining 5 years of famine, even though Israel is blessed, Egypt struggles to make ends meet. Joseph is viewed as a fair leader in their eyes, though. In order to survive, they have to sell all their money, livestock, and even their land to Joseph. In the end, Joseph creates (what I think is a fair trade) a treaty with them where they can work the land they just sold to Joseph and keep ⅘ of anything they grow. All they have to do is give ⅕ to Pharaoh.
The people of Egypt praise Joseph for saving their lives and they are eternally grateful.
After our quick detour seeing how Joseph works hard in his role of Vizier, we jump back into his story with Jacob.
Also, we did a quick 17 year time jump.
Apparently, everyone made it out of the famine and they’re all prospering again. Jacob is now lying on his deathbed and calls Joseph in. He makes Joseph swear a solemn oath to return his body to the promised land when he dies. Joseph agrees and Jacob lays down his head in a sign of reverent respect that God would have the promise fulfilled.
Interpretation
This is kind of an odd passage, to be honest. I feel like it’s all over the place, but there is still a lot we can unpack and learn from it.
Jacob’s response to Pharaoh. Jacob had a really cool response when he was asked his age by Pharaoh. Recall he says that his days are few, filled with evil, and he calls himself a sojourner. I think Jacob is showing something in his heart here.
The first few parts could be literal in that he really does live a shorter life than both his father, Isaac, and grandfather, Abraham. His life is definitely filled with bad circumstance after bad circumstance. I mean, look how his journey really started. He lied to his own father, stole the family blessing, and had to flee from his brother to escape death!
However, that last statement is something I think is really neat. He considers his whole life as a sojourner. According to the dictionary: “A sojourner is a person who resides temporarily in a place.” I think Jacob is showing us that his heart is kingdom bound and he finds his hope in that alone. He recognizes that his life on earth is temporary and that he is living here for a short time as a mere sojourner.God uses Joseph to fulfill promises. Let’s jump backwards again to Genesis 12:
“I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:2-3 CSB).
This is the promise that God makes to Abraham a couple hundred years earlier. We have talked before that the ultimate fulfillment of this last piece, that all nations will be blessed, is fulfilled through Jesus Christ. However, something we learned in church recently is that God can have near and far fulfillments of his prophecies. We see this in Daniel and the book of Revelation, but we also see it here. Joseph was sent by God to save Israel, but through Joseph the people of Egypt (another nation) was also saved! He is blessing many nations.Joseph works hard. I think it’s a little odd to jump into Joseph’s work as Vizier and see the details of his food payment plans. However, it’s also really important. A lot of Joseph’s life as Vizier we only see with regards to his reunion with his family. We don’t see his actual work too often. It is encouraging to see it because we witness that Joseph takes his job very seriously. He knows that lives are at stake, but he also wants to be a fair leader. I think we see he rules in fairness. He is not running a charity; he is running a country. I think it’s really interesting to see his God-given wisdom at work here.
Application
Just as in the previous weeks, I think we can learn and apply a lot from Jacob and Joseph’s lives to our own lives.
Having a kingdom mindset. I love Jacob’s mindset; that he is just a sojourner of earth. He recognizes and yearns for the coming of his redeemed body. Just like in Romans 8:
“Not only that, but we ourselves who have the Spirit as the firstfruits—we also groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for adoption, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23 CSB).
Jacob, I’m sure, looks forward to a body with two working hips again, and also a body that’s not fearful and riddled with sin and suffering. That’s the mindset I want too. To be looking to Heaven and focusing on God over the struggles of earth. Not in a complacent way like a monk, but rather in a joyful way, not letting the darkness of the world in, but being a child of light.Reading these passages fills me with hope in God’s promises. We had a great sermon this weekend on Daniel 9. In it we learned about prayer. Specifically that Daniel prayed God’s promises back to Him. God has given us over 3,000 individual promises throughout the Bible. These are for us to find and pray for, and to call on God to enact His promises. We know, hope, and can rest assured He will fulfill all His promises just like He did through Joseph. I want to take more time praying God’s promises to Him and watching Him work in amazing ways.
I am also encouraged by Joseph’s work ethic. He makes some really hard decisions. Some that don’t seem outwardly “Christian.” Like, why doesn’t he just give everything away for free? I think Joseph is wiser than that and he worked hard to make a fair system that would save the Egyptian lives while also maintaining a country of order. He understood that all leadership and government was put in place by God to act for Him. He took that seriously. I want to make sure I take my job seriously too; that I find joy in it; that I know I’m working for the Lord even if I can’t physically see any Godly fruit come out of a computer program. Paul probably didn’t see a lot of obvious Godly fruit by selling tents, but he did it with joy to fuel his mission trips where he saw immense amounts of fruit.