20230317 Genesis 47: A Nasty Life, A Generous Savior
Genesis: Looking Back in Order to Move Ahead Spiritually • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Call to Worship - Psalm 137
1 By the rivers of Babylon, There we sat and also wept, When we remembered Zion. 2 Upon the willows in the midst of it We hung our lyres. 3 For there our captors asked us about the words of a song, And our tormentors asked joyfully, saying, “Sing for us one of the songs of Zion.” 4 How can we sing a song of Yahweh In a foreign land? 5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem, May my right hand forget her skill.
6 May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth If I do not remember you, If I do not exalt Jerusalem Above my chief joy. 7 Remember, O Yahweh, against the sons of Edom The day of Jerusalem, Who said, “Tear it down! Tear it down To its very foundation.” 8 O daughter of Babylon, you devastated one, How blessed will be the one who repays you With the recompense with which you have recompensed us. 9 How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your infants Against the cliff.
Ligonier: How unbearable is it to wait for justice? When others have lied about us, it seems like time stops as we wait for our vindication. Friends and family of those who have suffered violence endure a hardship greater than the loss itself when they have to wait years for the perpetrator to be caught, put on trial, and convicted. It is so much worse for these friends and family when a known perpetrator is never apprehended or convicted in this life.
When we feel as if we cannot wait any longer for justice to be done, God's Word reminds us that we are not the first people to long for God to set things right. The book of Psalms, in particular, assists us as we await the manifestation of the Lord's justice.
John Calvin comments on Psalm 137:9 that "it may seem to savor of cruelty ... but [the psalmist] does not speak under the impulse of personal feeling, and only employs words which God had himself authorized, so that this is but the declaration of a just judgment." Sin is so serious that it must be repaid in kind. Thanks be to God, the atonement of Jesus accomplished this for us. Bearing the Lord's righteous wrath, Christ exhausted the divine curse on our sin and secured blessing for us.
Scripture Reading - Genesis 47
1 Then Joseph went in and told Pharaoh and said, “My father and my brothers and their flocks and their herds and all that they have, have come out of the land of Canaan; and behold, they are in the land of Goshen.” 2 And he took five men from among his brothers and set them before Pharaoh. 3 Then Pharaoh said to his brothers, “What is your occupation?” So they said to Pharaoh, “Your servants are shepherds, both we and our fathers.” 4 And they said to Pharaoh, “We have come to sojourn in the land, for there is no pasture for your servants’ flocks, for the famine is heavy in the land of Canaan. So now, please let your servants live in the land of Goshen.” 5 Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Your father and your brothers have come to you.
6 “The land of Egypt is at your disposal; have your father and your brothers settle in the best of the land, let them settle in the land of Goshen; and if you know any excellent men among them, then put them in charge of my livestock.” 7 Then Joseph brought his father Jacob and stood him before Pharaoh; and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. 8 And Pharaoh said to Jacob, “How many are the days of the years of your life?” 9 So Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The days of the years of my sojourning are 130; few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained to the days of the years that my fathers lived during the days of their sojourning.” 10 And Jacob blessed Pharaoh and went out from the presence of Pharaoh.
11 So Joseph settled his father and his brothers and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded. 12 And Joseph provided his father and his brothers and all his father’s household with food, according to their little ones. 13 Now there was no food in all the land because the famine was very heavy, so that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan languished because of the famine. 14 And Joseph gathered all the money that was found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan for the grain which they bought, and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh’s house. 15 Then the money came to an end in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan. So all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, “Give us food, for why should we die in your presence? For our money is gone.”
16 Then Joseph said, “Give up your livestock, and I will give you food for your livestock, since your money is gone.” 17 So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and Joseph gave them food in exchange for the horses and the flocks and the herds and the donkeys; and he fed them with food in exchange for all their livestock that year. 18 Then that year came to an end. And they came to him the next year and said to him, “We will not hide from my lord that our money has come to an end, and the livestock are my lord’s. There is nothing left for my lord except our bodies and our land. 19 “Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land for food, and we and our land will be slaves to Pharaoh. So give us seed, that we may live and not die, and that the land may not be desolate.” 20 So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh, for every Egyptian sold his field because the famine was severe upon them. Thus the land became Pharaoh’s.
21 As for the people, he moved them to the cities from one end of Egypt’s border to the other end. 22 Only the land of the priests he did not buy, for the priests had an allotment from Pharaoh, and they ate off the allotment which Pharaoh gave them. Therefore, they did not sell their land. 23 Then Joseph said to the people, “Behold, I have today bought you and your land for Pharaoh; now, here is seed for you, and you may sow the land. 24 “And it will be, at the harvest you shall give a fifth to Pharaoh, and four-fifths shall be your own for seed of the field and for your food and for those of your households and as food for your little ones.” 25 So they said, “You have kept us alive! Let us find favor in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh’s slaves.”
26 And Joseph made it a statute concerning the land of Egypt valid to this day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth; only the land of the priests did not become Pharaoh’s. 27 Now Israel lived in the land of Egypt, in Goshen, and they took possession of property in it and were fruitful and became very numerous. 28 And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years; so the days of Jacob, the years of his life, were 147 years. 29 Then the days for Israel to die drew near, and he called his son Joseph and said to him, “Please, if I have found favor in your sight, place now your hand under my thigh and deal with me in lovingkindness and truth. Please do not bury me in Egypt. 30 “But I will lie down with my fathers, and you will carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their burial place.” And he said, “I will do as you have said.” 31 Then he said, “Swear to me.” So he swore to him. Then Israel bowed in worship at the head of the bed.
Genesis 47: A Nasty Life, A Generous Savior
(1) Jacob Before Pharaoh: A nasty life
Genesis 47:1-10
The double blessing of vs 7, 10
vs 9 few and nasty - Jacob is openly honest with Pharaoh.
Nahum Sarma 1966
God’s Rascal: The Jacob Narrative in Genesis 25–35 Chapter 14: The Rest of the Story
The biographical details of Jacob’s life read like a catalogue of misfortunes. When he was finally able to make his escape and set out for home after two decades in the service of his scoundrelly uncle, he found his erstwhile employer in hot and hostile pursuit of him. No sooner had this trouble passed than he felt his life to be in mortal danger from his brother Esau. Arriving at last, at the threshold of Canaan, Jacob experienced the mysterious night encounter that left him with a dislocated hip. His worst troubles awaited him in the land of Canaan. His only [?] daughter, Dinah, was violated, his beloved Rachel died in childbirth, and the first son she had born him was kidnapped and sold into slavery, an event that itself initiated a further series of misfortunes.
Dale Ralph Davis tells a story of Agatha Christie from her autobiography:
God’s Rascal: The Jacob Narrative in Genesis 25–35 Chapter 14: The Rest of the Story
in Agatha Christie’s autobiography. Agatha’s father had died; she was eleven; her mother was inconsolable and was not ‘coming out of it.’ The extended family had the brilliant idea that Agatha should be their emissary to rehearse to her mother the usual gibberish people pass on as consolation. So poor Agatha went in and approached her mother’s bed, and, touching her timidly, said, ‘Mummy, father is at peace now. He is happy. You wouldn’t want him back, would you?’ Suddenly her mother reared up in bed, and cried in a low voice, ‘Yes, I would, I would do anything in the world to have him back—anything, anything at all. I’d force him to come back, if I could. I want him, I want him back here, now, in this world with me.
Is it wrong for believers to admit that life has been hard? Never!
(2) The generosity of Pharaoh to Israel contrasted with the desperation of the people
11 So Joseph settled his father and his brothers and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded. 12 And Joseph provided his father and his brothers and all his father’s household with food, according to their little ones.
15 Then the money came to an end in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan. So all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, “Give us food, for why should we die in your presence? For our money is gone.”
18 Then that year came to an end. And they came to him the next year and said to him, “We will not hide from my lord that our money has come to an end, and the livestock are my lord’s. There is nothing left for my lord except our bodies and our land.
What does a person have when they stand before the Lord?
What does the Lord provide for His children?
10 The young lions do lack and suffer hunger; But they who inquire of Yahweh shall not be in want of any good thing.
25 I was young and now I am old, Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken Or his seed begging bread.
31 Yet those who hope in Yahweh Will gain new power; They will mount up with wings like eagles; They will run and not get tired; They will walk and not become weary.
25 “For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 “Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? 27 “And who of you by being worried can add a single cubit to his life span?
1 “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. 3 “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.
If I have nothing but I have Jesus, I have everything
Now may God be your exceeding joy, Christ your unfailing hope, and the Spirit your unfailing comforter, in all your worship and work and troubles until Jesus comes. Amen.
