Jacob Goes to Egypt

Opening illustration about what it means to set the conditions

Genesis recap through Isaac

Slower walk through Jacob and Joseph’s story

Main Idea: God sets the conditions to bring about the fulfillment of his promises.

Return to Jacob (45:16-28)

The first section we’re going to look at this morning is Genesis 45:16 through the end of the chapter and it recounts the return of the sons to Jacob. Starting in verse 16 we read:

Genesis 45:16–24 ESV

When the report was heard in Pharaoh’s house, “Joseph’s brothers have come,” it pleased Pharaoh and his servants. And Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Say to your brothers, ‘Do this: load your beasts and go back to the land of Canaan, 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.’ 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. Have no concern for your goods, for the best of all the land of Egypt is yours.’ ” The sons of Israel did so: and Joseph gave them wagons, according to the command of Pharaoh, and gave them provisions for the journey. To each and all of them he gave a change of clothes, but to Benjamin he gave three hundred shekels of silver and five changes of clothes. 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. Then he sent his brothers away, and as they departed, he said to them, “Do not quarrel on the way.”

Report to Pharaoh about Joseph’s brothers and Pharaoh’s command to bring them to Egypt.

Joseph’s acclaim in Egypt and with Pharaoh was immense. His power in Egypt was second only to Pharaoh himself. He even describes himself as becoming a father to Pharoah in Genesis 45:8. They had a special type of relationship. It’s like having a really good adult friend who has given you wonderful advice and has proved their loyalty to you and you find out that their family is in town. I don’t know about you, but I love to meet the family of the people that I have great respect for, particularly their fathers. It is so enlightening to meet the people that helped shape them as children and set them up for the world. I have to imagine that Pharaoh was really excited to meet Joseph’s family. He wanted to know the people that made Joseph who he was.

Because of this Pharaoh demonstrated generosity and blessed the family of Jacob by the invitation of the family to live in Egypt during the famine. Its a response to the blessing that Egypt had received through Joseph and related to the promise to Abraham “those who bless you, I will bless.”

List of gifts and travel necessities and command not to quarrel.

Joseph sent his brothers back to Canaan with clothes and treasure. The irony is that the brothers had sent him to Egypt naked after taking away his clothes and took money for him, they had sold him. He sent them away with clothes and luxuries including the donkeys and carts to carry their possessions. Consider the way Joseph treats his brother and how Jesus talks about loving your enemies In Luke 6:27-28:

Luke 6:27–28 ESV

“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

And why should we do that? Just a few verses later he explains:

Luke 6:35–36 CSB

But love your enemies, do what is good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High. For he is gracious to the ungrateful and evil. Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.

Jesus tells us that the heart of the father is to be gracious and merciful, Joseph here demonstrates that to his brothers.

Jacob hears of new of Joseph being alive

Now I mentioned that the first vignette of todays passage went all the way through the end of chapter 45 but we didn’t read the last little bit. I did that because the emotions of this scene are intense but only if we take a moment to reflect on it

The story from this point really shifts back to Jacob as the primary character. So it might be helpful to be reminded of where Jacob’s life has brought him. Put yourself in his shoes:

Your family is a dysfunctional mess

Your favorite wife died in childbirth of her second son and sent you into a season of grief from which you haven’t recovered

Your favorite son has been torn apart by beasts in the field and so you find yourself in even more grief and so much so that you’re ready to die

Your grief over those two losses has made you an ancient helicopter dad to your son Benjamin because he was all that you had left of the love of your life

One of your sons had been taken prisoner by some Egyptian governor and the nine returning sons said the governor demanded that Benjamin go with them if they were to receive their brother back

You sent all of your sons begrudgingly on a 400-mile round trip excursion with no way of communicating with them and so you have to simply wait for their return.

For Jacob, I can sense such despondency that he’s basically given up on receiving Benjamin or the others back at all when he sends them away. This is a man who is defeated emotionally and spiritually.

Its with this sense that we should read the next few verses

Genesis 45:25–28 ESV

So they went up out of Egypt and came to the land of Canaan to their father Jacob. 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. 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. And Israel said, “It is enough; Joseph my son is still alive. I will go and see him before I die.”

Can you imagine? After many days of them being gone you see off in the distance a much larger caravan than you sent. Could it be? Is it his sons back from Egypt? Can you feel the sigh of relief that he would have let out in seeing the caravan. At least he had Benjamin back. But then the brothers break the news that Joseph is in fact alive! After 22 years of thinking he was dead, he had been alive the whole time! Not only that but he’s the second most powerful man in the world as the Governor of Egypt.

I know I would be shocked and dumbfounded and the Scriptures gives us that sense when it says “his heart became numb.” To clear things up, the story they told seemed to be substantiated by the fact that Joseph had sent all the gifts to Jacob in order to make the trip to Egypt more comfortable.

What about the brothers? How do you think they felt as they had to tell their father of the favorite son being alive? Did they tell him about their role in his disappearance? If they don’t do they continue to feel the guilt of having sold him in the first place that we saw in their first encounters with Joseph? We see after 22 years, the sin of the brothers is still impacting their family. Our sin has that effect. What we do has lasting consequences on us and those around us. This is why we see the world in the state that it’s in. No one’s sin is done in a vacuum, it affects us all.

After Jacob recovers from the shock of it all he decides to go to Egypt and see his long lost son.

Conclusion: God sets the conditions to bring about the fulfillment of his promises, in this case he made Pharaoh happy to invite Joseph’s family to Egypt and gave Joseph the authority to ensure their safe and comfortable travels. Yet it was only through Joseph’s trials and sufferings that he had come to this point in his life. This was a turning point in their lives and a fulfillment of God’s prediction to Abraham in Genesis 15:13-16 that they would go into a foreign country and multiply.

Jacob’s travels (46:1-27)

Most of chapter 46 is a genealogy, and as much as I’d like to impress you with false confidence of Hebrew pronunciation by reading those 70 names, we’ll pay close attention to the narrative sections around them to see what is happening. Verses 1-27 are broken up into four sections,

1. Jacob’s travels to Beersheba and encounter with God

2. Summary statement of the trip to Egypt

3. Genealogy of Jacob

4. Summary of the genealogy

And really, the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th sections serve to supply some evidence of Jacob’s encounter with God as being a promise already fulfilled while not quite yet completely fulfilled. Let’s take a look

Genesis 46:1–4 ESV

So Israel took his journey with all that he had and came to Beersheba, and offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. And God spoke to Israel in visions of the night and said, “Jacob, Jacob.” And he said, “Here I am.” 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. 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.”

Travel to Beersheba and encounter with God/renewal of covenantal blessing

One of the rules of interpretation of Old Testament narratives is that geography matters. In fact, in the Bible geography, among other things, act as a hyperlink. When you open a webpage, the standard is to hyperlink references within the body of the text of an article or blog post. When you clink the link, it takes you to whatever webpage the initial author was referencing so that the reader can see for themselves. Geography works that way in the Bible. When we see a place, we’re supposed to follow the link to where that location comes up before in the narrative.

So when Jacob stops in Beersheba readers are supposed to bring to mind the things that have already happened in Beersheba. We’ll take a quick detour to see what we find.

Genesis 21:14 ESV

So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.

We’re introduced to Beersheba as a place that God intervenes in Genesis 21:17-18 as continues her journey with Ishmael. God tells her at Beersheba

Genesis 21:17–18 (ESV)

“What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Up! Lift up the boy, and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”

Just a few verses later, Abraham makes an altar at Beersheba later in that chapter as a place where there was an oath made between him and Abimelech who says about Abraham

Genesis 21:22–23 (ESV)

“God is with you in all that you do. Now therefore swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my descendants or with my posterity, but as I have dealt kindly with you, so you will deal with me and with the land where you have sojourned.”

Abimelech here recognized that God was blessing Abraham and he wants to be part of it so he promises to deal kindly with him. He blesses Abraham in order to receive the blessing.

Later in Genesis 26:23-25 Isaac receives a promise to multiply his offspring. God said

Genesis 26:23–25 (ESV)

“I am the God of Abraham your father. Fear not, for I am with you and will bless you and multiply your offspring for my servant Abraham’s sake.” So he built an altar there and called upon the name of the Lord and pitched his tent there. And there Isaac’s servants dug a well.

In all this we see promises of blessing and multiplication as well as continued promises about the land of Canaan. So we come back to Jacob who has stopped here for a purpose and offers a sacrifice to God.

After the sacrifice, God appeared to Jacob in a dream. In the dream we basically see a renewal of the covenant and assurance of its blessings. First, he’s commanded to not be afraid, which suggests that he was rightly afraid of leaving Canaan. Last time he left, he was gone for 20 years and experienced many trials. Second, God confirmed that Jacob would be made a great nation as a continuation of the promise to Abraham even though they were going to be in Egypt. Third, God promised that he would go down with him to Egypt bring him back, there would be a return to the land of promise. As an aside, most scholars believe that this promise to bring “him” or Israel back was seen even by Jacob as meaning either him personally or him through his legacy of descendants. Lastly, God promised that Jacob’s beloved son, Joseph, would be with him at his death. Surely this was most comforting as he was likely still trying to figure out the truth of the fact that Joseph was alive after all these years.

Summary statement of travels

Jacob got up from his encounter with God at Beersheba and departed. The language there is emphatic and suggests that the encounter with God left him encouraged and ready for the journey which lie ahead. God did in fact go down to Egypt with him.

Genealogy and summary statement

There are a lot of discussions about the genealogy of this section because of the way the numbers work and the descendants are recorded, but we can say with certainty that the genealogy at least does this much: it shows us that God was already accomplishing the task of making Abraham’s descendants through Jacob into a nation. They had multiplied to a host of 70 people.

Conclusion: God sets the conditions to bring about the fulfillment of his promises. In this section we have the gathering of several themes and ideas from earlier in Genesis to show God’s providence and his ability to work behind the scenes to fulfill his promise. Most importantly, we have the continuation of the promise to Abraham and then to Isaac now fully extended to Jacob.

Jacob and Joseph reunited (46:28-34)

As we head into the short section that describes the reuniting of Jacob and Joseph, we need to remember Jacob’s state of mind and enter Joseph’s. He has been through an emotional roller coaster too.

Joseph’s experience looked like this:

he started out as the favorite son of his father

His preference over his older brothers was demonstrated by the special coat given by his father

He had dreams that showed his whole family bowing down before him

Then he was kidnapped by his brothers and sold into slavery

Let’s stop there for a second. Can you imagine having all of this be true and then your dad not coming to your rescue? Surely, if he was his father’s favorite, wouldn’t he come save him? Where was his rescue? Where was the favor? Did his dad really care?

We’re not let into the emotional life of Joseph as he’s in Egypt, but I can imagine the feelings of betrayal not only from the brothers but also from Jacob who didn’t come to get him. For 22 years, Joseph had lived with this unresolved experience of being abandoned and yet his father is still alive.

What kind of reunion will it be? Will there be healing? I can imagine the nervous energy that filled Joseph’s chariot as he rode to Goshen to meet his father and the rest of his family.

Genesis 46:28–30 ESV

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. 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. Israel said to Joseph, “Now let me die, since I have seen your face and know that you are still alive.”

It leaves a lot to the imagination. But what we can say about it is that it was satisfying to both of them. Joseph finally was able to hug his father after 22 years and wept. Jacob was content that he could now die in peace knowing that his son was alive after all those years.

After their reunion had been completed and the excitement had simmered a bit, Joseph turned to the practical nature of what was to come next, their meeting with Pharaoh.

Instructions for upcoming meeting with Pharaoh

In the very measured and careful way that Joseph had acted in Egypt that had won him such great renown, he continues that with his family by coaching them on how to speak to Pharaoh in order to gain their freedom and isolation away from the Egyptian people. He is a shrewd manager who knows his job and his boss and is able to bring about a satisfactory situation for everyone.

Conclusion: God sets the conditions to bring about the fulfillment of his promises. God had used the sufferings and trials of Joseph to prepare Egypt for the famine. He used it to set Joseph in favor of Pharaoh so that Jacob and Joseph could be reunited

Meeting with Pharaoh (47:1-12)

The last few verses of our text today wraps the whole story up for us. Starting chapter 47 in verse 1

Genesis 47:1–12 ESV

So Joseph went in and told Pharaoh, “My father and my brothers, with their flocks and herds and all that they possess, have come from the land of Canaan. They are now in the land of Goshen.” And from among his brothers he took five men and presented them to Pharaoh. Pharaoh said to his brothers, “What is your occupation?” And they said to Pharaoh, “Your servants are shepherds, as our fathers were.” 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 severe in the land of Canaan. And now, please let your servants dwell in the land of Goshen.” Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Your father and your brothers have come to you. The land of Egypt is before you. Settle your father and your brothers in the best of the land. Let them settle in the land of Goshen, and if you know any able men among them, put them in charge of my livestock.” Then Joseph brought in Jacob his father and stood him before Pharaoh, and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said to Jacob, “How many are the days of the years of your life?” And Jacob said to Pharaoh, “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.” And Jacob blessed Pharaoh and went out from the presence of Pharaoh. Then 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. And Joseph provided his father, his brothers, and all his father’s household with food, according to the number of their dependents.

The excitement of Pharaoh to meet Joseph’s family and the allowance of Jacob and the family to settle in Egypt for an unspecified amount of time provide a neat ending to this section.

In his wisdom, Joseph once again prepares for the arrival of his family by briefing Pharaoh on them and presenting a representative group of five of his brothers to Pharaoh. The meeting seemed to go as planned: Pharaoh welcomes them to Egypt, but separates them from the people of Egypt in the land of Goshen and also asks Joseph to find a particularly worthy man of them to care for his flocks as well. They’ll be foreigners, but foreigners employed by Pharaoh himself providing them protection from anyone who might be interested in doing them harm.

Jacob Meets Pharaoh

There are two things I want to point out that take place during the meeting of Jacob and Pharaoh.

First, Jacob is the one who blesses Pharaoh and not the other way around. Some commenters want to water down the language and say that Jacob merely gave a greeting to Pharaoh similar to a greeting of shalom or peace. But the word that is used to describe the blessing at the beginning of the meeting and at their departure is the verb that means to bless and it carries a priestly significance to it.

Earlier in Genesis we find that a worldly king blessed Abraham, in Genesis 14:18-20.

Genesis 14:18–20 (ESV)

And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.) And he blessed him and said,

“Blessed be Abram by God Most High,

Possessor of heaven and earth;

and blessed be God Most High,

who has delivered your enemies into your hand!”

And Abram gave him a tenth of everything.

Here, the tables have turned and the descendant of Abraham is blessing the worldly king. Culturally this would have been strange as it is always the greater that blesses the inferior. So with Pharaoh, who was seen as a god by the people of Egypt, to be blessed by a man would have been shocking. But Jacob blesses him not once, but twice.

Again, we are seeing the promise to Abraham being worked out in the life of Jacob. Pharaoh had blessed Jacob in welcoming him to Egypt and so Pharaoh is blessed as well.

The other thing that I want us to take note of in the meeting with Pharaoh is Jacob’s use of the word sojourn. His days are a sojourn and one that included much evil.

Genesis describes the nomadic movements of Abraham and his descendants. Abraham seemed to always be on the move. Isaac also, to some extent. Jacob also moves around a bit. Jacob’s movements were often marked by sorrow and pain. For 20 years, he was working for Laban, he was tricked and deceived on numerous occasions and returned to Canaan with two wives, two concubines, and 13 children. Two of his sons ransacked a town called Shechem after Dinah, his only named daughter, was sexually assaulted by the prince of the town. One of his sons slept with one of his concubines. His favorite wife died in childbirth, his favorite son apparently killed by beasts. Jacob had a life full of sorrow and evil.

Its the idea of the sojourn or pilgrimage that the author of Hebrews picks up about Abraham and the patriarchs:

Hebrews 11:8–10 ESV

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

Jacob realized that the land in which he lived was not his yet. He was a wanderer with no real home, yet he looked forward to the realization of the promise. And this is the call for us as well. Alexander MacLaren comments: We have to live by the same hope, and to let it work the same estrangement, if we would live noble lives. Not because all life is change, nor because it all marches steadily on to the grave, but because our true home—the community to which we really belong, the metropolis, the mother city of our souls—is above, are we to feel ourselves strangers upon earth. They who only take into account the transiency of life are made sad, or sometimes desperate, by the unwelcome thought. But they whose pilgrimage is a journey home may look that transiency full in the face, and be as glad because of it as colonists on their voyage to the old country which they call ‘home,’ though they were born on the other side of the world and have never seen its green fields.

Transience and sojourning is common to the experience of our church. All of you have spent time in the military as a service member or dependent and know that home is not necessarily where your stuff is. Constant moves keep you from developing roots in any one geographic location. Not to mention the pain we feel of relationships lost to PCS or even combat casualties. Our transience is not that different from the experience of Jacob. When Jacob talks about his sojourn, we can understand.

We often look forward to a time when there aren’t moves and deployments, so we talk about where we’re going to go when we get out, that’s our home that we hope for. But what Christ offers us is more than just freedom from moves, deployments and relational losses.

Christ offers us the fulfillment of that which we hope for. By his death and resurrection, he has secured our pathway back into communion with God that is cut off because of sin. His victory over death, sin and the devil allow us to walk without fear of missing out here on earth because we have something of eternal value.

When we see our whole life as a journey toward being fully united to God’s presence after our death, we care less about the things that plague us. When the goal of our life is preparation for that uniting with God, the pleasures of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the passions that rage within us are put in their proper place. We can say no to sin because we are bound for something much greater than a hit of dopamine.

conclusion: God sets the conditions to bring about the fulfillment of his promises. Pharaoh gives the Israelites the best of the land in Goshen away from the people so that Israel maintained continuity. That continuity would eventually lead to their oppression and eventual exodus from Egypt.

He has promised us eternal rest and communion with him and he has set the conditions. He has provided the way back to communion through the death and resurrection of Jesus. He has brought you to church this morning. He has provided the opportunity for you to respond and receive his great promise. Don’t turn away from what he has provided.