The Shepherd of Israel

Our text today, Genesis 46–47, tells us about Jacob’s journey to Egypt and the settlement of his family there. After Joseph identified himself to his brothers and assured them of his benevolence toward them, he sent them back to Canaan, telling them to “Hurry and bring my father down here” to Egypt (Gen 45:13), so that Joseph could ensure that the family would be provided for during the next five years of famine that were still to come. Chapter 45 ended as Joseph’s brothers arrived back in Canaan, told Jacob that Joseph was “still alive” and that he was the “ruler over all the land of Egypt” (Gen 45:26). This was incredible news to hear, and Jacob was, understandably, hesitant to believe their report.  But the caravan from Egypt that Joseph had sent along with his brothers convinced him, and “the spirit of their father Jacob revived,” and he said, “It is enough; Joseph my son is still alive. I will go and see him before I die” (Gen 45:28).

So, these chapters give us an account of a family moving from one place to another. Many of you have made a major move before, relocating to a different state, or even a different country. Such moves are major events in life, often coming only after much prayer and consideration and seeking after God’s will.

Many Christians are troubled by questions about certain specifics about the will of God, forgetting that God calls himself a Good Shepherd who knows how to take his people where he wants them to be. God leads his people to places where he intends to manifest his saving power through them. We can see this play out in these chapters which tell us about Israel’s departure to Egypt, Israel’s arrival in Egypt, and Israel’s flourishing in Egypt.

Israel’s Departure to Egypt

First, the narrator puts attention on Israel’s departure to Egypt, telling us about a brief stop in Beersheba before the family leaves the land of Canaan. Verse 1 says, “So Israel took his journey with all that he had and came to Beersheba, and offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac.” In verse 5, the family leaves Beersheba and moves on to Egypt. But these first four verses of chapter 46 invite us to consider the significance of this move that Jacob and his family are about to make.

Leaving the Land

The verb in verse 1, translated “took his journey,” refers to breaking camp, to the pulling out of the tent pegs that signifies the return to the nomadic life that has characterized the lives of the patriarchs throughout Genesis. We remember how God told Abraham to leave his country and travel “to the land that I will show you” (Gen 12:1). Arriving in Canaan, God had appeared to Abraham and told him that this was the land that he would give to his offspring (Gen 12:7). Canaan was where Abraham and his descendants were supposed to be. So, what business does Jacob have leaving Canaan, leaving home?

Well, he is on his way to Egypt to escape a famine that is ravaging the land. In chapter 47, Joseph’s brothers tell Pharaoh that the famine had already become “severe” in Canaan (Gen 47:4), and according to Joseph’s dream, there were still five more years of famine coming. But this alone does not explain the move. Jacob’s stated reason for going to Egypt was to be reunited to his favorite son, Joseph, whom he hadn’t seen in decades, whom he had thought was dead all these years.

Now who can blame Jacob for making such a move? Seems like the will of God, doesn’t it?

Except it’s not quite that easy. When a famine had hit Canaan previously, Abraham went down to Egypt and lied about his relationship with Sarah, his wife. Remember how that turned out (Gen 12:10-20)? The king of Egypt drove Abraham out of Egypt, furious that Abraham’s lie had just about gotten him and his family killed. A famine also came during Isaac’s life, and God told him explicitly not to go to Egypt but to “sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you, for to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands” (Gen 26:3).

So, no, Jacob can’t just do the logical thing here. We cannot assume the will of God is always found in what makes sense to us.

And so, when he arrives in Beersheba, at that southern border of Canaan, he seeks the will of God in his act of worship. If this move does not have divine sanction, then, as logical and desirable as the move appears to be, it would be a sign of unbelief in God and his covenantal promise.[1] Beersheba was also the place that Abraham and Isaac had worshiped God (Gen 21:33; 26:23-25). And just as God appeared and spoke to his ancestors from that place, God appears and speaks to Jacob there, too.

God With Us

What God says to Jacob in verses 2-4 is important. God tells him to not be afraid to go to Egypt, because “there I will make you into a great nation.” The promise of a multitude of descendants that will constitute a nation is, of course, a feature of the Abrahamic covenant that has been so central to the story of Genesis. Although Jacob is leaving the land, he is not thereby forsaking the divine covenant that has been the central motivation and hope for him, his father, and his grandfather for so long. No, God’s promise is still in full force, and Jacob’s move is not out of line with that promise. God assures Jacob, “I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again” (v. 4). In the ancient world, in which polytheism was the prevailing perspective on the world, a deity’s power was “limited to the territorial borders of the deity’s worshippers.”[2]But this God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, claims to be unhindered by perceived jurisdictions. As the psalmist would later remark, where could one go to get away from the presence of this God?

If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me (Psa 139:8-10).

Don’t Be Afraid

In God’s answer to Jacob, assuring him that this move to Egypt was, in fact, in accordance with the divine will, God tells him not to be afraid. Why would Jacob have been afraid? I don’t think it is because he was unsure if he was doing God’s will. I think he was afraid precisely because he was sure he was doing what God wanted for him.

Verse 2 sounds quite a bit like another scene in the life of the patriarchs. God’s call to the patriarch by name, followed by the patriarch’s response “Here I am,” and then the divine mandate to do something frightening—all of that is exactly what we found in Genesis 22 when God told Abraham to offers his son, Isaac, as a burnt offering in the land of Moriah.

God goes on here to assure Jacob that all will be well, but perhaps we are to think of the ensuing move as a test in its own right. Yes, there will be a happy ending, but there will be some real challenges to face before he gets there.[3] Gordon Wenham notes that this is the final time we are told of God speaking to the patriarchs. God doesn’t reveal himself again in the storyline of Israel until the time of Moses.[4]

So as Jacob moves to Egypt, he is assured that he is doing the right thing, that he is in the right place. God’s covenant is moving forward, but this can hardly mean it will be smooth sailing. Following the will of God does not guarantee that life will go easily.

Israel’s Arrival in Egypt

After we are told of Israel’s departure for Egypt in verse 5, the account moves us on to Israel’s arrival in Egypt in verse 6. What happens when Israel arrives in Egypt?

Packing List

Before we find out, the narrator stresses an important detail. We were told in verse 1 that Jacob took with him “all that he had.” Verse 6 says that Jacob’s packing list included all the stuff “which they had gained in the land of Canaan.” And verses 6 and 7 emphasize that nothing and no one was left behind: “All his offspring he brought with him into Egypt,” verse 7 says.

As if to emphasize that no one from Jacob’s family stayed behind, verses 8-27 give us “the names of the descendants of Israel, who came into Egypt.” The list that follows is structured around the descendants of the four women who bore children to Jacob. First, the children born to Leah (vv. 8-15) and her servant, Zilpah (vv. 16-18), then the children born to Rachel (vv. 19-22) and her servant, Bilhah (vv. 23-25).

What is this all about? Why so much detail about Jacob and everything he had, all of which he brought with him to Egypt?

Seventy Persons

“Now these are the names of the descendants of Israel, who came into Egypt,” verse 8 begins. Here we go. One of those genealogies in the Bible that don’t seem that important. But as we read verses 8-27, one thing stands out to us. It’s not the names that are given here that matter most but the number. After listing the children and grandchildren born to each of the four mothers, we are told how many there were: 33 for Leah, 16 for Zilpah, 14 for Rachel, and 7 for Bilhah. Then we get this summary in verses 26-27.

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. 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.

If what we are told here was just a matter of historical record, then we might become fixated on the arithmetic, how the numbers are supposed to add up. The name lists in verses 8-25 do total 70, as verse 27 concludes. But where does the number 66 come from? It’s not a huge problem; there are various ways of accounting for the discrepancy of 4 that will suffice just fine.[5] The bigger issue here is the number 70. That number appears to be important in the story. The narrator wants us to see some significance in the number 70.

For one thing, the Egyptians wagons that carried everything Jacob had to Egypt carried more than 70 people. Verse 26 tells us that Jacob’s daughters-in-law were not counted in this sum, and since all his sons had children, we can assume that’s at least eleven more people. Verse 7 says that not only were Jacob’s sons and grandsons along on the journey, but so also were his daughters and granddaughters, and none of them (except possibly his daughter Dinah) is included in the sum. And there are only two great-grandsons in the whole list, in spite of the fact that Jacob’s youngest son, Benjamin, already has ten of his own sons included in the count.

I take it, then, that the number 70 is meant to be symbolic. The narrator tells us that he has made edits to the family tree to narrow it down to 70 persons; for example, he accounts for the deaths of Er and Onan in Canaan and notes that Joseph and his sons were already in Egypt.[6] He wants to highlight the number 70 for some reason. What reason might that be?

I think the best explanation is found in the fact that Genesis 10 told us about 70 nations that came through Noah and his descendants. The narrator wants us to see Jacob and his family as a nation in their own right, a nation among the nations. Jacob’s move to Egypt is not just his move to Egypt . It is a nation’s move to Egypt. It may be a large family making this transition, but it’s quite an insignificant nation heading down to Egypt.

Protected and Prosperous

Many years later, after their exodus from Egypt, Moses reminds the people of Israel that “your fathers went down to Egypt seventy persons, and now the LORD your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven” (Deut 10:22).

But at this point in the story, we have here a fledgling nation, going to Egypt completely powerless and in need of powerful Egyptian sustenance simply to survive a ruthless famine.

In verses 28-34, Jacob is finally reunited with Joseph. He sends Judah ahead of them to show the way to Goshen where the reunion takes place. It must have been an emotional moment for the both of them, but it is told to us in just two verses (vv. 29-30). The much larger storyline is about Israel’s migration to Egypt which sets up the dramatic exodus event some four centuries later.[7]

So, the story turns quickly to Joseph coaching his brothers on what to say to Pharaoh. This is where the real tension in the story is found, since Jacob’s family are “keepers of livestock” (v. 32), and “every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians” (v. 34). Gordon Wenham guesses that the city-dwelling Egyptians were likely distrustful of the nomadic people, like we tend to be of people who wander from place to place.[8]Joseph uses the known prejudice of the Egyptians in order to secure for his family a safe place for them to flourish. “Safeguarded by the prejudices of the Egyptians, Israel would develop as a nation without the dangers posed by intermarriage with foreign peoples.”[9]

Then we are given this scene in verses 7-12 of chapter 47 in which Jacob himself comes before Pharaoh. After some “how do you do?” between them, we are told twice that Jacob blessed Pharaoh. Here the themes of Genesis are loudly in our ears, aren’t they? Jacob’s blessing of Pharaoh rather than the other way around is not what would be expected; as Hebrews 7:7 states, “It is beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior.” Even though Israel has come to Egypt as a weak and powerless nation looking for sustenance from the mighty Pharaoh, the picture we get here is that it is Pharaoh who is the inferior power, who is being done a favor by this old man’s visit.[10]

Israel’s Flourishing in Egypt

Now, hold that thought as we turn now to Israel’s flourishing in Egypt described in the remaining verses of chapter 47.

Joseph in Pharaoh’s House

I think the narrator wants us to see and ponder the much larger picture that is going on in these historical circumstances. Not to focus on individual persons so much as on the corporate entities represented here.

So, he shows us first what happens to the Egyptians after Israel has arrived there.

Because of Joseph’s wise leadership, verses 13-26 describe how he “bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh” (v. 20). Now some see in these verses less-than-admirable actions on the part of Joseph. But it seems that these verses are meant to show how Jacob’s blessing of Pharaoh in verses 7-10 are now being played out.[11] Pharaoh has responded warmly to the chosen family and is blessed because of it. We might wonder what would happen if Pharaoh turns his back on the family, but all we have to do is read Exodus to find out about that.

Notice how the Egyptian people themselves respond to Joseph’s reforms in these verses. They say, in verse 25, “You have saved our lives; may it please my lord, we will be servants to Pharaoh.” Joseph’s actions here have saved lives, so the appropriate response of gratitude is to submit to his leadership.

I wonder what the response of the community around the church today would be if we the church were known for our wise actions that bring relief and peace and flourishing into a world of brokenness and hostility and death? It is not Joseph’s power that his highlighted here but his wisdom that quite literally saved human lives. Let the church today take note.

Prospering in Egypt

As for the nation of Israel as a whole, we are told in verse 11 that Joseph settled them “in the best of the land,” and in verse 12 that he provided food for them to survive the famine as well.

But they didn’t just survive in Egypt; they thrived. Verse 27 says “they gained possessions in it, and were fruitful and multiplied greatly.” Don’t miss that last expression, which first occurs in the divine command given to mankind in Genesis 1:28 and then shows up elsewhere in the divine promise to the Abrahamic family. “What began as a command to Adam transformed into a promise to Abraham and has now become a reality under Joseph.”[12]

And it all happens in Egypt. When God leads his people, yes sometimes into very dark places, it does not mean that his covenantal promises have failed. But it takes eyes of faith to see how it all comes together. May God give us those eyes of faith so that we do not lose hope.

Longing for Canaan

Now “the time drew near that Israel must die” (v. 29). Jacob’s life history is coming to a close, but what we see at the end is the flourishing of the people of God into a new humanity, and the promises of God starting to be fulfilled.[13]

As chapter 47 comes to a close, we hear Jacob getting Joseph to promise him that he will not bury him in Egypt “but let me lie with my fathers” back in Canaan (vv. 29-30). The Shepherd of Israel has led Jacob through some challenges places, but Jacob keeps his eyes on the promise made to Abraham and Isaac and that he is sure will live on to the next generation as well.

And so must we. God will be faithful to what he has promised, even beyond our time. Let’s just remember what he has promised: that he will bring his blessing to his people and also through his people for the salvation of the whole world.

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[1] Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 16–50, Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 2, ed. Bruce M. Metzger, David A. Hubbard, and Gleen W. Barker (Dallas: Word Books, 1994), 440.

[2] Robert Alter, Genesis: Translation and Commentary (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997), 274.

[3] Alter, Genesis, 273.

[4] Wenham, Genesis 16–50, 440.

[5] Kenneth A. Mathews (Genesis 11:27–50:26, The New American Commentary, vol. 1B, ed. E. Ray Clendenen [Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2005], 836) provides some of the options.

[6] Wenham, Genesis 16–50, 442.

[7] Mathews, Genesis 11:27–50:26, 837.

[8] Wenham, Genesis 16–50, 445.

[9] Samuel Emadi, From Prisoner to Prince: The Joseph Story in Biblical Theology, New Studies in Biblical Theology, vol. 59, ed. D. A. Carson (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2022), 72.

[10] Wenham, Genesis 16–50, 446.

[11] Emadi, From Prisoner to Prince, 92.

[12] Emadi, From Prisoner to Prince, 76.

[13] Emadi, From Prisoner to Prince, 76.