Genesis 47

We’re going to find that this is the best chapter in the life of Jacob so far. Jacob didn’t appear in a good light when we first met him in Scripture. In fact, it’s only when he makes his trip to Egypt that we begin to see the man of faith he’s now turned into. This chapter shows us that, more than any other.

The famine becomes more intense as it draws to an end. All the people of the world are hit by this famine, but Canaan and Egypt are the only lands which are mentioned because they’re the areas that matter in the theme of the whole story.

Remember that the Bible is about God’s redemption of mankind through His Son, Jesus Christ and only that which is relevant to that is given to us.

Let’s begin today at Genesis 47:1,

Then Joseph went and told Pharaoh, and said, “My father and my brothers, their flocks and their herds and all that they possess, have come from the land of Canaan; and indeed they are in the land of Goshen.” 

Joseph’s going to present his father and his brothers to the Pharaoh of Egypt. He put them in the land of Goshen before he asked Pharoah for a place for them, and we can see a strategy behind that.

See, if they were already there, Pharaoh would be more likely to give them that land because they’d have already moved in and unpacked their stuff, so to speak.

When Joseph spoke those words to Pharaoh, it was the fulfillment of both God’s plan and Joseph’s desire. Joseph was again with his father and brothers and all their families.

Verses 2 and 3,

And he took five men from among his brothers and presented them to Pharaoh. 

Then Pharaoh said to his brothers, “What is your occupation?” And they said to Pharaoh, “Your servants are shepherds, both we and also our fathers.” 

So, everything unfolds just the way Joseph had planned it. Five of the brothers are presented to Pharoah and they answer his questioning about their occupation just as Joseph said.

We saw in the last chapter that shepherds and crop farmers didn’t get along in those days. Egyptians just didn’t care for shepherds, neither did they care for shepherding. So that opened up a great opportunity for the children of Israel to do something that the Egyptians didn’t want to do. There was a ready-made niche in Egypt that was perfect for Israel’s family.

Now to verses 4 to 6,

And they said to Pharaoh, “We have come to dwell in the land, because your servants have no pasture for their flocks, for the famine is severe in the land of Canaan. Now therefore, please let your servants dwell in the land of Goshen.” 

Then Pharaoh spoke to Joseph, saying, “Your father and your brothers have come to you. 

The land of Egypt is before you. Have your father and brothers dwell in the best of the land; let them dwell in the land of Goshen. And if you know any competent men among them, then make them chief herdsmen over my livestock.” 

Do you get the feeling that it’s all going exactly the way Joseph planned?

They’re officially given the land of Goshen by Pharoah and not only that, since shepherding wasn’t popular amongst the Egyptians, Pharaoh needed someone competent to care for his own livestock and who could fit the bill better than Joseph’s family?

Now Joseph presents his father to Pharaoh, and this is really quite remarkable. Notice how Jacob now stands in the best light in which we’ve ever seen him during our study of him.

Verse 7,

Then Joseph brought in his father Jacob and set him before Pharaoh; and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. 

Notice that it’s Jacob who’s blessing Pharaoh. He’s beginning to live up to his name of Israel which means “a man seeing God” or “let God prevail”. He’s a witness for God now. The lesser is always blessed of the greater, and Jacob blesses Pharaoh as a witness for God.

Verse 8,

Pharaoh said to Jacob, “How old are you?” 

Now, at this point, if Jacob were living by that old nature which had controlled him for so long, he would’ve said, “Well, Pharaoh, I am 130 years old, and I want to tell you what I’ve accomplished in my lifetime. I’d like to tell you how I outsmarted my brother when I was a young bloke and how I became rich by outsmarting my father–in–law.”

He could’ve bragged about his family, “I’ve got twelve sons and blah blah blah.” He could have gone on and on. But Jacob’s a different man now. Listen to him now in verse 9,

And Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The days of the years of my pilgrimage are one hundred and thirty 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 pilgrimage.” 

First of all, we notice that Jacob was 130 years old when he came down to the land of Egypt, and he’ll be 147 years old when he dies. Therefore, he’ll spend 17 years in Egypt.

It’s quite likely that he was on the verge of death when he arrived, but the joy of finding Joseph alive and of being with him in Egypt, along with the benefits that’d been given to his family by Pharoah, prolonged his life 17 years.

Again, this meeting with Pharaoh is an opportunity for the old man to boast, but he doesn’t. What a changed man we see here. He says that he’s 130 years old and his life is really nothing to brag about. “Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been,” he says. “My days have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.”

He’s saying that his life simply doesn’t measure up to his father and his grandfather’s lives. We’re now seeing a wonderful humility in this changed man. It certainly doesn’t sound like the old Jacob, does it? He’s giving glory to God for his life, and he’s not boasting about what he’s accomplished.

Jacob explained that he was on a pilgrimage. He knew that his real home was not of this world, it was somewhere else, God’s Kingdom. We shouldn’t cease to be aware of that as well. We’re pilgrims in this world, just passing through.

Frankly, it looks like Jacob’s arrived at a very special place in his life.

He has a great an opportunity to boast, but he doesn’t take advantage of it as we’ve already noted.

The old Jacob might well have thought, “Pharaoh is a great ruler, but I want him to know that I was a pretty big man up in the land of Canaan myself! But Jacob doesn’t say this, and I don’t think he even thought it because his humility was now coming from the heart.

Jesus Himself said in Luke 6 verse 45,

A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. 

Friends what’s uppermost in our hearts always comes out of our mouths.

Jacob ‘s recognised the most important thing any of us can recognise, that we’re sinners and our only claim to anything else is by the grace of God.

Today we hear so much boasting even from fellow Christians. Sometimes we applaud certain people for what they’ve done, and we talk about how great they are. Well, if the truth be known, we would say that we’re just a bunch of sinners and we haven’t got a thing to brag about except a wonderful Saviour Who’s been gracious and patient with us down through the years. He’s all any of us have to boast about. Jacob takes a humble place because he is a changed man.

Verse 10 and we’re in Genesis 47,

So Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from before Pharaoh. 

Pharaoh acknowledged Jacob was a man of God by accepting his blessing.

In the Egyptian religion, Pharaoh himself was thought to be a god. They considered Pharaoh the human embodiment of Ra, the sun god. This means that it was remarkable that he allowed Israel to bestow a blessing on him.

Could it be that this particular Pharoah had an insight into the One true God of Joseph? Did he privately watch and study Joseph so deeply that he came to the realisation that Joseph walked with a special wisdom and in a peace and assurance that could only mean that the God he believed in was real? He wasn’t a stupid man, this powerful world leader, so maybe he enquired about the whole incident with Potiphar’s wife who he probably knew was of questionable honour.

Well, we can’t answer those questions, but we do see here a very special relationship between this Pharoah and the fledgling nation of Israel.

If the people of Egypt and Pharoah himself had a basic respect for this small nation, which they obviously did, and if Egypt is a picture of this world, as we know it is, then how does the world see God today through us?

Verse 11,

And Joseph situated 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. 

The land of Rameses is the land of Goshen.

Now we’re at verse 12 and 13,

Then Joseph provided his father, his brothers, and all his father’s household with bread, according to the number in their families. 

Now there was no bread in all the land; for the famine was very severe, so that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan languished because of the famine. 

As we’ve already said, the reason that only Egypt and Canaan are mentioned is because they’re the two geographical locations which are involved in our story.

If Jacob had remained in Canaan with his family, they would’ve perished. Grain had been stored in the land of Egypt, but the land’s not producing grain anymore. Evidently the famine’s now spread all over Africa, and the Nile River’s not overflowing, which is so necessary for Egypt’s crop production.

The population, including Joseph’s family and countless others, are surviving only because of God’s work, through Joseph’s wisdom, in the storing of the massive quantities of grain.

The family of Israel looked to Joseph as their source of provision and supply.

Verse 14,

And Joseph gathered up 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. 

Joseph was not only a hard worker and a brilliant administrator, but he was also an honest worker. He didn’t cheat the Pharaoh. As a loyal employee he brought the money into Pharaoh’s house. We can see behind the scenes here that Joseph is as diligent and honest with Pharoah as he was with Potiphar when Potiphar trusted him with his entire wealth. All that Potipher concerned himself with was what was for dinner that night.

Genesis 47:15-20,

So when the money failed in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, “Give us bread, for why should we die in your presence? For the money has failed.” 

Then Joseph said, “Give your livestock, and I will give you bread for your livestock, if the money is gone.” 

So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and Joseph gave them bread in exchange for the horses, the flocks, the cattle of the herds, and for the donkeys. Thus he fed them with bread in exchange for all their livestock that year. 

When that year had ended, they came to him the next year and said to him, “We will not hide from my lord that our money is gone; my lord also has our herds of livestock. There is nothing left in the sight of my lord but our bodies and our lands. 

Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants of Pharaoh; give us seed, that we may live and not die, that the land may not be desolate.” 

Then Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh; for every man of the Egyptians sold his field, because the famine was severe upon them. So the land became Pharaoh’s. 

Now we’re coming to something for which Joseph’s been criticised.

People say he took advantage of the poverty, and he bought up the land. In other words, he used the hardship of the people to buy up the land.

It’s an unfair criticism of Joseph. To start with, he’s the agent of Pharaoh. None of this is for himself; he’s making no effort to profit from the situation personally. He wasn’t crooked in any sense of the word. The only thing he personally gained was the respect of the population, including Pharoah, for enabling them to survive the famine.

Let’s try and see this from a homely perspective.

At the time of putting this episode together Australian local fuel prices, that is petrol and diesel, have skyrocketed. This is due to pressures from world events that are either affecting supply or are viewed as potentially affecting supply.

There’s no doubt that these price hikes are causing hardship to individuals, families, businesses and almost all other organisations.

So how should this situation be fixed? Should the government of the day get involved by using the only money supply they have, public money, our taxes, to give to the oil companies to subsidise fuel in order to bring prices down. Hardly. Where this has been attempted in the past the unintended consequences become too big to control. Taxes and charges are increased dramatically and, in turn, cause a compounding of the problem. Also, it would cause a grossly unfair situation where some people, who consume much more fuel than the average person, would profit greatly from the pain put on the average person by the increase in taxes and charges.

Australia has recently been through a major 8 year long drought which caused a lot of drought affected land to lose a huge amount of value. There were buyers for some of that land who were able to buy at vastly reduced prices. Were these buyers forcing the owners to sell? Did they pay less for that land than it was worth at that point in time?

The value of land today, and, or for that matter; any other asset, can’t be valued on what may or may not happen in the future, its value is what it’s worth right now at this point in time.

The law of supply and demand was in operation here just as it is today.

Pharaoh is enabling the people to live by furnishing them food. Joseph didn’t operate outside of the law of supply and demand.

So, food was available in Egypt, but at a price. Because the famine lasted so long – seven years in total – eventually people ran out of money to buy more grain.

When the money first failed, Joseph received the people’s livestock as payment. What were they going to do with their livestock? Should they have watched the animals die of starvation as they and their families starved along with them?

When the livestock was gone, then Joseph received their land as payment. Again, this may be hard to understand in our world of plenty today, especially in Australia, but this is not that world and it’s far from it.

These people are desperate to survive. It’s been a long time that this county’s ever faced anything remotely like that.

The people themselves plead with Joseph by saying, “Buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants of Pharaoh; give us seed, that we may live and not die, that the land may not be desolate.” They’re basically saying, “Buy the land from us so that we can eat and then let us work for you. Give us a job.”

From this verse we can also see that originally Pharaoh had no legal claim to the land. The people had a valid title deed and each man here is regarded as the legitimate owner of the portion of land that he farmed.

Verse 21,

And as for the people, he moved them into the cities, from one end of the borders of Egypt to the other end. 

There was a great migration into the urban areas so that they would be near the center of supply where the grain was stored. You remember that Joseph had chosen these centres throughout Egypt at the very beginning. He now brings the people where they’ll be close to the supply of food. All this was obviously foreseen by Joseph.

Now we’re at verses 22 to 24,

Only the land of the priests he did not buy; for the priests had rations allotted to them by Pharaoh, and they ate their rations which Pharaoh gave them; therefore they did not sell their lands. 

Then Joseph said to the people, “Indeed I have bought you and your land this day for Pharaoh. Look, here is seed for you, and you shall sow the land. 

And it shall come to pass in the harvest that you shall give one-fifth to Pharaoh. Four-fifths shall be your own, as seed for the field and for your food, for those of your households and as food for your little ones.” 

In times of national crisis, the power of central government often increases greatly, and this was certainly the case here as the power and wealth of Pharaoh was multiplied under Joseph’s administration.

It’s also true that under every human system of government, once the government has increased it’s power over the people it never releases it fully when the crisis is over.

Pharaoh owned the land, and the people worked it for the price of one-fifth of the produce of the land.

When once again the land would be planted and harvested they’d give one-fifth to Pharaoh. Joseph wasn’t unfair. He fed the people when they would have starved, and in return asked for one-fifth (20%) annually from the produce of the land. Many people today would be happy with only 20% in total taxes. That’s a flat rate tax without the many hundreds of other taxes and charges added like we have today.

Only the priests were not taxed, and they were able to survive and even live well from the proceeds of the offerings that were given to the Egyptian gods. Much later, well after Joseph’s time, they were able to profit so greatly with their tax free incomes that couldn’t be touched by the royal treasury. They eventually became wealthier and more powerful than the Pharoah and contributed to the eventual collapse of the central government in Egypt.

Now, Joseph knows that the famine will be ended the next year; so, he tells the people to sow their grain.

Verses 25 to 26,

So they said, “You have saved our lives; let us find favor in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh’s servants.” 

And Joseph made it a law over the land of Egypt to this day, that Pharaoh should have one-fifth, except for the land of the priests only, which did not become Pharaoh’s. 

We see here in this verse that the people were glad to have had their lives saved and they were content to work for Pharoah. They have a great admiration for Joseph and probably also for Pharoah as he was the one who put this administration genius in charge.

Joseph makes the 20% tax a law in the land, and it was still that way at the time Moses wrote this book of Genesis.

Finally, to verses 27 to 30,

So Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt, in the country of Goshen; and they had possessions there and grew and multiplied exceedingly. 

And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years. So the length of Jacob’s life was one hundred and forty-seven years. 

When the time drew near that Israel must die, he called his son Joseph and said to him, “Now if I have found favor in your sight, please put your hand under my thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me. Please do not bury me in Egypt, but let me lie with my fathers; you shall carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their burial place.” And he said, “I will do as you have said.” 

Then he said, “Swear to me.” And he swore to him. So Israel bowed himself on the head of the bed. 

So, the family of Jacob, Israel grew and multiplied in Goshen. As we’ve already said, in about 400 years, they became a nation of two million or more people.

Jacob lived in Egypt for seventeen years and he knew his death was near. He made Joseph take a solemn oath after the pattern of the oath Abraham made his servant make in Genesis 24 verses 1-9.

“Please don’t bury me in Egypt. Bury me with my fathers”. This was the oath Israel required from Joseph. Israel knew Egypt was not his home. He belonged in the land promised to him and his descendants, Canaan. He absolutely believed and understood that he had inherited the Covenant that God had made with Abraham.

Jacob’s now 147 years old, and we can assume that he becomes worried that he’ll die in the land of Egypt. That’s clear to him now. He more than likely only intended to visit Egypt and be reconciled to his beloved son Joseph and then return to Canaan.

He may well have believed that the success of Joseph in acquiring all the land for Pharaoh meant that his family might become comfortable in Egypt and never want to return to Canaan.

We need to recognize this request as an evidence of the faith of Jacob in the covenant which God had made with his fathers. This’ll come up several times as we go through the Bible.

You see, the hope of the Old Testament is an earthly hope. Abraham believed that he would be raised from the dead in that land, so to him it was important that he was buried there.

Isaac believed that also and now, Jacob’s expressing that same faith. We should be aware of the fact that the hope in the Old Testament is not to be caught up to meet the Lord in the air and enter the city of the New Jerusalem, which is the permanent, eternal home of the church.

The hope of the Old Testament is in Christ’s Kingdom which will be set up on this earth. When that happens, Israel’s great hope will be fulfilled, and these people will be raised for that Kingdom. The first thousand years of it will be a time of testing, and after that the eternal Kingdom will continue on and on. This is why Jacob doesn’t want to be buried in Egypt. If he had no faith or hope in God’s promise to him, what difference would it make where he was buried?

For believers today it doesn’t make any difference where we’re buried, because at the time of the Rapture, wherever we are, we’ll be raised, and our bodies will join our spirits; that is, if we’ve died before the Rapture takes place. If we’re still living, then we’ll be changed and caught up to meet the Lord in the air. So, it won’t make any difference if we’re buried in Egypt or in Canaan or somewhere in Australia or New Zealand. The living “in Christ” and the dead “in Christ” in all of these places will be caught up. It simply won’t make any difference where we are. Our hope as believers today is a heavenly hope.

The hope of the Old Testament is an earthly hope, and the fact that Jacob wants to be buried back in the land is an evidence of his faith in the Resurrection. He hopes to be raised from the dead in the Promised Land. Jacob is now really becoming a man of faith.

What a change we’ve seen in the life of Jacob. It should be a lesson to each of us as we see that the life of faith is a journey not an instantaneous miracle that happens the moment we believe. Now we’re about to see Jacob blessing Joseph through Joseph’s 2 sons Manasseh and Ephraim. It’s the same blessing that was first given by God to Abraham, which he passed on to Issac and which he then passed on to Jacob. Why is the blessing passed to Josephs’ sons? All will be made clear in the next episode. Until then friends may our wonderful father keep you and bless you through His Son Jesus Christ.