Genesis 45:9-11

“Be quick and go up to my father and say to him, ‘Thus says your son Joseph. God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me. Do not linger. And you shall dwell in the land of Goshen and you shall be near to me, you and your children, and your children's children, and your flocks and your herds and all that you have. And there I will nourish you, for there are yet five years of famine, lest you come to poverty, you and your household and all that you have.' ”

Now that all is in the open Joseph can no longer bear to wait to see his father. He sends them to bring his father immediately along with everything they have.

“You shall dwell in the land of Goshen.” Its exact location is unknown but it was undoubtedly in the Nile delta. It was clearly a very suitable location for shepherds (Genesis 47:6). The Nile delta regularly saw influxes of Asian refugees as they came over the border seeking help and relief which was regularly given. Thus Joseph is quite confident of their welcome there on his own authority. He does not feel he has to consult on the matter.

“You shall be near to me.” This need not necessarily mean that Joseph lives in the Nile delta. ‘Near' is possibly relative, and Memphis, the pre-Hyksos capital, could well be seen as ‘near'. The point was that he will not have to visit Canaan to see them.

The whole family tribe is welcome, ‘all that you have'. This would be quite numerous. In Goshen they will be specifically provided for and later, after the famine, will enjoy the prosperity of the land.

An Egyptian source interestingly mentions a similar thing some centuries later, when, in c1220 BC, Pharaoh Merenptah gave permission to some Edomite bedouins to settle in the land Goshen ‘to keep themselves and their flocks alive in the territory of the king'.