What is your occupation? — Pharaoh takes it for granted they had
something to do. All that have a place in the world should have an
employment in it according to their capacity, some occupation or
other. Those that need not work for their bread, yet must have
something to do to keep them from idlene... [ Continue Reading ]
To sojourn in the land are we cane — Not to settle there for ever;
only to sojourn, while the famine prevailed so in Canaan, which lay
high, that it was not habitable for shepherds, the grass being burnt
up much more than in Egypt, which lay low, and where the corn chiefly
failed, but there was tole... [ Continue Reading ]
How old art thou? — A question usually put to old men, for it is
natural to us to admire old age, and to reverence it. Jacob's
countenance no doubt shewed him to be old, for be had been a man of
labour and sorrow. In Egypt people were not so long — lived as in
Canaan, and therefore Pharaoh looks upo... [ Continue Reading ]
Observe Jacob calls his life a pilgrimage, looking upon himself as a
stranger in this world, and a traveller towards another. He reckoned
himself not only a pilgrim now he was in Egypt, a strange country in
which he never was before, but his life even in the land of his
nativity was a pilgrimage. He... [ Continue Reading ]
And Jacob blessed Pharaoh — Which was not only an act of civility
but an act of piety; he prayed for him, as one having the authority of
a prophet and a patriarch: and a patriarch's blessing was not a thing
to be despised, no not by a potent prince.... [ Continue Reading ]
He removed them to cities — He transplanted them, to shew Pharaoh's
sovereign power over them, and that they might, in time, forget their
titles to their lands, and be the easier reconciled to their new
condition of servitude. How hard soever this seems to have been upon
them, they themselves were s... [ Continue Reading ]
Jacob lived seventeen years after he came into Egypt, far beyond his
own expectation: seventeen years he had nourished Joseph, for so old
he was when he was sold from him, and now, seventeen years Joseph
nourished him. Observe how kindly Providence ordered Jacob's affairs;
that when he was old, and... [ Continue Reading ]
And the time drew nigh that Israel must die — Israel, that had power
over the angel, and prevailed, yet must yield to death. He died by
degrees; his candle was not blown out, but gradually burnt down, so
that he saw, at some distance, the time drawing nigh. He would be
buried in Canaan, not because... [ Continue Reading ]