Genesis 47:1

JOSEPH AND HIS FATHER. -- Genesis 47:1-12.

GOLDEN TEXT. -- Honor thy father and thy mother, which is the first commandment with promise. -- Ephesians 6:2. TIME. --About B. C. 1803. PLACE. --Egypt. HELPFUL READINGS. -- Genesis 45:16-28; Genesis 46:1-34; Genesis 47:13-31; Genesis 48:1-22; Genesis 50:1-26. LESSON ANALYSIS. --I. Joseph and his Brethren before Pharaoh; 2. The Patriarch and the King; 3. Israel in Goshen.

INTRODUCTION.

On the great subject of this chapter, the settlement of Israel in Egypt, Bishop Warburton, in his Divine Legation of Moses, says: The promise God made to Abraham to give his posterity the land of Canaan, could not be performed till that family was grown strong enough to take and keep possession of it. In the meantime, therefore, they were under the necessity of residing among idolaters, and to reside unmixed; but whoever examines their history will see that the Israelites had ever. violent propensity to join themselves to the Gentile nations and to adopt their manners. God, therefore, in his infinite wisdom, brought them into Egypt, and kept them there during this period, the only place where they could remain for so long. time safe and unconfounded with the natives. The ancient Egyptians were by their caste and system and many institutions forbidden all fellowship with strangers, and besides, they bore. particular aversion to the profession of the Israelites, who were shepherds. See Genesis 46:34. Thus the natural dispositions, which in Egypt caused their superstitions, and in consequence, the necessity of. burdensome ritual, would, in any other country have caused them to be absorbed into Gentilism, and to be confounded with idolaters, but in Egypt the caste system kept them apart as. separate race. From the Israelites going into Egypt arises. new occasion to adore the footsteps of Eternal Wisdom, in his dispensations to his chosen people.

It has been said that Egypt must have presented to the nomadic Hebrews from Asia, eighteen centuries before the Christian era, the same contrast and the same attractions that Italy and the southern provinces of the Roman empire presented to the Gothic and Celtic tribes who descended upon them from beyond the Alps four centuries after Christ. Such is, in fact, the impression left upon our minds as we are first introduced in full view of Egypt, as we follow in the track of the caravan that carries Jacob and his family to the valley of the Nile.-- Stanley.

I. JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN BEFORE PHARAOH.

1. Joseph came and told Pharaoh.

By the order of the king he had sent for his father and all his belongings; then had gone to meet them in the land of Goshen; had there met and embraced his father whom he had not seen for twenty-two years, and had then departed to announce their arrival to Pharaoh, in order that. permanent provision might be made for their home.

Behold, they are in the land of Goshen.

They had already received the assurance that they should dwell in Goshen (Genesis 45:10) and hence had made that province their destination. It was nearest Palestine, consisting partly of rich pasture land, well watered, abounding in fish, and now containing according to Robinson, more flocks and yielding larger revenues than any other district of Egypt. When the Turks conquered Egypt Goshen was given to their Arab confederates as best suited to. pastoral people. The French, also, during their occupation of Egypt, assigned it to their Bedouin allies.