_A.M. 2298. B.C. 1706._ In this chapter we have instances, ( 1,) _ Of Joseph's kindness to his relations, presenting his brethren first, and then his father to Pharaoh, Genesis 47:1; settling them in Goshen, and providing for them there, Genesis 47:11; paying his respects to his father when he sent... [ Continue Reading ]
They _are in the land of Goshen_ Either to abide there, or to remove thence to any other place which thou shalt appoint for them.... [ Continue Reading ]
_He took some of his brethren_ The original words here, literally translated, are, _He took from the end, extremity_, or _tail_ of _his brethren_, _five men_ And some have thought the sense is, He took five of the meanest of them, as to their persons and appearance, as the word קצה is used, 1 Kings... [ Continue Reading ]
_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 come_ 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 burned up much more than in Egypt, which lay low, and where the corn chiefly failed, but there w... [ Continue Reading ]
_Any man of activity_ Literally, according to the Hebrew, _If thou knowest_, and _there is among them men of strength or vigour_, (חיל,) namely, of body or mind, fit for the employment. From which expression it seems rather probable that those five presented to Pharaoh were of the meaner sort of the... [ Continue Reading ]
_Jacob blessed Pharaoh_ Which is repeated, Genesis 47:10, as being a circumstance very remarkable. And remarkable surely it was that the _greater_, for such Pharaoh was in all external things, in wealth, power and glory, _should be blessed of the less, Hebrews 7:7_. But before God, and in reality, J... [ 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, showed him to be old, for he 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, 1st, Jacob calls his life a _pilgrimage_, looking upon himself as a stranger in this world, and a traveller toward 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 _pilg... [ Continue Reading ]
_With bread according to their families_ לחם לפי השׂ Š, literally, _with bread to the mouth of the little one_ That is, as much as every one desired, without any restraint, _mouth_ being put for _desire_, as chap. Genesis 24:57; Isaiah 30:2; or, _as a little child is nourished:_ he, as it were, put... [ Continue Reading ]
_The land fainted_ So the Chaldee renders the word תלה. That is, the spirits of the people were depressed and sunk within them, and their flesh also wasted for want of food. But many critics prefer translating the words, _The land raged_, or _became furious._ This is commonly the case with the lower... [ Continue Reading ]
_He removed them_, &c. He transplanted them, to show Pharaoh's sovereign power over them, and that they might, in time, forget their titles to their lands, and be the more easily 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, an... [ 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 burned down, so that he saw, at some distance, the time _drawing nigh._ He would be buried in Canaan, not bec... [ Continue Reading ]