Genesis · Chapter 47

Verse 1. 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.

INTRODUCTION TO PHARAOH, AND SETTLEMENT IN EGYPT, 1-12. 1-3. They said unto Pharaoh, Thy servants are shepherds — “The Egyptian monuments abundantly illustrate the hatred and contempt which the ruling castes felt towards the shepherds. In those great pictures of Egyptian life painted on the walls of the Theban tombs in the time of the Pharaohs, the shepherds are caricatured in many ways, being represented by figures lank, emaciated, distorted, and sometimes ghostly in form and feature. They are a vivid contemporary comment from Egyptian hands upon the sacred writer’s statement, that ‘shepherds are an abomination to the Egyptians.’ Sheep are never represented in the Theban tombs as being offered in sacrifice or slaughtered for food; and though in certain districts mutton was used for food, and sheep and goats held sacred, (Her., 2:42,) these cases are regarded by Egyptologists as exceptional. (Knobel.) Woollen was esteemed unclean by the priests, and their religion forbade them to wear woollen garments into the temples, or to bury the dead in them. (Her., 2:81.) This apparent aversion to the sheep is, however, greatly offset by the wide-spread worship of Amun and of Noum as ram-headed gods, as even now illustrated in the paintings of the tombs and in the splendid ruins of Karnak, and gives no sufficient reason for the contempt in which the shepherd was held. Nor is it a sufficient reason, as some have supposed, that the shepherds were accustomed to slaughter for food the ox, which was held sacred by the Egyptians; for the Egyptian worship of the bull was restricted to a single animal at a time, called the Apis, and the sculptures represent the priests as offering bulls in sacrifice, and eating beef and veal. Besides, the nomads rarely kill the ox, and never kill the cow for food. It was not to the shepherd, as such, but to the nomadic shepherd, with his wild, roving, predatory habits, that the civilized Egyptian bore this hatred.

“There was also a special reason found for this hatred in an event which has stamped itself deeply upon Egyptian history; but whether it transpired before the era of Joseph or not is still an unsettled question. About two thousand years before Christ Egypt was invaded by a people from the north-east, of what precise nation is uncertain, who dispossessed the native princes, cast contempt upon the national religion, demolished the temples, slew the sacred animals, and set up at Memphis a foreign government which ran through three dynasties, (the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth of Manetho,) and ruled the greater part of the land for five or six centuries. They are called in history the Hyksos, or shepherd kings. The Theban king Amosis finally rose against them, and expelled them from the land, driving them into the Syrian desert. The name of shepherd became thereafter inseparably associated in the Egyptian mind with this Hyksos subjugation and tyranny, and so was especially hateful. Wilkinson believes that the Egyptian career of Joseph took place in the period just following the expulsion of the Hyksos, and so explains why, at that time especially, a shepherd was ‘an abomination to the Egyptians.’ This is, however, one of the disputed questions of Egyptian chronology whose solution is probably locked up in monuments and papyri yet to be deciphered.

“But, whatever be the explanation of this enmity, the fact is abundantly attested by the monuments; and we have this remarkable manifestation of the meekness and godly wisdom of Joseph, that, so far from attempting to conceal or disguise this unpleasing fact concerning his family, he announced it to Pharaoh at the outset, and instructed his brethren to repeat it to the king at their first introduction. Thus he secured the frontier district of Goshen for the family of Israel, where they might dwell in comparative isolation from the Egyptian idolatry. His family was introduced in such a way as to effectually preclude their political advancement. His great popularity and influence at the Egyptian court could have secured for them political preferment, or at least a total change of worldly condition; yet he is not dazzled by this most natural family ambition, but seeks first the spiritual good of his brothers and his children. In this he is the prototype of Moses, who chose to be a Hebrew exile rather than an Egyptian prince. “There are two remarkable Egyptian records of the twelfth dynasty (2020-1860 B.C., according to Wilkinson,) which strikingly illustrate the career of Joseph. One is the story of Saneha, written on one of the oldest papyri yet discovered. Saneha was a pastoral nomad, who was received into the service of the reigning Pharaoh, rose to a high rank, was driven into exile, and afterwards restored to favour — was made the king’s counsellor, given precedence over all the courtiers, ‘set over the administration of the government of Egypt to develop its resources,’ and finally ‘prepared his sepulchre among the tombs of the princes.’ (Translation by M. Chabas, in Speaker’s Commentary.) There is no proof that Saneha was the Hebrew Joseph, but the parallel is most instructive as illustrating the possibility of a foreigner’s elevation in Egypt.

“The other record, made under the same dynasty, is found in the pictures and inscriptions of the famous sepulchral grottoes of Beni-hassen, which are thirty excavations cut in the limestone along the Nile’s eastern bank. A picture in one of these tombs represents the presentation of a nomad Asiatic chief, with his family and dependents, before an Egyptian prince. Their features, colour, costume, even to the rich ‘tunic of fringe,’ (‘coat of many colours,’) are all Asiatic. There is also an inscription describing a prince who was a favourite of the Pharaoh, which brings Joseph most vividly before us. Lepsius thus translates it: ‘He injured no little child; he oppressed no widow; he detained for his own purpose no fisherman; took from his work no shepherd; no overseer’s men were taken. There was no beggar in his days; no one starved in his time. When years of famine occurred, he ploughed all the lands of the district, producing abundant food; no one was starved in it; he treated the widow as a woman with a husband to protect her.’ (BUNSEN’S Egypt, vol. v: translation by BIRCH.) Neither here is there any proof that this favourite was Joseph; but the high estimate set upon virtues and abilities just such as are shown in Joseph, furnish an instructive comment upon our history.” — Newhall.

Verse 2. He took some of his brethren] There is something very strange in the original; literally translated it signifies “from the end or extremity (hxqm miktseh) of his brethren he took five men.” This has been understood six different ways. 1. Joseph took five of his brethren that came first to hand-at random, without design or choice. 2. Joseph took five of the meanest-looking of his brethren to present before Pharaoh, fearing if he had taken the sightliest that Pharaoh would detain them for his service, whereby their religion and morals might be corrupted. 3. Joseph took five of the best made and finest-looking of his brethren, and presented them before Pharaoh, wishing to impress his mind with a favourable opinion of the family which he had just now brought into Egypt, and to do himself honour. 4. Joseph took five of the youngest of his brethren. 5. He took five of the eldest of his brethren. 6. He took five from the extremity or end of his brethren, i.e., some of the eldest and some of the youngest, viz., Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Issachar, and Benjamin.-Rab. Solomon. It is certain that in Judges 18:2, the word may be understood as implying dignity, valour, excellence, and pre-eminence: And the children of Dan sent of their family FIVE men µtwxqm miktsotham, not from their coasts, but of the most eminent or excellent they had; and it is probable they might have had their eye on what Joseph did here when they made their choice, choosing the same number, five, and of their principal men, as did Joseph, because the mission was important, to go and search out the land. But the word may be understood simply as signifying some; out of the whole of his brethren he took only five men, &c.

Verse 2. 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 hxq is used, 1 Kings 12:31, lest, if he had presented the goodliest of them, Pharaoh should have required their attendance upon him either at court or in the camp.

Verse 2. Some of his brethren. hxqmw vemi-ketzeh extremitate, as in Montanus, five of the tallest and finest looking of his brethren; as is the import of the word, Judges 18:2, when describing the five valiant and enterprising Danites.

INTRODUCTION TO PHARAOH, AND SETTLEMENT IN EGYPT, 1-12. 1-3. They said unto Pharaoh, Thy servants are shepherds — “The Egyptian monuments abundantly illustrate the hatred and contempt which the ruling castes felt towards the shepherds. In those great pictures of Egyptian life painted on the walls of the Theban tombs in the time of the Pharaohs, the shepherds are caricatured in many ways, being represented by figures lank, emaciated, distorted, and sometimes ghostly in form and feature. They are a vivid contemporary comment from Egyptian hands upon the sacred writer’s statement, that ‘shepherds are an abomination to the Egyptians.’ Sheep are never represented in the Theban tombs as being offered in sacrifice or slaughtered for food; and though in certain districts mutton was used for food, and sheep and goats held sacred, (Her., 2:42,) these cases are regarded by Egyptologists as exceptional. (Knobel.) Woollen was esteemed unclean by the priests, and their religion forbade them to wear woollen garments into the temples, or to bury the dead in them. (Her., 2:81.) This apparent aversion to the sheep is, however, greatly offset by the wide-spread worship of Amun and of Noum as ram-headed gods, as even now illustrated in the paintings of the tombs and in the splendid ruins of Karnak, and gives no sufficient reason for the contempt in which the shepherd was held. Nor is it a sufficient reason, as some have supposed, that the shepherds were accustomed to slaughter for food the ox, which was held sacred by the Egyptians; for the Egyptian worship of the bull was restricted to a single animal at a time, called the Apis, and the sculptures represent the priests as offering bulls in sacrifice, and eating beef and veal. Besides, the nomads rarely kill the ox, and never kill the cow for food. It was not to the shepherd, as such, but to the nomadic shepherd, with his wild, roving, predatory habits, that the civilized Egyptian bore this hatred.

“There was also a special reason found for this hatred in an event which has stamped itself deeply upon Egyptian history; but whether it transpired before the era of Joseph or not is still an unsettled question. About two thousand years before Christ Egypt was invaded by a people from the north-east, of what precise nation is uncertain, who dispossessed the native princes, cast contempt upon the national religion, demolished the temples, slew the sacred animals, and set up at Memphis a foreign government which ran through three dynasties, (the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth of Manetho,) and ruled the greater part of the land for five or six centuries. They are called in history the Hyksos, or shepherd kings. The Theban king Amosis finally rose against them, and expelled them from the land, driving them into the Syrian desert. The name of shepherd became thereafter inseparably associated in the Egyptian mind with this Hyksos subjugation and tyranny, and so was especially hateful. Wilkinson believes that the Egyptian career of Joseph took place in the period just following the expulsion of the Hyksos, and so explains why, at that time especially, a shepherd was ‘an abomination to the Egyptians.’ This is, however, one of the disputed questions of Egyptian chronology whose solution is probably locked up in monuments and papyri yet to be deciphered.

“But, whatever be the explanation of this enmity, the fact is abundantly attested by the monuments; and we have this remarkable manifestation of the meekness and godly wisdom of Joseph, that, so far from attempting to conceal or disguise this unpleasing fact concerning his family, he announced it to Pharaoh at the outset, and instructed his brethren to repeat it to the king at their first introduction. Thus he secured the frontier district of Goshen for the family of Israel, where they might dwell in comparative isolation from the Egyptian idolatry. His family was introduced in such a way as to effectually preclude their political advancement. His great popularity and influence at the Egyptian court could have secured for them political preferment, or at least a total change of worldly condition; yet he is not dazzled by this most natural family ambition, but seeks first the spiritual good of his brothers and his children. In this he is the prototype of Moses, who chose to be a Hebrew exile rather than an Egyptian prince. “There are two remarkable Egyptian records of the twelfth dynasty (2020-1860 B.C., according to Wilkinson,) which strikingly illustrate the career of Joseph. One is the story of Saneha, written on one of the oldest papyri yet discovered. Saneha was a pastoral nomad, who was received into the service of the reigning Pharaoh, rose to a high rank, was driven into exile, and afterwards restored to favour — was made the king’s counsellor, given precedence over all the courtiers, ‘set over the administration of the government of Egypt to develop its resources,’ and finally ‘prepared his sepulchre among the tombs of the princes.’ (Translation by M. Chabas, in Speaker’s Commentary.) There is no proof that Saneha was the Hebrew Joseph, but the parallel is most instructive as illustrating the possibility of a foreigner’s elevation in Egypt.

“The other record, made under the same dynasty, is found in the pictures and inscriptions of the famous sepulchral grottoes of Beni-hassen, which are thirty excavations cut in the limestone along the Nile’s eastern bank. A picture in one of these tombs represents the presentation of a nomad Asiatic chief, with his family and dependents, before an Egyptian prince. Their features, colour, costume, even to the rich ‘tunic of fringe,’ (‘coat of many colours,’) are all Asiatic. There is also an inscription describing a prince who was a favourite of the Pharaoh, which brings Joseph most vividly before us. Lepsius thus translates it: ‘He injured no little child; he oppressed no widow; he detained for his own purpose no fisherman; took from his work no shepherd; no overseer’s men were taken. There was no beggar in his days; no one starved in his time. When years of famine occurred, he ploughed all the lands of the district, producing abundant food; no one was starved in it; he treated the widow as a woman with a husband to protect her.’ (BUNSEN’S Egypt, vol. v: translation by BIRCH.) Neither here is there any proof that this favourite was Joseph; but the high estimate set upon virtues and abilities just such as are shown in Joseph, furnish an instructive comment upon our history.” — Newhall.

V. 3. 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 idleness.

Verse 3. 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 idleness.

INTRODUCTION TO PHARAOH, AND SETTLEMENT IN EGYPT, 1-12. 1-3. They said unto Pharaoh, Thy servants are shepherds — “The Egyptian monuments abundantly illustrate the hatred and contempt which the ruling castes felt towards the shepherds. In those great pictures of Egyptian life painted on the walls of the Theban tombs in the time of the Pharaohs, the shepherds are caricatured in many ways, being represented by figures lank, emaciated, distorted, and sometimes ghostly in form and feature. They are a vivid contemporary comment from Egyptian hands upon the sacred writer’s statement, that ‘shepherds are an abomination to the Egyptians.’ Sheep are never represented in the Theban tombs as being offered in sacrifice or slaughtered for food; and though in certain districts mutton was used for food, and sheep and goats held sacred, (Her., 2:42,) these cases are regarded by Egyptologists as exceptional. (Knobel.) Woollen was esteemed unclean by the priests, and their religion forbade them to wear woollen garments into the temples, or to bury the dead in them. (Her., 2:81.) This apparent aversion to the sheep is, however, greatly offset by the wide-spread worship of Amun and of Noum as ram-headed gods, as even now illustrated in the paintings of the tombs and in the splendid ruins of Karnak, and gives no sufficient reason for the contempt in which the shepherd was held. Nor is it a sufficient reason, as some have supposed, that the shepherds were accustomed to slaughter for food the ox, which was held sacred by the Egyptians; for the Egyptian worship of the bull was restricted to a single animal at a time, called the Apis, and the sculptures represent the priests as offering bulls in sacrifice, and eating beef and veal. Besides, the nomads rarely kill the ox, and never kill the cow for food. It was not to the shepherd, as such, but to the nomadic shepherd, with his wild, roving, predatory habits, that the civilized Egyptian bore this hatred.

“There was also a special reason found for this hatred in an event which has stamped itself deeply upon Egyptian history; but whether it transpired before the era of Joseph or not is still an unsettled question. About two thousand years before Christ Egypt was invaded by a people from the north-east, of what precise nation is uncertain, who dispossessed the native princes, cast contempt upon the national religion, demolished the temples, slew the sacred animals, and set up at Memphis a foreign government which ran through three dynasties, (the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth of Manetho,) and ruled the greater part of the land for five or six centuries. They are called in history the Hyksos, or shepherd kings. The Theban king Amosis finally rose against them, and expelled them from the land, driving them into the Syrian desert. The name of shepherd became thereafter inseparably associated in the Egyptian mind with this Hyksos subjugation and tyranny, and so was especially hateful. Wilkinson believes that the Egyptian career of Joseph took place in the period just following the expulsion of the Hyksos, and so explains why, at that time especially, a shepherd was ‘an abomination to the Egyptians.’ This is, however, one of the disputed questions of Egyptian chronology whose solution is probably locked up in monuments and papyri yet to be deciphered.

“But, whatever be the explanation of this enmity, the fact is abundantly attested by the monuments; and we have this remarkable manifestation of the meekness and godly wisdom of Joseph, that, so far from attempting to conceal or disguise this unpleasing fact concerning his family, he announced it to Pharaoh at the outset, and instructed his brethren to repeat it to the king at their first introduction. Thus he secured the frontier district of Goshen for the family of Israel, where they might dwell in comparative isolation from the Egyptian idolatry. His family was introduced in such a way as to effectually preclude their political advancement. His great popularity and influence at the Egyptian court could have secured for them political preferment, or at least a total change of worldly condition; yet he is not dazzled by this most natural family ambition, but seeks first the spiritual good of his brothers and his children. In this he is the prototype of Moses, who chose to be a Hebrew exile rather than an Egyptian prince. “There are two remarkable Egyptian records of the twelfth dynasty (2020-1860 B.C., according to Wilkinson,) which strikingly illustrate the career of Joseph. One is the story of Saneha, written on one of the oldest papyri yet discovered. Saneha was a pastoral nomad, who was received into the service of the reigning Pharaoh, rose to a high rank, was driven into exile, and afterwards restored to favour — was made the king’s counsellor, given precedence over all the courtiers, ‘set over the administration of the government of Egypt to develop its resources,’ and finally ‘prepared his sepulchre among the tombs of the princes.’ (Translation by M. Chabas, in Speaker’s Commentary.) There is no proof that Saneha was the Hebrew Joseph, but the parallel is most instructive as illustrating the possibility of a foreigner’s elevation in Egypt.

“The other record, made under the same dynasty, is found in the pictures and inscriptions of the famous sepulchral grottoes of Beni-hassen, which are thirty excavations cut in the limestone along the Nile’s eastern bank. A picture in one of these tombs represents the presentation of a nomad Asiatic chief, with his family and dependents, before an Egyptian prince. Their features, colour, costume, even to the rich ‘tunic of fringe,’ (‘coat of many colours,’) are all Asiatic. There is also an inscription describing a prince who was a favourite of the Pharaoh, which brings Joseph most vividly before us. Lepsius thus translates it: ‘He injured no little child; he oppressed no widow; he detained for his own purpose no fisherman; took from his work no shepherd; no overseer’s men were taken. There was no beggar in his days; no one starved in his time. When years of famine occurred, he ploughed all the lands of the district, producing abundant food; no one was starved in it; he treated the widow as a woman with a husband to protect her.’ (BUNSEN’S Egypt, vol. v: translation by BIRCH.) Neither here is there any proof that this favourite was Joseph; but the high estimate set upon virtues and abilities just such as are shown in Joseph, furnish an instructive comment upon our history.” — Newhall.

V. 4. 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 tolerable good pasture.

Verse 4. 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 was tolerably good pasture. But although Jacob and his sons intended only to sojourn in Goshen or Egypt till the famine should be over, yet first the kindness they received encouraged them to continue, and at last the Egyptians rendered their posterity slaves, and compelled them to stay.

4. To sojourn in the land are we come — “Not to dwell there, for Canaan was ever their home, the land of promise. Yet this ‘sojourning’ lasted more than two, if not more than four, centuries.” — Newhall.

INTRODUCTION TO PHARAOH, AND SETTLEMENT IN EGYPT, 1-12. 1-3. They said unto Pharaoh, Thy servants are shepherds — “The Egyptian monuments abundantly illustrate the hatred and contempt which the ruling castes felt towards the shepherds. In those great pictures of Egyptian life painted on the walls of the Theban tombs in the time of the Pharaohs, the shepherds are caricatured in many ways, being represented by figures lank, emaciated, distorted, and sometimes ghostly in form and feature. They are a vivid contemporary comment from Egyptian hands upon the sacred writer’s statement, that ‘shepherds are an abomination to the Egyptians.’ Sheep are never represented in the Theban tombs as being offered in sacrifice or slaughtered for food; and though in certain districts mutton was used for food, and sheep and goats held sacred, (Her., 2:42,) these cases are regarded by Egyptologists as exceptional. (Knobel.) Woollen was esteemed unclean by the priests, and their religion forbade them to wear woollen garments into the temples, or to bury the dead in them. (Her., 2:81.) This apparent aversion to the sheep is, however, greatly offset by the wide-spread worship of Amun and of Noum as ram-headed gods, as even now illustrated in the paintings of the tombs and in the splendid ruins of Karnak, and gives no sufficient reason for the contempt in which the shepherd was held. Nor is it a sufficient reason, as some have supposed, that the shepherds were accustomed to slaughter for food the ox, which was held sacred by the Egyptians; for the Egyptian worship of the bull was restricted to a single animal at a time, called the Apis, and the sculptures represent the priests as offering bulls in sacrifice, and eating beef and veal. Besides, the nomads rarely kill the ox, and never kill the cow for food. It was not to the shepherd, as such, but to the nomadic shepherd, with his wild, roving, predatory habits, that the civilized Egyptian bore this hatred.

“There was also a special reason found for this hatred in an event which has stamped itself deeply upon Egyptian history; but whether it transpired before the era of Joseph or not is still an unsettled question. About two thousand years before Christ Egypt was invaded by a people from the north-east, of what precise nation is uncertain, who dispossessed the native princes, cast contempt upon the national religion, demolished the temples, slew the sacred animals, and set up at Memphis a foreign government which ran through three dynasties, (the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth of Manetho,) and ruled the greater part of the land for five or six centuries. They are called in history the Hyksos, or shepherd kings. The Theban king Amosis finally rose against them, and expelled them from the land, driving them into the Syrian desert. The name of shepherd became thereafter inseparably associated in the Egyptian mind with this Hyksos subjugation and tyranny, and so was especially hateful. Wilkinson believes that the Egyptian career of Joseph took place in the period just following the expulsion of the Hyksos, and so explains why, at that time especially, a shepherd was ‘an abomination to the Egyptians.’ This is, however, one of the disputed questions of Egyptian chronology whose solution is probably locked up in monuments and papyri yet to be deciphered.

“But, whatever be the explanation of this enmity, the fact is abundantly attested by the monuments; and we have this remarkable manifestation of the meekness and godly wisdom of Joseph, that, so far from attempting to conceal or disguise this unpleasing fact concerning his family, he announced it to Pharaoh at the outset, and instructed his brethren to repeat it to the king at their first introduction. Thus he secured the frontier district of Goshen for the family of Israel, where they might dwell in comparative isolation from the Egyptian idolatry. His family was introduced in such a way as to effectually preclude their political advancement. His great popularity and influence at the Egyptian court could have secured for them political preferment, or at least a total change of worldly condition; yet he is not dazzled by this most natural family ambition, but seeks first the spiritual good of his brothers and his children. In this he is the prototype of Moses, who chose to be a Hebrew exile rather than an Egyptian prince. “There are two remarkable Egyptian records of the twelfth dynasty (2020-1860 B.C., according to Wilkinson,) which strikingly illustrate the career of Joseph. One is the story of Saneha, written on one of the oldest papyri yet discovered. Saneha was a pastoral nomad, who was received into the service of the reigning Pharaoh, rose to a high rank, was driven into exile, and afterwards restored to favour — was made the king’s counsellor, given precedence over all the courtiers, ‘set over the administration of the government of Egypt to develop its resources,’ and finally ‘prepared his sepulchre among the tombs of the princes.’ (Translation by M. Chabas, in Speaker’s Commentary.) There is no proof that Saneha was the Hebrew Joseph, but the parallel is most instructive as illustrating the possibility of a foreigner’s elevation in Egypt.

“The other record, made under the same dynasty, is found in the pictures and inscriptions of the famous sepulchral grottoes of Beni-hassen, which are thirty excavations cut in the limestone along the Nile’s eastern bank. A picture in one of these tombs represents the presentation of a nomad Asiatic chief, with his family and dependents, before an Egyptian prince. Their features, colour, costume, even to the rich ‘tunic of fringe,’ (‘coat of many colours,’) are all Asiatic. There is also an inscription describing a prince who was a favourite of the Pharaoh, which brings Joseph most vividly before us. Lepsius thus translates it: ‘He injured no little child; he oppressed no widow; he detained for his own purpose no fisherman; took from his work no shepherd; no overseer’s men were taken. There was no beggar in his days; no one starved in his time. When years of famine occurred, he ploughed all the lands of the district, producing abundant food; no one was starved in it; he treated the widow as a woman with a husband to protect her.’ (BUNSEN’S Egypt, vol. v: translation by BIRCH.) Neither here is there any proof that this favourite was Joseph; but the high estimate set upon virtues and abilities just such as are shown in Joseph, furnish an instructive comment upon our history.” — Newhall.

Verse 6. In the best of the land make thy father and brethren to dwell; in the land of Goshen let them dwell] So it appears that the land of Goshen was the best of the land of Egypt.

Men of activity] lyj yvna anshey chayil, stout or robust men-such as were capable of bearing fatigue, and of rendering their authority respectable.

Rulers over my cattle.] hnqm mikneh signifies not only cattle, but possessions or property of any kind; though most usually cattle are intended, because in ancient times they constituted the principal part of a man’s property. The word may be taken here in a more extensive sense, and the circumstances of the case seem obviously to require it. If every shepherd was an abomination to the Egyptians, however we may understand or qualify the expression, is it to be supposed that Pharaoh should desire that the brethren of his prime minister, of his chief favourite, should be employed in some of the very meanest offices in the land? We may therefore safely understand Pharaoh as expressing his will, that the brethren of Joseph should be appointed as overseers or superintendents of his domestic concerns, while Joseph superintended those of the state.

Verse 6. Any man of activity — Literally, according to the Hebrew, If thou knowest, and there is among them men of strength or vigour, (lyj,) 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 them.

6. The land of Egypt is before thee — “Although they belonged to the abominated caste, all Egypt was at their disposal for Joseph’s sake. In the land of Goshen let them dwell — Since this is your petition. And if thou knowest any men of activity among them — Rather, men of ability, namely, for such office. Make them rulers over my cattle — Literally, princes of (the shepherds or herdsmen of) my cattle. Not overseers of his household, (as A. Clarke,) for the word signifies only property in cattle. (Gesenius; Knobel.) Pharaoh would make Joseph’s brethren, as far as they were competent, overseers of his herdsmen and shepherds. So Doeg, the Edomite, was overseer of Saul’s herdsmen. (1 Samuel 21:7.)” — Newhall.

“The land where Israel was to dwell is here called Goshen, and in verse 11, Rameses. In Exodus 12:37, Israel is said to have set out from Rameses. This place was near the seat of government, since Joseph told his father that he would there dwell near him, (Genesis 45:10,) and apparently between Palestine and Joseph’s residence, (Genesis 46:28, 29,) which was probably usually at Memphis, although sometimes, perhaps, at Zoan. See note on Exodus 1:8. It was under the government of Egypt, and yet hardly reckoned a part of the country, and appears not to have been occupied to any great extent by the native inhabitants, as the reason assigned for settling the Israelites there is, that they might not come in contact with the Egyptians. Genesis 46:33, 34. Every thing thus indicates that Goshen, or Rameses, was the frontier province, nearest to Palestine, lying along the Pelusiac arm of the Nile, and stretching from thence eastward to the desert. The Israelites may have spread eastward as they multiplied, across the Pelusiac to or across the Tanitic arm. This was the best of the land for a pastoral people like Israel, although not so fertile as the country nearer the Nile; yet it was well irrigated from Egypt’s great river. It was traversed by an ancient canal, which, according to Strabo, once carried the Nile water into the Red Sea, and on the banks of which it is probable that the Israelites built the treasure-city Raamses or Rameses. Exodus 1:11. This canal traversed the wadies Tumeylat and Seven Wells, which was the richest portion of Goshen, although the Israelites doubtless drove their flocks up the water-courses into fertile tracts of the desert. The present Sweet-water Canal of M. Lesseps has simply reopened the works of the Pharaohs, carrying the Nile water through these broad wadies to Lake Timsah, and thence south through the Bitter Lakes to the Red Sea at Suez. “Robinson made careful inquiries concerning the fertility of this province at present, and found that it now ‘bears the highest valuation, yields the largest revenue,’ and that ‘there are here more flocks and herds than anywhere else in Egypt, and also more fishermen.’ — Biblical Researches, 1:54. This country now produces, according to Lane, (Modern Egyptians, 1:242,) cucumbers and melons, gourds, onions, leeks, beans, chick-peas and lupins; and the inhabitants also make use of small salted fish for food; a list of productions closely corresponding with that given in Numbers 11:5, where the murmuring Israelites say, ‘We remember the fish that we did eat in Egypt freely, the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic.’ The opening of the Suez Canal has increased the fertility of the land since the visits of Robinson and Lane.

“Large heaps of ruins are now found south-west of Belbeis, which are called by the Arabs the hills or graves of the Jews, (Tel el Jehud, Turbeh el Jehud,) which may be memorials of the Israelitish sojourn. Many traces of ancient sites are scattered along the Wady Tumeylat. The geographical position of Goshen was such that the plagues of hail and darkness might sweep down the Nile valley, and even cover Zoan, while Goshen (on the east) was left untouched.” — Newhall.

Verse 7. Jacob blessed Pharaoh.] Saluted him on his entrance with Peace be unto thee, or some such expression of respect and good will. For the meaning of the term to bless, as applied to God and man, See Clarke on “Genesis 2:3”.

Verse 7. Jacob blessed Pharaoh — Which is repeated, Verse 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, Jacob was much greater than Pharaoh. It is probable, therefore, that he not only saluted him, prayed for and thanked him for all his favours to him and his, all which the original word, here rendered blessed, often means; but that he blessed him with the authority of a patriarch and a prophet: and a patriarch’s blessing was a thing not to be despised, no, not by a potent prince.

INTRODUCTION TO PHARAOH, AND SETTLEMENT IN EGYPT, 1-12. 1-3. They said unto Pharaoh, Thy servants are shepherds — “The Egyptian monuments abundantly illustrate the hatred and contempt which the ruling castes felt towards the shepherds. In those great pictures of Egyptian life painted on the walls of the Theban tombs in the time of the Pharaohs, the shepherds are caricatured in many ways, being represented by figures lank, emaciated, distorted, and sometimes ghostly in form and feature. They are a vivid contemporary comment from Egyptian hands upon the sacred writer’s statement, that ‘shepherds are an abomination to the Egyptians.’ Sheep are never represented in the Theban tombs as being offered in sacrifice or slaughtered for food; and though in certain districts mutton was used for food, and sheep and goats held sacred, (Her., 2:42,) these cases are regarded by Egyptologists as exceptional. (Knobel.) Woollen was esteemed unclean by the priests, and their religion forbade them to wear woollen garments into the temples, or to bury the dead in them. (Her., 2:81.) This apparent aversion to the sheep is, however, greatly offset by the wide-spread worship of Amun and of Noum as ram-headed gods, as even now illustrated in the paintings of the tombs and in the splendid ruins of Karnak, and gives no sufficient reason for the contempt in which the shepherd was held. Nor is it a sufficient reason, as some have supposed, that the shepherds were accustomed to slaughter for food the ox, which was held sacred by the Egyptians; for the Egyptian worship of the bull was restricted to a single animal at a time, called the Apis, and the sculptures represent the priests as offering bulls in sacrifice, and eating beef and veal. Besides, the nomads rarely kill the ox, and never kill the cow for food. It was not to the shepherd, as such, but to the nomadic shepherd, with his wild, roving, predatory habits, that the civilized Egyptian bore this hatred.

“There was also a special reason found for this hatred in an event which has stamped itself deeply upon Egyptian history; but whether it transpired before the era of Joseph or not is still an unsettled question. About two thousand years before Christ Egypt was invaded by a people from the north-east, of what precise nation is uncertain, who dispossessed the native princes, cast contempt upon the national religion, demolished the temples, slew the sacred animals, and set up at Memphis a foreign government which ran through three dynasties, (the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth of Manetho,) and ruled the greater part of the land for five or six centuries. They are called in history the Hyksos, or shepherd kings. The Theban king Amosis finally rose against them, and expelled them from the land, driving them into the Syrian desert. The name of shepherd became thereafter inseparably associated in the Egyptian mind with this Hyksos subjugation and tyranny, and so was especially hateful. Wilkinson believes that the Egyptian career of Joseph took place in the period just following the expulsion of the Hyksos, and so explains why, at that time especially, a shepherd was ‘an abomination to the Egyptians.’ This is, however, one of the disputed questions of Egyptian chronology whose solution is probably locked up in monuments and papyri yet to be deciphered.

“But, whatever be the explanation of this enmity, the fact is abundantly attested by the monuments; and we have this remarkable manifestation of the meekness and godly wisdom of Joseph, that, so far from attempting to conceal or disguise this unpleasing fact concerning his family, he announced it to Pharaoh at the outset, and instructed his brethren to repeat it to the king at their first introduction. Thus he secured the frontier district of Goshen for the family of Israel, where they might dwell in comparative isolation from the Egyptian idolatry. His family was introduced in such a way as to effectually preclude their political advancement. His great popularity and influence at the Egyptian court could have secured for them political preferment, or at least a total change of worldly condition; yet he is not dazzled by this most natural family ambition, but seeks first the spiritual good of his brothers and his children. In this he is the prototype of Moses, who chose to be a Hebrew exile rather than an Egyptian prince. “There are two remarkable Egyptian records of the twelfth dynasty (2020-1860 B.C., according to Wilkinson,) which strikingly illustrate the career of Joseph. One is the story of Saneha, written on one of the oldest papyri yet discovered. Saneha was a pastoral nomad, who was received into the service of the reigning Pharaoh, rose to a high rank, was driven into exile, and afterwards restored to favour — was made the king’s counsellor, given precedence over all the courtiers, ‘set over the administration of the government of Egypt to develop its resources,’ and finally ‘prepared his sepulchre among the tombs of the princes.’ (Translation by M. Chabas, in Speaker’s Commentary.) There is no proof that Saneha was the Hebrew Joseph, but the parallel is most instructive as illustrating the possibility of a foreigner’s elevation in Egypt.

“The other record, made under the same dynasty, is found in the pictures and inscriptions of the famous sepulchral grottoes of Beni-hassen, which are thirty excavations cut in the limestone along the Nile’s eastern bank. A picture in one of these tombs represents the presentation of a nomad Asiatic chief, with his family and dependents, before an Egyptian prince. Their features, colour, costume, even to the rich ‘tunic of fringe,’ (‘coat of many colours,’) are all Asiatic. There is also an inscription describing a prince who was a favourite of the Pharaoh, which brings Joseph most vividly before us. Lepsius thus translates it: ‘He injured no little child; he oppressed no widow; he detained for his own purpose no fisherman; took from his work no shepherd; no overseer’s men were taken. There was no beggar in his days; no one starved in his time. When years of famine occurred, he ploughed all the lands of the district, producing abundant food; no one was starved in it; he treated the widow as a woman with a husband to protect her.’ (BUNSEN’S Egypt, vol. v: translation by BIRCH.) Neither here is there any proof that this favourite was Joseph; but the high estimate set upon virtues and abilities just such as are shown in Joseph, furnish an instructive comment upon our history.” — Newhall.

V. 8. 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 upon Jacob with wonder.

Verse 8. 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 upon Jacob with wonder.

Ver. 8. How old art thou? Pharaoh appears to have been struck with Jacob’s gray hairs, and venerable appearance. His troubles had probably made him look older than he really was.

INTRODUCTION TO PHARAOH, AND SETTLEMENT IN EGYPT, 1-12. 1-3. They said unto Pharaoh, Thy servants are shepherds — “The Egyptian monuments abundantly illustrate the hatred and contempt which the ruling castes felt towards the shepherds. In those great pictures of Egyptian life painted on the walls of the Theban tombs in the time of the Pharaohs, the shepherds are caricatured in many ways, being represented by figures lank, emaciated, distorted, and sometimes ghostly in form and feature. They are a vivid contemporary comment from Egyptian hands upon the sacred writer’s statement, that ‘shepherds are an abomination to the Egyptians.’ Sheep are never represented in the Theban tombs as being offered in sacrifice or slaughtered for food; and though in certain districts mutton was used for food, and sheep and goats held sacred, (Her., 2:42,) these cases are regarded by Egyptologists as exceptional. (Knobel.) Woollen was esteemed unclean by the priests, and their religion forbade them to wear woollen garments into the temples, or to bury the dead in them. (Her., 2:81.) This apparent aversion to the sheep is, however, greatly offset by the wide-spread worship of Amun and of Noum as ram-headed gods, as even now illustrated in the paintings of the tombs and in the splendid ruins of Karnak, and gives no sufficient reason for the contempt in which the shepherd was held. Nor is it a sufficient reason, as some have supposed, that the shepherds were accustomed to slaughter for food the ox, which was held sacred by the Egyptians; for the Egyptian worship of the bull was restricted to a single animal at a time, called the Apis, and the sculptures represent the priests as offering bulls in sacrifice, and eating beef and veal. Besides, the nomads rarely kill the ox, and never kill the cow for food. It was not to the shepherd, as such, but to the nomadic shepherd, with his wild, roving, predatory habits, that the civilized Egyptian bore this hatred.

“There was also a special reason found for this hatred in an event which has stamped itself deeply upon Egyptian history; but whether it transpired before the era of Joseph or not is still an unsettled question. About two thousand years before Christ Egypt was invaded by a people from the north-east, of what precise nation is uncertain, who dispossessed the native princes, cast contempt upon the national religion, demolished the temples, slew the sacred animals, and set up at Memphis a foreign government which ran through three dynasties, (the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth of Manetho,) and ruled the greater part of the land for five or six centuries. They are called in history the Hyksos, or shepherd kings. The Theban king Amosis finally rose against them, and expelled them from the land, driving them into the Syrian desert. The name of shepherd became thereafter inseparably associated in the Egyptian mind with this Hyksos subjugation and tyranny, and so was especially hateful. Wilkinson believes that the Egyptian career of Joseph took place in the period just following the expulsion of the Hyksos, and so explains why, at that time especially, a shepherd was ‘an abomination to the Egyptians.’ This is, however, one of the disputed questions of Egyptian chronology whose solution is probably locked up in monuments and papyri yet to be deciphered.

“But, whatever be the explanation of this enmity, the fact is abundantly attested by the monuments; and we have this remarkable manifestation of the meekness and godly wisdom of Joseph, that, so far from attempting to conceal or disguise this unpleasing fact concerning his family, he announced it to Pharaoh at the outset, and instructed his brethren to repeat it to the king at their first introduction. Thus he secured the frontier district of Goshen for the family of Israel, where they might dwell in comparative isolation from the Egyptian idolatry. His family was introduced in such a way as to effectually preclude their political advancement. His great popularity and influence at the Egyptian court could have secured for them political preferment, or at least a total change of worldly condition; yet he is not dazzled by this most natural family ambition, but seeks first the spiritual good of his brothers and his children. In this he is the prototype of Moses, who chose to be a Hebrew exile rather than an Egyptian prince. “There are two remarkable Egyptian records of the twelfth dynasty (2020-1860 B.C., according to Wilkinson,) which strikingly illustrate the career of Joseph. One is the story of Saneha, written on one of the oldest papyri yet discovered. Saneha was a pastoral nomad, who was received into the service of the reigning Pharaoh, rose to a high rank, was driven into exile, and afterwards restored to favour — was made the king’s counsellor, given precedence over all the courtiers, ‘set over the administration of the government of Egypt to develop its resources,’ and finally ‘prepared his sepulchre among the tombs of the princes.’ (Translation by M. Chabas, in Speaker’s Commentary.) There is no proof that Saneha was the Hebrew Joseph, but the parallel is most instructive as illustrating the possibility of a foreigner’s elevation in Egypt.

“The other record, made under the same dynasty, is found in the pictures and inscriptions of the famous sepulchral grottoes of Beni-hassen, which are thirty excavations cut in the limestone along the Nile’s eastern bank. A picture in one of these tombs represents the presentation of a nomad Asiatic chief, with his family and dependents, before an Egyptian prince. Their features, colour, costume, even to the rich ‘tunic of fringe,’ (‘coat of many colours,’) are all Asiatic. There is also an inscription describing a prince who was a favourite of the Pharaoh, which brings Joseph most vividly before us. Lepsius thus translates it: ‘He injured no little child; he oppressed no widow; he detained for his own purpose no fisherman; took from his work no shepherd; no overseer’s men were taken. There was no beggar in his days; no one starved in his time. When years of famine occurred, he ploughed all the lands of the district, producing abundant food; no one was starved in it; he treated the widow as a woman with a husband to protect her.’ (BUNSEN’S Egypt, vol. v: translation by BIRCH.) Neither here is there any proof that this favourite was Joseph; but the high estimate set upon virtues and abilities just such as are shown in Joseph, furnish an instructive comment upon our history.” — Newhall.

V. 9. Observe 1. 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.

2. He reckoned his life by days; for even so it is soon reckoned, and we are not sure of the continuance of it for a day to an end, but may be turned out of this tabernacle at less than an hours warning.

3. The character he gives of them was,

(1.) That they were few. Though he had now lived 130 years, they seemed to him but as a few days, in comparison of the days of eternity, in which a thousand years are but as one day;

(2.) That they were evil. This is true concerning man in general, Job 14:1, he is of few days and full of trouble: Jacob’s life particularly had been made up of evil days. the pleasantest days of his life were yet before him.

(3.) That they were short of the days of his fathers; not so many, not so pleasant as their days. Old age came sooner upon him than it had done upon some of his ancestors.

Verse 9. The days of the years of my pilgrimage] yrwgm megurai, of my sojourning or wandering. Jacob had always lived a migratory or wandering life, in different parts of Canaan, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, scarcely ever at rest; and in the places where he lived longest, always exposed to the fatigues of the field and the desert. Our word pilgrim comes from the French pelerin and pelegrin, which are corrupted from the Latin peregrinus, an alien, stranger, or foreigner, from the adverb peregre, abroad, not at home. The pilgrim was a person who took a journey, long or short, on some religious account, submitting during the time to many hardships and privations. A more appropriate term could not be conceived to express the life of Jacob, and the motive which induced him to live such a life. His journey to Padan-aram or Mesopotamia excepted, the principal part of his journeys were properly pilgrimages, undertaken in the course of God’s providence on a religious account.

Have not attained unto the-life of my fathers] Jacob lived in the whole one hundred and forty-seven years; Isaac his father lived one hundred and eighty; and Abraham his grandfather, one hundred and seventy-five. These were days of years in comparison of the lives of the preceding patriarchs, some of whom lived nearly ten centuries!

Verse 9. 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 pilgrimage. 2d, He reckoned his life by days; for even so it is soon reckoned; and we are not sure of the continuance of it for a day to an end, but may be turned out of this tabernacle at less than an hour’s warning. 3d, The character he gives of them was, 1st, That they were few. Though he had now lived one hundred and thirty years, they seemed to him but as a few days, in comparison of the days of many of his ancestors, and especially of the days of eternity, in which a thousand years are but as one day. 2d, That they were evil. This is true concerning man in general, Job 14:1, he is of few days and full of trouble: Jacob’s life particularly had been made up of evil days; the pleasantest days of his life were yet before him. 3d, That they were short of the days of his fathers; not so many, not so pleasant as their days. Old age came sooner upon him than it had done upon some of his ancestors.

INTRODUCTION TO PHARAOH, AND SETTLEMENT IN EGYPT, 1-12. 1-3. They said unto Pharaoh, Thy servants are shepherds — “The Egyptian monuments abundantly illustrate the hatred and contempt which the ruling castes felt towards the shepherds. In those great pictures of Egyptian life painted on the walls of the Theban tombs in the time of the Pharaohs, the shepherds are caricatured in many ways, being represented by figures lank, emaciated, distorted, and sometimes ghostly in form and feature. They are a vivid contemporary comment from Egyptian hands upon the sacred writer’s statement, that ‘shepherds are an abomination to the Egyptians.’ Sheep are never represented in the Theban tombs as being offered in sacrifice or slaughtered for food; and though in certain districts mutton was used for food, and sheep and goats held sacred, (Her., 2:42,) these cases are regarded by Egyptologists as exceptional. (Knobel.) Woollen was esteemed unclean by the priests, and their religion forbade them to wear woollen garments into the temples, or to bury the dead in them. (Her., 2:81.) This apparent aversion to the sheep is, however, greatly offset by the wide-spread worship of Amun and of Noum as ram-headed gods, as even now illustrated in the paintings of the tombs and in the splendid ruins of Karnak, and gives no sufficient reason for the contempt in which the shepherd was held. Nor is it a sufficient reason, as some have supposed, that the shepherds were accustomed to slaughter for food the ox, which was held sacred by the Egyptians; for the Egyptian worship of the bull was restricted to a single animal at a time, called the Apis, and the sculptures represent the priests as offering bulls in sacrifice, and eating beef and veal. Besides, the nomads rarely kill the ox, and never kill the cow for food. It was not to the shepherd, as such, but to the nomadic shepherd, with his wild, roving, predatory habits, that the civilized Egyptian bore this hatred.

“There was also a special reason found for this hatred in an event which has stamped itself deeply upon Egyptian history; but whether it transpired before the era of Joseph or not is still an unsettled question. About two thousand years before Christ Egypt was invaded by a people from the north-east, of what precise nation is uncertain, who dispossessed the native princes, cast contempt upon the national religion, demolished the temples, slew the sacred animals, and set up at Memphis a foreign government which ran through three dynasties, (the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth of Manetho,) and ruled the greater part of the land for five or six centuries. They are called in history the Hyksos, or shepherd kings. The Theban king Amosis finally rose against them, and expelled them from the land, driving them into the Syrian desert. The name of shepherd became thereafter inseparably associated in the Egyptian mind with this Hyksos subjugation and tyranny, and so was especially hateful. Wilkinson believes that the Egyptian career of Joseph took place in the period just following the expulsion of the Hyksos, and so explains why, at that time especially, a shepherd was ‘an abomination to the Egyptians.’ This is, however, one of the disputed questions of Egyptian chronology whose solution is probably locked up in monuments and papyri yet to be deciphered.

“But, whatever be the explanation of this enmity, the fact is abundantly attested by the monuments; and we have this remarkable manifestation of the meekness and godly wisdom of Joseph, that, so far from attempting to conceal or disguise this unpleasing fact concerning his family, he announced it to Pharaoh at the outset, and instructed his brethren to repeat it to the king at their first introduction. Thus he secured the frontier district of Goshen for the family of Israel, where they might dwell in comparative isolation from the Egyptian idolatry. His family was introduced in such a way as to effectually preclude their political advancement. His great popularity and influence at the Egyptian court could have secured for them political preferment, or at least a total change of worldly condition; yet he is not dazzled by this most natural family ambition, but seeks first the spiritual good of his brothers and his children. In this he is the prototype of Moses, who chose to be a Hebrew exile rather than an Egyptian prince. “There are two remarkable Egyptian records of the twelfth dynasty (2020-1860 B.C., according to Wilkinson,) which strikingly illustrate the career of Joseph. One is the story of Saneha, written on one of the oldest papyri yet discovered. Saneha was a pastoral nomad, who was received into the service of the reigning Pharaoh, rose to a high rank, was driven into exile, and afterwards restored to favour — was made the king’s counsellor, given precedence over all the courtiers, ‘set over the administration of the government of Egypt to develop its resources,’ and finally ‘prepared his sepulchre among the tombs of the princes.’ (Translation by M. Chabas, in Speaker’s Commentary.) There is no proof that Saneha was the Hebrew Joseph, but the parallel is most instructive as illustrating the possibility of a foreigner’s elevation in Egypt.

“The other record, made under the same dynasty, is found in the pictures and inscriptions of the famous sepulchral grottoes of Beni-hassen, which are thirty excavations cut in the limestone along the Nile’s eastern bank. A picture in one of these tombs represents the presentation of a nomad Asiatic chief, with his family and dependents, before an Egyptian prince. Their features, colour, costume, even to the rich ‘tunic of fringe,’ (‘coat of many colours,’) are all Asiatic. There is also an inscription describing a prince who was a favourite of the Pharaoh, which brings Joseph most vividly before us. Lepsius thus translates it: ‘He injured no little child; he oppressed no widow; he detained for his own purpose no fisherman; took from his work no shepherd; no overseer’s men were taken. There was no beggar in his days; no one starved in his time. When years of famine occurred, he ploughed all the lands of the district, producing abundant food; no one was starved in it; he treated the widow as a woman with a husband to protect her.’ (BUNSEN’S Egypt, vol. v: translation by BIRCH.) Neither here is there any proof that this favourite was Joseph; but the high estimate set upon virtues and abilities just such as are shown in Joseph, furnish an instructive comment upon our history.” — Newhall.

V. 10. 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.

Ver. 10. Jacob blessed Pharaoh, being a patriarch, and much older than the king.

INTRODUCTION TO PHARAOH, AND SETTLEMENT IN EGYPT, 1-12. 1-3. They said unto Pharaoh, Thy servants are shepherds — “The Egyptian monuments abundantly illustrate the hatred and contempt which the ruling castes felt towards the shepherds. In those great pictures of Egyptian life painted on the walls of the Theban tombs in the time of the Pharaohs, the shepherds are caricatured in many ways, being represented by figures lank, emaciated, distorted, and sometimes ghostly in form and feature. They are a vivid contemporary comment from Egyptian hands upon the sacred writer’s statement, that ‘shepherds are an abomination to the Egyptians.’ Sheep are never represented in the Theban tombs as being offered in sacrifice or slaughtered for food; and though in certain districts mutton was used for food, and sheep and goats held sacred, (Her., 2:42,) these cases are regarded by Egyptologists as exceptional. (Knobel.) Woollen was esteemed unclean by the priests, and their religion forbade them to wear woollen garments into the temples, or to bury the dead in them. (Her., 2:81.) This apparent aversion to the sheep is, however, greatly offset by the wide-spread worship of Amun and of Noum as ram-headed gods, as even now illustrated in the paintings of the tombs and in the splendid ruins of Karnak, and gives no sufficient reason for the contempt in which the shepherd was held. Nor is it a sufficient reason, as some have supposed, that the shepherds were accustomed to slaughter for food the ox, which was held sacred by the Egyptians; for the Egyptian worship of the bull was restricted to a single animal at a time, called the Apis, and the sculptures represent the priests as offering bulls in sacrifice, and eating beef and veal. Besides, the nomads rarely kill the ox, and never kill the cow for food. It was not to the shepherd, as such, but to the nomadic shepherd, with his wild, roving, predatory habits, that the civilized Egyptian bore this hatred.

“There was also a special reason found for this hatred in an event which has stamped itself deeply upon Egyptian history; but whether it transpired before the era of Joseph or not is still an unsettled question. About two thousand years before Christ Egypt was invaded by a people from the north-east, of what precise nation is uncertain, who dispossessed the native princes, cast contempt upon the national religion, demolished the temples, slew the sacred animals, and set up at Memphis a foreign government which ran through three dynasties, (the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth of Manetho,) and ruled the greater part of the land for five or six centuries. They are called in history the Hyksos, or shepherd kings. The Theban king Amosis finally rose against them, and expelled them from the land, driving them into the Syrian desert. The name of shepherd became thereafter inseparably associated in the Egyptian mind with this Hyksos subjugation and tyranny, and so was especially hateful. Wilkinson believes that the Egyptian career of Joseph took place in the period just following the expulsion of the Hyksos, and so explains why, at that time especially, a shepherd was ‘an abomination to the Egyptians.’ This is, however, one of the disputed questions of Egyptian chronology whose solution is probably locked up in monuments and papyri yet to be deciphered.

“But, whatever be the explanation of this enmity, the fact is abundantly attested by the monuments; and we have this remarkable manifestation of the meekness and godly wisdom of Joseph, that, so far from attempting to conceal or disguise this unpleasing fact concerning his family, he announced it to Pharaoh at the outset, and instructed his brethren to repeat it to the king at their first introduction. Thus he secured the frontier district of Goshen for the family of Israel, where they might dwell in comparative isolation from the Egyptian idolatry. His family was introduced in such a way as to effectually preclude their political advancement. His great popularity and influence at the Egyptian court could have secured for them political preferment, or at least a total change of worldly condition; yet he is not dazzled by this most natural family ambition, but seeks first the spiritual good of his brothers and his children. In this he is the prototype of Moses, who chose to be a Hebrew exile rather than an Egyptian prince. “There are two remarkable Egyptian records of the twelfth dynasty (2020-1860 B.C., according to Wilkinson,) which strikingly illustrate the career of Joseph. One is the story of Saneha, written on one of the oldest papyri yet discovered. Saneha was a pastoral nomad, who was received into the service of the reigning Pharaoh, rose to a high rank, was driven into exile, and afterwards restored to favour — was made the king’s counsellor, given precedence over all the courtiers, ‘set over the administration of the government of Egypt to develop its resources,’ and finally ‘prepared his sepulchre among the tombs of the princes.’ (Translation by M. Chabas, in Speaker’s Commentary.) There is no proof that Saneha was the Hebrew Joseph, but the parallel is most instructive as illustrating the possibility of a foreigner’s elevation in Egypt.

“The other record, made under the same dynasty, is found in the pictures and inscriptions of the famous sepulchral grottoes of Beni-hassen, which are thirty excavations cut in the limestone along the Nile’s eastern bank. A picture in one of these tombs represents the presentation of a nomad Asiatic chief, with his family and dependents, before an Egyptian prince. Their features, colour, costume, even to the rich ‘tunic of fringe,’ (‘coat of many colours,’) are all Asiatic. There is also an inscription describing a prince who was a favourite of the Pharaoh, which brings Joseph most vividly before us. Lepsius thus translates it: ‘He injured no little child; he oppressed no widow; he detained for his own purpose no fisherman; took from his work no shepherd; no overseer’s men were taken. There was no beggar in his days; no one starved in his time. When years of famine occurred, he ploughed all the lands of the district, producing abundant food; no one was starved in it; he treated the widow as a woman with a husband to protect her.’ (BUNSEN’S Egypt, vol. v: translation by BIRCH.) Neither here is there any proof that this favourite was Joseph; but the high estimate set upon virtues and abilities just such as are shown in Joseph, furnish an instructive comment upon our history.” — Newhall.

Ver. 11. Give them a possession. The population being thin, much land, as in Canaan, was unoccupied.

11. Rameses — See notes on verse 6, and Exodus 1:11.

Verse 12. With bread according to their families — ãch ypl µjl, 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. 24:57; Isaiah 30:2; or, as a little child is nourished: he, as it were, put their meat into their very mouths: it was brought to them without any more care or pains of their own, than an infant takes for its food.

12. According to their families — Hebrews, for the mouth of the little ones; that is, bread for the mouths of these. Thus Joseph became a nourishing father to his aged father’s household, as well as to Pharaoh and all Egypt.

Verse 13. The land fainted — So the Chaldee renders the word hlt. 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 class of people in a time of scarcity and famine. Instead of being humbled under the chastening hand of God, they are filled with rage both against him and their governors, and become furious.

JOSEPH’S ADMINISTRATION DURING THE YEARS OF FAMINE, 13-26.

13. Egypt and… Canaan fainted — Like an exhausted person, dying of thirst.

Verse 14. Gathered up all the money] i.e., by selling corn out of the public stores to the people; and this he did till the money failed, Genesis 47:15, till all the money was exchanged for corn, and brought into Pharaoh’s treasury. Be sides the fifth part of the produce of the seven plentiful years, Joseph had bought additional corn with Pharaoh’s money to lay up against the famine that was to prevail in the seven years of dearth; and it is very likely that this was sold out at the price for which it was bought, and the fifth part, which belonged to Pharaoh, sold out at the same price. And as money at that time could not be plentiful, the cash of the whole nation was thus exhausted as far as that had circulated among the common people.

JOSEPH’S ADMINISTRATION DURING THE YEARS OF FAMINE, 13-26.

13. Egypt and… Canaan fainted — Like an exhausted person, dying of thirst.

15. All the Egyptians came — Came by their representatives. Observe the three stages of impoverishment through which they passed in becoming the dependents of Pharaoh. First they used up all their money; then they delivered up all their cattle for bread; and finally they surrendered all title and claim to their lands, and thus became serfs unto Pharaoh.

Verse 16. Give your cattle] This was the wisest measure that could be adopted, both for the preservation of the people and of the cattle also. As the people had not grain for their own sustenance, consequently they could have none for their cattle; hence the cattle were in the most imminent danger of starving; and the people also were in equal danger, as they must have divided a portion of that bought for themselves with the cattle, which for the sake of tillage, &c., they wished of course to preserve till the seven years of famine should end. The cattle being bought by Joseph were supported at the royal expense, and very likely returned to the people at the end of the famine; for how else could they cultivate their ground, transport their merchandise, &c., &c.? For this part of Joseph’s conduct he certainly deserves high praise and no censure.

JOSEPH’S ADMINISTRATION DURING THE YEARS OF FAMINE, 13-26.

13. Egypt and… Canaan fainted — Like an exhausted person, dying of thirst.

JOSEPH’S ADMINISTRATION DURING THE YEARS OF FAMINE, 13-26.

13. Egypt and… Canaan fainted — Like an exhausted person, dying of thirst.

Verse 18. When that year was ended] The sixth year of the famine, they came unto him the second year, which was the last or seventh year of the famine, in which it was necessary to sow the land that there might be a crop the succeeding year; for Joseph, on whose prediction they relied, had foretold that the famine should continue only seven years, and consequently they expected the eighth year to be a fruitful year provided the land was sowed, without which, though the inundation of the land by the Nile might amount to the sixteen requisite cubits, there could be no crop.

Ver. 18. The second year; that is, the second year after all the private stores were exhausted, and about the fifth of the famine.

18. The second year — The second year after their money failed.

Verse 19. Buy us and our land for bread] In times of famine in Hindostan, thousands of children have been sold to prevent their perishing. In the Burman empire the sale of whole families to discharge debts is very common.-Ward’s Customs.

Verses 19-25. Wherefore shall we die, we and our land? — Land may be said to die when it is desolate and barren; or when the fruits of it die, or, which is the same in effect, do not live and flourish. Buy us and our land for bread — The severity of the famine brought them to this. To obtain bread they not only readily parted with their money, their cattle, their lands, but even at last sold themselves nay, and thought themselves under great obligations to Joseph that they could, even on these apparently hard terms, obtain food! How thankful we ought to be in this country, that we seldom know, by experience, what either famine or scarcity means!

JOSEPH’S ADMINISTRATION DURING THE YEARS OF FAMINE, 13-26.

13. Egypt and… Canaan fainted — Like an exhausted person, dying of thirst.

Verses 19-25. Wherefore shall we die, we and our land? — Land may be said to die when it is desolate and barren; or when the fruits of it die, or, which is the same in effect, do not live and flourish. Buy us and our land for bread — The severity of the famine brought them to this. To obtain bread they not only readily parted with their money, their cattle, their lands, but even at last sold themselves nay, and thought themselves under great obligations to Joseph that they could, even on these apparently hard terms, obtain food! How thankful we ought to be in this country, that we seldom know, by experience, what either famine or scarcity means!

20. The land became Pharaoh’s — He thus became absolute owner of the soil, and this enabled Joseph freely and without opposition to take the measures and enact the law described in verses 23-26.

V. 21. 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 sensible of it as a great kindness, and were thankful they were not worse used.

Verse 21. And as for the people, he removed them to cities] It is very likely that Joseph was influenced by no political motive in removing the people to the cities, but merely by a motive of humanity and prudence. As the corn was laid up in the cities he found it more convenient to bring them to the place where they might be conveniently fed; each being within the reach of an easy distribution. Thus then the country which could afford no sustenance was abandoned for the time being, that the people might be fed in those places where the provision was deposited.

Verse 21. 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 sensible of it as a great kindness, and were thankful they were not worse used.

Ver. 21. He removed them to cities. How came those cities to be so thinly populated? It is replied, not the famine, for that drove the people into Egypt. But there had been an inundation on all the lower countries, accompanied with a most tremendous hurricane from the south west, for the trees found in marshes lie with their heads toward the north east. It happened about the autumnal equinox, hazel nuts being found in abundance. In this flood, king Ogyges was drowned in Thebes, a city of Achaia, which he had builded. Eusebius places this occurrence above a thousand and twenty years before the first Greek Olympiade. Helvicos, Chronicles p. 13, places it 530 years after the flood of Noah, and 248 before the flood of Deucalion, which laid all Thessalia under water: Augustine says, in his city of God, that it was not so great as the inundation in the days of Ogyges. Egypt also must then have been laid very much under water, and the inhabitants and cattle very much overwhelmed in this irruption of the sea. Varro, in his third book on agriculture, places the inundation of Ogyges 1500 years before the foundation of Rome. Dr. Edward Clarke, our able and accredited traveller, fully coincides, that the immense quantities of horns and bones of quadrupeds of constant occurrence in bogs and marshes, were deposited there during the Ogygian overflowing of the sea. The tanning principle must have contributed remarkably to their preservation. See note, chap. 8:3.

21. Removed them to cities — For greater convenience in supplying them with food; for he had stored the grain in the cities. Genesis 41:48.

Verse 22. The land of the priests bought he not] From this verse it is natural to infer that whatever the religion of Egypt was, it was established by law and supported by the state. Hence when Joseph bought all the lands of the Egyptians for Pharaoh, he bought not the land of the priests, for that was a portion assigned them by Pharaoh; and they did eat-did live on, that portion. This is the earliest account we have of an established religion supported by the state.

Verses 19-25. Wherefore shall we die, we and our land? — Land may be said to die when it is desolate and barren; or when the fruits of it die, or, which is the same in effect, do not live and flourish. Buy us and our land for bread — The severity of the famine brought them to this. To obtain bread they not only readily parted with their money, their cattle, their lands, but even at last sold themselves nay, and thought themselves under great obligations to Joseph that they could, even on these apparently hard terms, obtain food! How thankful we ought to be in this country, that we seldom know, by experience, what either famine or scarcity means!

Ver. 22. The priests had a portion assigned. It is the character of piety to give food and raiment to God’s servants; and if there be any redundancy in that portion, it is not to be expended in fulfilling the lusts of the flesh, but on the poor, and in works of benevolence, as might abundantly be proved from antiquity.

22. Land of the priests bought he not — Pharaoh’s reverence for the ministers of religion would not allow an alienation of their land from them. Their portion which Pharaoh gave them — During the years of famine he ordered them to be supplied from the public treasury, without money and without price. This is represented as Pharaoh’s act rather than Joseph’s. The latter, of course, would not interfere. He had married the daughter of one of the priests. But the sacred writer clearly intimates that the reverence shown to the Egyptian priesthood by this measure was for Pharaoh’s sake, not for his own.

Verse 23. I have bought you this day and your land for Pharaoh] It fully appears that the kingdom of Egypt was previously to the time of Joseph a very limited monarchy. The king had his estates; the priests had their lands; and the common people their patrimony independently of both. The land of Rameses or Goshen appears to have been the king’s land, Genesis 47:11. The priests had their lands, which they did not sell to Joseph, Genesis 47:22, 26; and that the people had lands independent of the crown, is evident from the purchases Joseph made, Genesis 47:19, 20; and we may conclude from those purchases that Pharaoh had no power to levy taxes upon his subjects to increase his own revenue until he had bought the original right which each individual had in his possessions. And when Joseph bought this for the king he raised the crown an ample revenue, though he restored the lands, by obliging each to pay one fifth of the product to the king, Genesis 47:24. And it is worthy of remark that the people of Egypt well understood the distinction between subjects and servants; for when they came to sell their land, they offered to sell themselves also, and said: Buy us and our land, and we and our land will be servants unto Pharaoh, Genesis 47:19.

Diodorus Siculus, lib. i., gives the same account of the ancient constitution of Egypt. “The land,” says he, “was divided into three parts: 1. One belonged to the PRIESTS, with which they provided all sacrifices, and maintained all the ministers of religion. 2. A second part was the KING’S, to support his court and family, and to supply expenses for wars if they should happen. Hence there were no taxes, the king having so ample an estate. 3. The remainder of the land belonged to the SUBJECTS, who appear (from the account of Diodorus) to have been all soldiers, a kind of standing militia, liable, at the king’s expense, to serve in all wars for the preservation of the state.” This was a constitution something like the British; the government appears to have been mixed, and the monarchy properly limited, till Joseph, by buying the land of the people, made the king in some sort despotic. But it does not appear that any improper use was made of this, as in much later times we find it still a comparatively limited monarchy.

Verses 19-25. Wherefore shall we die, we and our land? — Land may be said to die when it is desolate and barren; or when the fruits of it die, or, which is the same in effect, do not live and flourish. Buy us and our land for bread — The severity of the famine brought them to this. To obtain bread they not only readily parted with their money, their cattle, their lands, but even at last sold themselves nay, and thought themselves under great obligations to Joseph that they could, even on these apparently hard terms, obtain food! How thankful we ought to be in this country, that we seldom know, by experience, what either famine or scarcity means!

23. I have bought you — This fact gave him the opportunity to dictate the future policy of the kingdom as to the royal revenue; a policy which the people were probably now prepared to see the wisdom of, and to which they readily acceded. Verse 25.

Verse 24. Ye shall give the fifth part unto Pharaoh] This is precisely the case in Hindostan; the king has the fifth part of all the crops.

Verses 19-25. Wherefore shall we die, we and our land? — Land may be said to die when it is desolate and barren; or when the fruits of it die, or, which is the same in effect, do not live and flourish. Buy us and our land for bread — The severity of the famine brought them to this. To obtain bread they not only readily parted with their money, their cattle, their lands, but even at last sold themselves nay, and thought themselves under great obligations to Joseph that they could, even on these apparently hard terms, obtain food! How thankful we ought to be in this country, that we seldom know, by experience, what either famine or scarcity means!

Ver. 24. A fifth part. A very easy rental, when houses, lands and cattle, were provided by the prince. The Egyptian police must have been wise and salutary in its arrangements, lenient, but vigorous in its operation, that no sedition, no riot was known during this unexampled pressure of calamity and want. How happy are that prince and that people, who can find a divine minister to take the helm during a dangerous course.

JOSEPH’S ADMINISTRATION DURING THE YEARS OF FAMINE, 13-26.

13. Egypt and… Canaan fainted — Like an exhausted person, dying of thirst.

Verses 19-25. Wherefore shall we die, we and our land? — Land may be said to die when it is desolate and barren; or when the fruits of it die, or, which is the same in effect, do not live and flourish. Buy us and our land for bread — The severity of the famine brought them to this. To obtain bread they not only readily parted with their money, their cattle, their lands, but even at last sold themselves nay, and thought themselves under great obligations to Joseph that they could, even on these apparently hard terms, obtain food! How thankful we ought to be in this country, that we seldom know, by experience, what either famine or scarcity means!

JOSEPH’S ADMINISTRATION DURING THE YEARS OF FAMINE, 13-26.

13. Egypt and… Canaan fainted — Like an exhausted person, dying of thirst.

Verse 26. And Joseph made it a law] That the people should hold their land from the king, and give him the fifth part of the produce as a yearly tax. Beyond this it appears the king had no farther demands. The whole of this conduct of Joseph has been as strongly censured by some as applauded by others. It is natural for men to run into extremes in attacking or defending any position. Sober and judicious men will consider what Joseph did by Divine appointment as a prophet of God, and what he did merely as a statesman from the circumstances of the case, the complexion of the times, and the character of the people over whom he presided. When this is dispassionately done, we shall see much reason to adore God, applaud the man, and perhaps in some cases censure the minister. Joseph is never held up to our view as an unerring prophet of God. He was an honoured instrument in the hands of God of saving two nations from utter ruin, and especially of preserving that family from which the Messiah was to spring, and of perpetuating the true religion among them. In this character he is represented in the sacred pages. His conduct as the prime minister of Pharaoh was powerfully indicative of a deep and consummate politician, who had high notions of prerogative, which led him to use every prudent means to aggrandize his master, and at the same time to do what he judged best on the whole for the people he governed. See the conclusion of the 50th chapter. See Clarke on “Genesis 50:26”.

26. Joseph made it a law — It has been thought exorbitant and oppressive that Pharaoh should have the fifth part of the produce of the land. But we should observe, 1) That during the years of plenty the land of Egypt yielded an excessive abundance, (Genesis 41:47, 49,) and the Egyptians had no difficulty in laying up one fifth. 2) The people made no objection to Joseph’s law. 3) The liability of that land to suffer from famine made it a simple matter of wise government to lay up stores of grain for such times of need. This law of Joseph maintained for the king an ample but not oppressive revenue, while at the same time it virtually restored the land to the people, and made the king’s relation to them that of a provident and nourishing father.

“All the main points in the statements of this chapter are confirmed by Herodotus, Diodorus, Strabo, and the monuments. Herodotus (ii, 109) says, that Sesostris divided the soil among the inhabitants, assigning square plots of land of equal size to all, and obtained his revenue from a rent paid annually by the holders. Diodorus (i, 54) says, that Sesoosis divided the whole country into thirty-six nomes, and set nomarchs over each to take care of the royal revenue and administer their respective provinces. Strabo (xvii, p. 787) tells us, that the occupiers of the land held it subject to a rent. Again, Diodorus (i, 73, 74) represents the land as possessed only by the priests, the king, and the warriors, which testimony is confirmed by the sculptures. Wilkinson, i, p. 263. The discrepancy of this from the account in Genesis is apparent in the silence of the latter concerning thelands assigned to the warrior caste. The reservation of their lands to the priests is expressly mentioned in verse 22; but nothing is said of the warriors. There was, however, a marked difference in the tenure of land by the warriors from that by the priests. Herod. otus (ii, 168) says, that each warrior had assigned to him twelve arurae of land (each arura being a square of one hundred Egyptian cubits;) that is to say, there were no landed possessions vested in the caste, but certain fixed portions assigned to each person; and these, as given by the sovereign’s will, so apparently were liable to be withheld or taken away by the same will; for we find that Sethos, the contemporary of Sennacherib, and therefore of Hezekiah and Isaiah, actually deprived the warriors of those lands which former kings had conceded to them. Herod. 2:141. It is, therefore, as Knobel remarks, highly probable that the original reservation of their lands was only to the priests, and that the warrior caste did not come into possession of their twelve arurae each till after the time of Joseph. In the other important particulars the sacred and profane accounts entirely tally, namely, that by royal appointment the original proprietors of the land became crown tenants, holding their land by payment of a rent or tribute; whilst the priests only were left in full possession of their former lands and revenues. As to the particular king to whom this is attributed by Herodotus and Diodorus, Lepsius (Chronol. Egypt., i, p. 304) supposes that this was not the Sesostris of Manetho’s twelfth dynasty, (Osirtasen of the Monuments,) but a Sethos or Sethosis of the nineteenth dynasty, whomhe considers to be the Pharaoh of Joseph.

“The nineteenth dynasty is, however, certainly much too late a date for Joseph. It may be a question whether the division of the land into thirty-six nomes and into square plots of equal size by Sesostris, be the same transaction as the purchasing and restoring of the land by Joseph. The people were already in possession of their property when Joseph bought it, and they received it again on condition of paying a fifth of the produce as a rent. But whether or not this act of Sesostris be identified with that of Joseph, (or the Pharaoh of Joseph), the profane historians and the monuments completely bear out the testimony of the author of Genesis as to the condition of land tenure, and its origin in an exercise of the sovereign’s authority.” — Speaker’s Commentary.

JACOB’S DESIRE TO BE BURIED WITH HIS FATHERS, 27-31.

V. 28. 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 least able to bear care and fatigue, he had least occasion for it, being well provided for by his son without his own forecast.

Verse 28. 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 least able to bear care and fatigue, he had least occasion for it, being well provided for by his son without his own forecast.

28. Seventeen years — He survived the famine, and lived twelve years thereafter to see the result of the wise administration of Joseph. Yet the spiritually minded patriarch sees something better for his posterity than the land of Egypt.

V. 29. 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 Canaan was the land of his nativity, but in faith, because it was the land of promise, which he desired thus, as it were to keep possession of ‘till the time should come when his posterity should be masters of it: and because it was a type of heaven, that better country, which he was in expectation of. When this was done,

Israel bowed himself upon the bed’s head-Worshipping God, as it is explained, Hebrews 11:21, giving God thanks for all his favours, and particularly for this, that Joseph was ready, to put his hand upon his eyes. Thus they that go down to the dust should, with humble thankfulness, bow before God, the God of their mercies.

Verse 29. Put-thy hand under my thigh] See Clarke on “Genesis 24:2”.

Verse 29. 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 because Canaan was the land of his nativity, but in faith, because it was the land of promise, which he desired thus, as it were, to keep possession of until the time should come when his posterity should be masters of it: and because it was a type of heaven, that better country, which he was in expectation of. When this was done, Israel bowed himself upon the bed’s head — Worshipping God, as it is explained, Hebrews 11:21, giving God thanks for all his favours, and particularly for this, that Joseph was ready to put his hand upon his eyes. Thus they that go down to the dust should, with humble thankfulness, bow before God, the God of their mercies.

Ver. 29. Put thy hand under my thigh: words of modesty. Circumcision being the seal of all the righteousness of God promised to Abraham, Jacob required an oath by that covenant that his bones should rest in the promised land, and in hope of the joyful resurrection of the dead.

29. Israel must die — The weakness and infirmities of old age admonished him that his end was near at hand. My thigh. See note on Genesis 24:2.

Verse 30. I will lie with my fathers] As God had promised the land of Canaan to Abraham and his posterity, Jacob considered it as a consecrated place, under the particular superintendence and blessing of God: and as Sarah, Abraham, and Isaac were interred near to Hebron, he in all probability wished to lie, not only in the same place, but in the same grave; and it is not likely that he would have been solicitous about this, had he not considered that promised land as being a type of the rest that remains for the people of God, and a pledge of the inheritance among the saints in light.

Ver. 30. Carry me out of Egypt. Jacob required an oath of this, that his family might ever regard Canaan as their promised inheritance; and that Joseph might have the better plea for attending the funeral. Believer, no earthly Goshen is thy home.

30. I will lie with my fathers — Egypt will do to live in for a time, but Jacob would have his dust repose with that of Abraham and Isaac in the land of Canaan. Compare the touching words of Genesis 49:29-32. Such a dying request none would refuse.

Verse 31. And Israel bowed himself upon the bed’s head.] Jacob was now both old and feeble, and we may suppose him reclined on his couch when Joseph came; that he afterwards sat up erect (see Genesis 48:2) while conversing with his son, and receiving his oath and promise; and that when this was finished he bowed himself upon the bed’s head-exhausted with the conversation, he again reclined himself on his bed as before. This seems to be the simple meaning, which the text unconnected with any religious system or prejudice, naturally proposes. But because hjv shachah, signifies not only to bow but to worship, because acts of religious worship were performed by bowing or prostration, and because hcm mittah, a bed, by the change of the points, only becomes matteh, a staff, in which sense the Septuagint took it, translating the original words thus: kai prosekunhsen israhl epi to akron rhv rabdou autou, and Israel worshipped upon the top of his staff, which the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, Hebrews 11:21, quotes literatim; therefore some have supposed that Jacob certainly had a carved image on the head or top of his staff, to which he paid a species of adoration; or that he bowed himself to the staff or sceptre of Joseph, thus fulfilling the prophetic import of his son’s dreams! The sense of the Hebrew text is given above. If the reader prefers the sense of the Septuagint and the Epistle to the Hebrews, the meaning is, that Jacob, through feebleness, supported himself with a staff, and that, when he got the requisite assurance from Joseph that his dead body should be carried to Canaan, leaning on his staff be bowed his head in adoration to God, who had supported him all his life long, and hitherto fulfilled all his promises.

GENESIS

Ver. 31. Upon the bed’s head. The Septuagint reads, upon the top of his staff; as is followed by St. Paul, Hebrews 11.

31. Upon the bed’s head — The Syriac and Sept., (quoted in Hebrews 11:21,) read, on the head (or top) of his staff. Either meaning is possible, since the Hebrew hcm means either bed or staff, according as it is punctuated and pronounced.