genesis 46--Israel's Family Reunion

Joseph Brings His Family to Egypt

46 So Israel took his journey with all that he had and came to Beersheba, and offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. 2 And God spoke to Israel in visions of the night and said, “Jacob, Jacob.” And he said, “Here I am.” 3 Then he said, “I am God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you into a great nation. 4 I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again, and Joseph's hand shall close your eyes.”

5 Then Jacob set out from Beersheba. The sons of Israel carried Jacob their father, their little ones, and their wives, in the wagons that Pharaoh had sent to carry him. 6 They also took their livestock and their goods, which they had gained in the land of Canaan, and came into Egypt, Jacob and all his offspring with him, 7 his sons, and his sons' sons with him, his daughters, and his sons' daughters. All his offspring he brought with him into Egypt.

8 Now these are the names of the descendants of Israel, who came into Egypt, Jacob and his sons. Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, 9 and the sons of Reuben: Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi. 10 The sons of Simeon: Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jachin, Zohar, and Shaul, the son of a Canaanite woman. 11 The sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. 12 The sons of Judah: Er, Onan, Shelah, Perez, and Zerah (but Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan); and the sons of Perez were Hezron and Hamul. 13 The sons of Issachar: Tola, Puvah, Yob, and Shimron. 14 The sons of Zebulun: Sered, Elon, and Jahleel. 15 These are the sons of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob in Paddan-aram, together with his daughter Dinah; altogether his sons and his daughters numbered thirty-three.

16 The sons of Gad: Ziphion, Haggi, Shuni, Ezbon, Eri, Arodi, and Areli. 17 The sons of Asher: Imnah, Ishvah, Ishvi, Beriah, with Serah their sister. And the sons of Beriah: Heber and Malchiel. 18 These are the sons of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to Leah his daughter; and these she bore to Jacob—sixteen persons.

19 The sons of Rachel, Jacob's wife: Joseph and Benjamin. 20 And to Joseph in the land of Egypt were born Manasseh and Ephraim, whom Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera the priest of On, bore to him. 21 And the sons of Benjamin: Bela, Becher, Ashbel, Gera, Naaman, Ehi, Rosh, Muppim, Huppim, and Ard. 22 These are the sons of Rachel, who were born to Jacob—fourteen persons in all.

23 The son of Dan: Hushim. 24 The sons of Naphtali: Jahzeel, Guni, Jezer, and Shillem. 25 These are the sons of Bilhah, whom Laban gave to Rachel his daughter, and these she bore to Jacob—seven persons in all.

26 All the persons belonging to Jacob who came into Egypt, who were his own descendants, not including Jacob's sons' wives, were sixty-six persons in all. 27 And the sons of Joseph, who were born to him in Egypt, were two. All the persons of the house of Jacob who came into Egypt were seventy.

Jacob and Joseph Reunited
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28 He had sent Judah ahead of him to Joseph to show the way before him in Goshen, and they came into the land of Goshen. 29 Then Joseph prepared his chariot and went up to meet Israel his father in Goshen. He presented himself to him and fell on his neck and wept on his neck a good while. 30 Israel said to Joseph, “Now let me die, since I have seen your face and know that you are still alive.” 31 Joseph said to his brothers and to his father's household, “I will go up and tell Pharaoh and will say to him, ‘My brothers and my father's household, who were in the land of Canaan, have come to me. 32 And the men are shepherds, for they have been keepers of livestock, and they have brought their flocks and their herds and all that they have.’ 33 When Pharaoh calls you and says, ‘What is your occupation?’ 34 you shall say, ‘Your servants have been keepers of livestock from our youth even until now, both we and our fathers,’ in order that you may dwell in the land of Goshen, for every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians.”

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We see Jacob's identity return to that of the person God had called him to be---Israel, the one who had wrestled with both God and man, and we see that he returns once again to the place of Beersheba, one of the places where he had and encounter with God and built an altar and made sacrifices, which is something we haven't seen from him in quite some time.

Once again, God renews his covenant with Israel and while God had told Abraham and Isaac to stay away from Egypt in the past, God tells Israel not to be afraid of the trip to Egypt because God still plans to make a great nation of His people--Jacob need not worry about being towards the end of his life and needing to provide for his family, because God is going to be the one to provide for them.

This is more than a family reunion, as Jacob and all of his children and grandchildren pull up roots and are transplanted from Canaan to Egypt--they bring everyone and everything with them, and to make that point, a genealogy is given of all the heads of the families that make the trip, and there are many--66 not including wives or those who were part of the household but not born of Jacob.  Let's compare this number to that in the book of Numbers (names so because God had Moses number the people a couple of times, once as they were coming out of Egypt, and another time before they entered the Promised Land) and we'll see that using similar counts--not counting women or non-Israelites who were part of the camp, there were 603, 550 men of fighting age who were counted at the time of the Exodus--over 9,000 times as many people.  Surely God made good on His promise to make a great nation out of them.

Judah once again is seen as the leader of the family as he is sent ahead to make contact with Joseph so that he can get directions to the land of Goshen that has been prepared for Israel and his sons and their families and Judah led his family to their new home where Joseph was waiting for them.

And Joseph prepares them for their meeting with Pharaoh and tells them what to say, because Joseph knows that he needs to keep his people under the protection of Egypt and to experience the blessing of Egypt while not being corrupted by the pagan religion and culture of Egypt.  So Joseph tells them to be sure that each of them to a man tells Pharaoh that they are and always have been shepherds and herdsmen because that job was culturally detestable to the Egyptians (probably because the livestock and those who took care of them were smelly, and they wanted to keep that odor out of their cities).  This is not that different today that society doesn't look on farming and raising of livestock as a noble position and thinks of these people as somehow less educated and they usually live well outside the cities places of wide-open pasture and lots of fresh water for their land and animals.

Joseph's plan is going to work and Pharaoh will agree to let the Israelites have the entire land of Goshen--some of the most fertile land in all of Egypt as it is part of the Nile Delta.