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Reading: Gen.46:1-7; 46:26-47:12; 47:27-31.

God Moves His People into Egypt

The scene has now all been set. The moment of climax is upon us. Surely, now, Moses will focus upon the reunion of the long separated son with his father. But, you know, that is not what Moses wants to highlight as of first importance. We're perhaps too used to the "human touch" that we become overly sentimental in our approach to the Bible, reading it for stories of human interest. Yes, Moses will speak of Joseph's meeting with his father – it won't be passed over - but it will be done in just a couple of verses. Moses is far more interested in letting his readers know just how God's people came to be settled in the foreign land of Egypt.

Jacob has been convinced ) by the reports his sons have given him and by the confirming evidence of those wagons) that Joseph is indeed still alive. And Joseph is not just barely alive but he occupies a position of great honour and responsibility in Egypt as well.

So Jacob begins the journey. He sets out from his home (Hebron?) and travels towards the southern borders of the land coming to Beersheba. But here he stops and appears to be troubled. He is torn now. What should he do?

His son Joseph is alive and all Jacob's natural instincts are to go to see him. Joseph moreover has promised to care for and to provide for his whole family. What more natural then than to respond at once?

And yet?

Jacob knew that a prophecy given to his grandfather Abraham. Abraham's descendants would be made slaves in a foreign land for 400 years – would Egypt be this foreign land?

And Egypt already had a history!

Look at the mess Abraham got into when he went there to get away from a famine!

Then remember the time when Isaac planned to go to Egypt to avoid another famine and God spoke so clearly to him that he wasn't to go there. God promised to take care of him in the land of promise.

So what should Jacob do? Was it right to go to Egypt or not? It is not always easy to understand just how God is leading.

So Jacob stops at Beersheba and offers sacrifices – and sacrifices were an integral part of worship. Jacob doesn't just plough on even though all his emotions might well be pulling him in the direction of his long lost son – he takes time out to worship his God!

God responds with "visions of the night".

Firstly God identifies just who it is that is speaking to Jacob. "I am God, the God of your fathers".

Next come a series of specific encouragements: he is not to fear going down to Egypt for it is there that the covenant promises will begin to be fulfilled. It will be in Egypt that his largish family clan will develop into a great nation.

God Himself promises to go down with Jacob into Egypt! This might not strike us as something particularly phenomenal but in an age when gods were usually regarded as local deities whose influence was strictly limited in well-defined geographical terms this was a tremendous and surprising assurance! And the future will not be forever in Egypt – the Promised Land is not forgotten – this great nation will one day be brought back out of Egypt!

Finally the comforting words are spoken to him that it will be Joseph who will tenderly close his eyes when the time comes for Jacob to die.

Nothing more is needed. Having been reassured by God of the propriety of the adventure Jacob sets off with his entire family to go to Egypt.

Moses takes great pains to show us how complete was this people movement. Again and again in these verses we are given the clearest impression that absolutely nothing and no-one was left behind.

God had sent Joseph on ahead in order to preserve the life of His people and now the entire people of God are on their way out of the Land of Promise. That is why Moses records the genealogical lists – not so we should get caught up in counting up the numbers but that we should understand that all God's people were on the march, off on a new adventure with their God.

Judah has gone on ahead to lead the way to the Land of Goshen – the place where Joseph intended to settle his family. Perhaps we can see in this the final restoration of Judah – the one whose idea it had been to sell Joseph into slavery is the one who leads the way to the meeting again of father and son.

And the scene is finally set for Joseph to meet his father after all those years. He travels by chariot to Goshen where the emotional reunion takes place. He weeps on his father's neck for a long time and his father responds declaring he can now die in peace knowing his son to be alive.

Jacob's words make us think of similar words uttered by the aged prophet Simeon hundreds of years later when he held the baby Jesus in his arms in the Temple:

Lk.2:29-32 "Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel."

Joseph wants to see his family settled permanently in Goshen. This was a good area and very well suited to the raising of livestock. It was also a relatively secluded part of the land of Egypt and hence a people settled there would be able to live out their lives in a certain of tranquillity free from the influences of others.

This would then be an ideal place for the people of God to maintain their identity as God's people, to grow and to avoid the pitfalls of inter-marriage and cultural assimilation.

The people could live here "in Egypt" without becoming "of Egypt.

But will this work out?

Yes, Pharaoh had encouraged Joseph to have his family come and settle in the Land of Goshen but was he really expecting a clan of some 70 people along with their livestock settling down permanently in his land?

So Joseph plans for a meeting of his family with Pharaoh – Joseph had God-given skills of planning and organisation and he used them again here. He doesn't wasn't to leave anything to chance. He won't settle his family without explicit approval from Pharaoh and he instructs his brothers as to how they should speak to Pharaoh!

Goshen was a secluded place and that worked in favour of a settlement by shepherds – despised by Egyptians they would be well-removed from them in Goshen!

The plan succeeds beyond expectation. Not only does Pharaoh grant the good lands of Goshen to Jacob's family as a place to live he offers to employ some of them in his own service. Thus Pharaoh bestowed privileged status on those who would otherwise be considered as aliens in the land.

In v.11 we read that the people did not possess merely the rights of residence but we learn that Joseph accorded them significant property rights too.

The people of God were thus officially installed in the land with official approval and were provided for out of official resources. Although this status would be lost in later years the Israelites could never be honestly accused of being illegal immigrants etc.

Joseph had arranged for some of his brothers to go in first to Pharaoh to sort out the question as to where they could live. Once that was resolved Joseph presented his father Jacob to Pharaoh.

It was a surprising an interesting encounter.

Pharaoh was perhaps the wealthiest and most powerful man on earth and yet we are told that it was Jacob who pronounced blessings on him! In fact such is the importance of this that Moses tells us it twice in the space of a few short verses (v.7 + v.10).

It is usual for a greater to bless a lesser but Jacob blesses Pharaoh. How was this possible? Well it was all part of the covenant promises that God had made to firstly to Abraham and then repeated to Isaac and then to Jacob – blessing was to come to all the families of the earth through Abraham and his descendants. (to Abraham 12:2, 18:18, 22:18; to Isaac 26:4; to Jacob 28:14).

Pharaoh responds to the blessing with a question concerning Jacob's age – the years of sadness and grieving have evidently left their mark on him. He is old but he is going to be somewhat rejuvenated living in the best of the land in Goshen alongside his favourite son Joseph – he will live on for a further 17 years!

The way in which Jacob answers Pharaoh's question sheds interesting light upon the way he viewed life.

Gen.47:9 "The days of the years of my sojourning are 130 years. Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their sojourning."

We would do well to learn from Jacob:

1.     Life is a pilgrimage – a sojourning, something temporary. God's people are travellers through this world and we are not to live as though it were otherwise:

Heb.13:14 "For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come."

2.     Life is a short pilgrimage – Jacob was 130 when he spoke of the brevity of his life and was going to live another 17 years but still compared to Abraham and Isaac he died young. And compared to eternity how brief and fleeting are lives really are!

Job 7:6 "My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle and come to their end without hope."

             And so we should pray like the Psalmist:

Ps.90:12 "So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.

3.     Life is a difficult pilgrimage – Jacob's life had been full of trial and hardship and the Christian is warned that that is the normal path to tread if we would enter God's kingdom. And yet we know too that:

Rom.8:18 "the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us."

(47:13-26 Show us the extent and gravity of the famine and how Joseph managed the affairs of Pharaoh. It was from such a severe famine that Jacob's descendants had been preserved when God sent Joseph on ahead of them to preserve their life.)

The section we're looking at today began with Jacob hesitant to leave the Promised Land and now as the section comes to a close we find that Jacob has maintained his attachment to that land.

Goshen has been a happy place for him with years of prosperity. His family has grown greatly in number and the quantity of their possessions has also grown. How easy it would have been for Jacob to fix all his sights upon this place where he has done so well!

But although Jacob has been so remarkably provided for and blessed in Goshen his heart remains attached to the Land that God had promised to his grandfather Abraham and to Abraham's descendants. The future of his people, of God's people was to be bound up not with Egypt but with the Promised Land and Jacob now at the end of his life lines himself up with this God-inspired hope.

He may well not live again in the land of promise but he demonstrates his solidarity with God's people and God's cause by expressing his desire to be buried there. And this is no faint wish but an earnest burning desire! Jacob is not content with a simple promise from Joseph but he requires the taking of an oath, a solemn commitment on Joseph's part to carry him up to be buried in the Promised Land along with his ancestors.

Jacob had lived 17 years in Egypt but Egypt had not been allowed to enter his soul and to dominate his life – his desire was still for the best that God had promised.

We too are called to live in our own "Egypt", we all live in the "world" but like Jacob we too must be careful that the world does not enter us and destroy our interest in God's greater good. We are to live in the world but we are not to be of the world – dominated by its interests, concerns and values. We are not to prize what this world prizes but to set our minds on things above and make sure that we are laying up treasure not on earth but in heaven!

As Joseph agrees to his father's request Jacob bows and worships. May our lives be similarly dominated by a concern to live nourished by the promises of God.

Amen.