Jacob Before Pharaoh — Chuck Smith

Number seven, Pastor Chuck Smith provides us with the details.

Jacob Blesses Pharaoh

Then Joseph brought in his father Jacob. And he sent him before the Pharaoh. And Jacob blessed Pharaoh. That's something. He's the guy the king of greatest nation in the world. And here comes in this old man who's just a shepherd.

And he blesses him. Now we are told that Melchizedek blessed Abraham. And surely the lesser is blessed by the greater. This old shepherd that God had chosen to be the father of the race that would bring the Messiah into the world is greater in the eyes of God than the king over the greatest empire in the world of that day.

And so Jacob blesses the Pharaoh. Pharaoh said to Jacob, how old are you? Obviously an old man at that point. And Jacob said to Pharaoh, the days of the years of my pilgrimage, notice I'm a stranger in a pilgrim here, I'm just a pilgrim.

The days of my pilgrimage are 130 years. Few and evil have been the days of my years. Now, notice he says there are just a few years. Well, yes, compared with eternity. Few have been my years. And evil, haven't had a good life.

Man, I've had a lot of hardship, a lot of problems, wasn't easy. So Jacob is confessing, few and evil have been the years of my life. But I've not attained to the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.

Again, seeing that life is just a pilgrimage, don't belong here, I'm passing through. There's an eternity that I am living for and looking for. The person who lives for the now is a fool. The wise man lives for eternity.

Jesus said, don't lay up your treasures here on earth, they can be ripped off. Lay up your treasures in heaven, the eternal treasures, the eternal kingdom. And so his grandfather Abraham lived to be 175, his father lived to be 180.

So I'm 130, but man, that's nothing compared to my dad and my granddad, you know. He went on living for another 17 years, he was 147 when he died. So Jacob blessed the Pharaoh. Again, the second time he blesses him, and he went out from before Pharaoh.

So it must have been quite a meeting. The old patriarch that God has chosen to bring forth the nation that will bring the Messiah into the world is meeting now the chief potentate of the world, the Pharaoh of Egypt, blesses him.

Joseph's Administration During the Famine

And Joseph situated his father and his brothers and gave them possessions in the land of Egypt in the best of the land, in the land of Ramesses, as Pharaoh had commanded. Then Joseph provided his father and his brothers and all of the father's household with bread according to the number of their families.

And so Joseph apportioned them out the grain according to the number of children and all that they had. Now, throughout the land of Egypt, we're into the third year of the famine. There was no bread, no grain for bread.

The famine was very severe so that all of the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan languished because of the famine. And Joseph gathered up all of the money that was found in the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan for the grain which they bought.

And Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh's house. So the people were spending all of their savings to purchase the grain. So when the money failed in the land of Egypt, in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, give us breads for why should we die in your presence?

We don't have any more money. Joseph said, okay, give me your livestock and I will give you bread for your livestock if your money is gone. So they brought their livestock to Joseph and Joseph gave them bread in exchange for the horses and the flocks, the cattles, the herds and for the donkeys.

And thus he fed them with bread in exchange for all of their livestock that next year. And when that year had ended, they came to him the next year and they said to him, we will not hide from my Lord that our money is gone.

My Lord also has our herds of livestock. There's nothing left in the sight of my Lord, but our bodies and our lands. But why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land by us and our land for bread.

And we and our land will be servants of Pharaoh, give us seed that we may live and not die that the land may not be desolate. And so the next year they come back and they said, look, we'll trade you our land now for bread and our own bodies.

Then Joseph bought all of the land of Egypt for Pharaoh for every man of the Egyptians sold his field because the famine was severe upon them. So the land became Pharaoh's. And as for the people, he moved them into the cities from one end to the borders of Egypt to the other, so they would be closer to the supplies of grain.

And only the land of the priest he did not buy for the priest had rations allotted to them by Pharaoh and they ate their rations which Pharaoh gave them, therefore they did not sell their lands. Now, these priests, the religious leaders, it would appear that Joseph wanted to also charge them, but the Pharaoh nixed that and they had privileges and thus they did not have to sell their lands.

Later on, when Moses stands before the Pharaoh, we find these religious leaders again withstanding Moses. And we'll get to that as we move into Exodus. Then Joseph said to the people, indeed, I bought you and your land this day for Pharaoh, look, here is seed for you and you shall sow the land and it shall come to pass in the harvest that you'll give one-fifth to Pharaoh, four-fifths shall be your own, as seed for the field and for your food, for those of your households and food for your little ones.

So they said, you have saved our lives, let us find favor in the sight of my Lord and we will be Pharaoh's servants. And Joseph made it a law over the land of Egypt to this day that Pharaoh should have one-fifth except for the land of the priest only, which did not become Pharaoh's.

And so there became a tax of 20%, but the government takes care of you. You belong to the Pharaoh now. So it wasn't a bad deal. You know, we have so many taxes, we have property taxes, we have sales taxes, and then we have the income taxes.

And if you figure out all the money that you're paying out in taxes, you'll find that your tax rate is much higher than the 20 that they had to pay. So they had a pretty good deal. You plant your food, you get four-fifths of it, all you have to do is turn in 20 to the government.

And so they really didn't have a bad deal going. So Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt in the country of Goshen, and they had their possessions there and they grew and multiplied exceedingly. And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt for 17 years, meaning he was 147 then when he died.

Jacob's Burial Oath and Pilgrimage

When the time drew near that Israel would die, he called his son Joseph and said to him, now, if I have found favor in your sight, please put your hand under my thigh and deal kindly and truly with me.

Please do not bury me in Egypt. So by faith, it says Jacob, when he was old, made commandments concerning his bones. Don't bury these bones in Egypt. Promise me, swear to me, you'll not bury me here. It is interesting that putting the hand under the thigh was the most sacred kind of a vow.

This was the kind that Abraham sought from Eliezer, his servant, swear to me that you'll not take a wife from this land, but you'll go back to the land of my fathers to get a wife for my son. Putting his hand under his thigh, he swore to him.

Now, Jacob is asking the same kind of an oath from Joseph. Swear to me, you won't bury me here in Egypt, but you'll carry me back and bury me with my fathers. And he said, swear to me, and he swore to him.

So Israel bowed himself on the head of his bed and probably also on his staff because it said he leaned upon his staff in Hebrews chapter 11. Now, it came to pass after these things that Joseph was told, indeed, your father is sick.

He's about to die. So he took his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. Now, Joseph, at this point, was 56 years old, which means that Manasseh and Ephraim were probably in their 20s. They weren't just little kids, perhaps even as much as in their 30s as Joseph is 56 years old at this point when he brings his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, with him to meet his father.

And Jacob was told, look, your son Joseph is coming to see you, and Israel, and he will strengthen himself and sat up on his bed. He's a gutsy old man. You know, he just musters the strength that is left, sits up on the edge of the bed.

Ephraim and Manasseh Receive the Inheritance

Then Jacob said to Joseph, God Almighty appeared to me at Luz, which was later named Bethel, the house of God, in the land of Canaan, and he blessed me. And he said to me, behold, I make you fruitful, and I will multiply you, and I will make of you a multitude of people, and I will give this land to your descendants after you as an everlasting possession.

That's the promise of God made to Jacob in Bethel, Luz. And now your two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, are mine. As Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine.

Now these two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, they're gonna be mine, and they will be tribes of Israel. When the tribes of Israel are named, these two will be named. Now this is how he gave to Joseph the double portion of the inheritance, taking the two sons and giving each of them an equal share of the inheritance.

That meant that a double portion came to Joseph. These two sons, they'll be mine. So when the tribes of Israel developed, Ephraim and Manasseh became tribes of Israel. Now you hear constantly of the 12 tribes of Israel as we talked about symbolic numbers and the rounding off.

The number 12 is symbolically the number of human government. There were actually 13 tribes of Israel because of Ephraim and Manasseh becoming tribes out of Joseph. And so the other 11 sons plus Ephraim and Manasseh make 13 tribes.

But whenever the tribes are listed, there is always one omitted, not always the same one. Sometimes Dan is omitted. Sometimes Ephraim is omitted. Sometimes, and most of the time, the tribe of Levi was omitted as they named the tribes when they divvied out the land.

Each tribe, the 12 tribes got their land. The Levites didn't get any land. And so they weren't named in the naming of the 12 tribes when you talk about the land of Naphtali or Asher or whatever, Levi doesn't come in.

But there were actually 13 tribes because Jacob laid claim to the two sons. And Ephraim and Manasseh actually became, Ephraim became one of the greatest tribes and the most powerful tribe of the Northern Kingdom.

And so here Jacob is saying, whatever sons you have from now on, they can be yours. But these two are mine, and they will become my sons, my heritage. And they will be as Reuben and Simeon, the tribes.

Your offspring, whom you beget after them, will be yours. Whatever more kids you have, you can have. But these are called by the name of their brothers in their inheritance. Now, I've tried to do that with my daughter and her two kids.

I've tried to say, now, look, these are mine and you can have others. But she doesn't see it that way. I don't have the power of Jacob, I guess, over my family. But as for me, when I came from Patam, Rachel died beside the land of Canaan on the way.

Now, he was hoping to have other sons by Rachel. He didn't. So I'm gonna take and adopt these two grandsons who have come actually from Rachel through you. I'm gonna take these as mine. Rachel died in the land of Canaan, and there was but a little distance to go to Bethlehem.

And I buried her there on the way to Ephrath, that is Bethlehem. Then Israel saw Joseph's son and he said, who are these? Now, he was probably not able to see. And so as he's talking to him about his two sons, he looks up and he sees these two men saying, well, who are these, you know?

And Joseph said to his father, they are my sons, whom God has given me in this place. And he said, please bring them to me, and I will bless them. Now, the eyes of Israel were dim with age so that he could not see.

So Joseph brought them near to him, and he kissed them and he embraced them. And Israel said to Joseph, I really didn't think I would ever see your face again. But in fact, God has even shown me your children.

Oh, how beautiful, and I never hoped to ever see your face again. But not only have I seen your face, I've even seen your children. So Joseph brought them from beside his knees. They had no doubt come up and knelt by their grandpa as he was sitting there on the edge of the bed.

And Joseph pulled them back and he himself bowed with his face to the earth before his father. The reverence for this old patriarch. And Joseph took them both, Ephraim with his right hand toward Israel's left hand, and Manasseh with his left hand toward Israel's right hand, and he brought them near him.

So Joseph brought them back up to Jacob, but he brought Manasseh so that when Jacob would reach out to bless him, his right hand would be on Manasseh because Manasseh was the older son. And the left hand would be on Ephraim because he was the younger son.

But Jacob, as the two sons came, he crossed his hand. And he put his right hand over here on Ephraim and his left hand over here on Manasseh. And Joseph was upset, no, no, dad, you got it wrong. He said, leave me alone, son, I know what I'm doing.

And he began to pronounce the blessings. His right hand crossed over on Ephraim. Then Israel stretched out his right hand, laid it on Ephraim's head, who was the younger, his left hand on Manasseh's head.

Now, of course, Jacob was the younger son too, and maybe he has a sort of a thing for the younger son. Guiding his hands knowingly, for Manasseh was the firstborn. And he blessed Joseph and said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, God, the eternal creator, the one before whom I am, my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who fed me, interesting, interesting, all my life long to this day.

The Trinity, God's Shepherding, and Redemption

Here we have actually the Trinity. The first God of my fathers, Abraham and Isaac, is God the Father. God, the Holy Spirit, the one who has fed me all the days of my life. Now, the word fed here is the Hebrew word ra 'ah, which in Hebrew is shepherd.

The God who shepherded me. And this is the first mention of God as a shepherd, which became a common figure for God as he relates to his people, watching over them, caring for them, keeping them, sustaining them, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

This is the first mention of God as a shepherd, God the ra 'ah, and he is in the work of the Holy Spirit here in the ministry of taking care and providing for the people. And then finally, the angel who has redeemed me from all evil.

This is the first mention of redemption in the Bible. And there is what they call in hermeneutics the law of first mention. Go back where the thing was first mentioned in the Bible and usually it's quite significant.

The angel who is the redemption, the redeeming angel is Jesus. Throughout the Old Testament, he was called the angel of the Lord, the angel who redeemed me. And so the redemption, of course, through Jesus Christ.

And here Jacob prophesying now and blessing Joseph speaks of the Father, God of his fathers. The work of the Holy Spirit feeding me, shepherding me, tending over me, and then the work of Jesus Christ redeeming me.

May they bless the lads. Let my name be named upon them and let the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth. And they did, they became some of the largest tribes in Israel.

Ephraim Receives the Greater Blessing

Now, when Joseph saw that his father had laid the right hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased him. So he took hold of his father's hand to remove it from Ephraim's head and put it on Manassas. And Joseph said to his father, not so my father, this is the firstborn, put your right hand on his head.

But his father refused and he said, I know what I'm doing, son, I know. And he also shall become a people and he also shall be great, but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he and his descendants shall become a multitude of nations.

And so he was prophesying and so it came to pass, Ephraim became much greater than the tribe of Manassas. So he blessed them that day saying, by you Israel will bless saying, may God make you as Ephraim and Manassas.

And thus he said, Ephraim before Manassas. Then Israel said to Joseph, behold, I'm dying, but God will be with you and bring you back to the land of your fathers. Moreover, I have given to you one portion above your brothers, which I took from the hand of the Amorite with my sword and my bow.

Jacob's Land Grant and the Samaritan Connection

Now, this is an interesting scripture. What is he referring to? He took from the Amorite these things with his sword and his bow. And he gives this a double portion to Joseph. There's one scripture in John 4, 5 that refers to this.

It doesn't really give us that much information. And so that's an area that we know very little in reality. So he came to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.

So he had gained a parcel of ground near Sychar. No doubt with his sword and a bow, he took it and he gave it to Joseph, the double portion to Joseph of that land.

We'll return with more of our verse by verse study through the book of Genesis as Jacob calls his sons to gather around him. And we do hope you'll make plans to join us. But right now, I'd like to remind you that if you missed any part of today's message, or perhaps you'd like to order a copy for that special friend or loved one, you can do so by simply contacting one of our customer service representatives.

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May the Lord be with you, bless you, give you a beautiful week as you walk in fellowship with Jesus Christ. May you experience the power of God in your life, bringing you victory over sin, enabling you to walk in fellowship with our Lord.

In Jesus' name.

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