Genesis 47 (Bible Study)

Amen. That sounds good. All right. Before we take a look at Genesis chapter 47, let's open with a word of prayer. Our Father, we thank you for yet another opportunity to gather together around your word.

And I ask that you would bless our time in your word and bless the time of prayer that we have after. We're so thankful to you for our church, which was purchased by Christ's own blood. And may we see the need for Christ in all of life.

Teach us through thy Holy spirit. I pray it's in Jesus name. Amen. All right. Genesis chapter.

Joseph Brings His Family Before Pharaoh

47. Joseph went and told Pharaoh, my father and my brothers, their flocks and their herds and all that they possess have come from the land of Canaan. Indeed, they are in the land.

Of Goshen. And he took five men from among his brothers and presented them to Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said to his brothers, what is your occupation? Your servants are shepherds,.

Both we and also our fathers. We have come to dwell in the land because your servants have no pasture for their flocks for the famine is severe in the land of Canaan. Now, therefore,.

Please let your servants dwell in the land of Goshen. And Pharaoh spoke to Joseph, your.

Father and your brothers have come to you. The land of Egypt is before you. Have your father and brothers dwell in the best of the land. Let them dwell in the land of Goshen. And if you know any competent men among them, then make them chief herdsmen over my livestock.

And Joseph brought in his father, Jacob, and set him before Pharaoh. And Jacob blessed Pharaoh. Pharaoh said to Jacob, how old are you? The days of the years of my pilgrimage.

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 and the days of their pilgrimage.

So Jacob blessed Pharaoh and went out from before Pharaoh. And Joseph situated his father and his brothers and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded.

Then Joseph provided his father, his brothers, and all his father's household with bread, according to the number in their families. Now, there was no bread in all the land, for the famine was very severe.

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

And Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh's house. So when the money failed in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph. Give us bread, for why should we die in your presence?

For the money has failed. Give your livestock,.

And I will give you bread for your livestock, if the money is gone. So they brought their.

Livestock to Joseph. And Joseph gave them bread in exchange for the horses, the flocks, the cattle of the herds, and for the donkeys. Thus he fed them with bread in exchange for all their livestock that year.

When that year had ended, they came to him the next year and said to him, we will not hide from my Lord that our money is gone. My Lord also has our herds of livestock. There is nothing left in the sight of my Lord but our bodies and our lands.

Why should we die before your eyes? Both we and our land. Buy 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.

Then Joseph bought all 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 of the borders of Egypt to the other end.

Only the land of the priests he did not buy, for the priests had rations allotted to them by Pharaoh, and they ate their rations which Pharaoh gave them. Therefore they did not sell their lands.

Then Joseph said to the people, indeed I have 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 shall give one-fifth to Pharaoh.

Four-fifths shall be your own, a seed for the field and for your food, for those of your households, and as food for your little ones. 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 priests only, which did not become Pharaoh's.

Pilgrimage, Humility, and Blessing the Greater

So Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt, in the country of Goshen. And they had possessions there, and grew and multiplied exceedingly. And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years. So the length of Jacob's life was one hundred and forty-seven years.

When the time drew near that Israel must die, he called his son Joseph. Now, if I had 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, but let me lie with my fathers. They shall carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their burial.

Place. I will do as you have said. Swear to me. And he swore to him. So Israel found himself on the head of the bed.

All right, last time in chapter 46, we saw Jacob or Israel traveling to Egypt, where Jacob and his son Joseph are finally reunited after all of those years, not knowing whether or not the other one was alive or dead.

Of course, Jacob believed that Joseph was dead. We know that. But Joseph was not really sure if his father was still alive. But now they're together again in Egypt. And throughout all of this, throughout the story of Joseph, we've commented how many times that Joseph is a type of Christ.

And Dennis brought up something last week. I thought it was a good point afterwards where he said, you know, could this be like a symbolic resurrection? Because as a type of Christ, we know Jesus rose from the dead.

So even though Joseph was not deceased, Jacob thought he was. So in his mind, he's gone. He's dead. But now here, here he is back. He's he's alive. So I thought that was a good point. But just want to go over a few other ways that Joseph was a type of Christ.

Some of the things that we brought this up before and some of these we haven't brought up. So number one, both Joseph and Jesus went down into Egypt. Right. And they both went down because somebody was trying to to kill them.

Joseph was beloved of his father. His brethren did not believe in him. Joseph was stripped of his garment, the coat of many colors. And of course, we know Jesus was stripped of his garments before he was crucified and they cast lots for them.

Both Joseph and Jesus were sold for pieces of silver. Joseph was tempted, but did not sin. Joseph was condemned with two criminals. Remember the chief butler and the chief baker. One of those criminals was given life and the other one was not just like the two thieves on the cross.

One was given eternal life and the other one not. Joseph was around 30 years old when he rose to power. How old was Jesus when he began his public ministry? I mean, it's really amazing when you think of all the different ways.

And this is just the ones that I came up with. I'm sure there's many more. Joseph married a foreign bride and Jesus is the bridegroom of a predominantly Gentile church. And we could go on and on. I'm sure.

So chapter 46 ended with this plan we talked about last week to make sure that the Hebrews would live separate from the Egyptians. So they all agreed. They kind of got their story straight. Of course, they were telling the truth.

But when Pharaoh asked you, hey, this is what you're going to say. And now look at chapter 47 verses 1 and 2. Then Joseph went and told Pharaoh and said, my father and my brothers, their flocks and their herds and all that they possess have come from the land of Canaan.

And indeed they are in the land of Goshen. And he took five men from among his brothers and presented them to Pharaoh. So what we see here is they arrive in the land and yet they're still asking permission.

Joseph makes sure he goes to Pharaoh and he still asks permission to live in the land. That's somewhat strange because Pharaoh's already given them permission. Matter of fact, back in chapter 45 verse 18, Pharaoh says this.

I mean, this is what he's telling them. Bring your father and your households and come to me. I mean, he's telling them, do it and I will give you the best of the land of Egypt. So why are they still asking permission?

Well, one thing I took away from this, you know, Joseph is a very wise man. You know, he didn't climb the ladder on accident. Obviously we know who is God first and foremost, but Joseph was a very wise man.

He was, we could say he walked circumspectly in the world. So what's he doing here? He is showing Pharaoh deference. Pharaoh is the most powerful man on earth. He's still showing him a great deal of respect and then some showing him deference.

And I'm sure he went over this with all the brothers and his, all right, make sure you do this. Don't do that. He had the bases covered. Proverbs 25 verses six and seven say, do not exalt yourself in the presence of the King and do not stand in the place of the great.

For it is better that he say to you, come up here, then that you should be put lower in the presence of the Prince whom your eyes have seen. And that's of course, very similar to Jesus's parable. Remember when he said, don't, don't go and sit in the best seat, uh, you know, sit in a lower seat that you may be exalted.

And Jesus said for he who humbles himself will be exalted. But if you exalt yourself, what's going to happen? You're going to get, you're going to get humbled. So Joseph, I think is making sure there's no possibility for this at all.

So a very wise thing to do. And of course this happens, um, what they ask for Pharaoh gives to them. Um, and much more because then he offers, uh, positions of chiefs over his livestock. So he gives them, uh, what he promised and, and then some, uh, any comments so far?

No. All right. And notice in verse two, uh, Joseph takes five of them to go before Pharaoh. I think it was Marcus that asked a question several chapters ago. Remember when Benjamin got five times as much of a serving of food than the rest of them, or, you know, five, uh, changes of garments when the others only got one.

And I think you had asked, well, why five? Like there seems to be something significant about this number five. So the servings of food, the change of garments, and now he chooses five brothers to go before.

So there's something about the, the number five. Does anyone have any theories on what that is? Yeah. Well, I don't, unfortunately. When you steal things, it's a five finger discount. Yeah. Well, that's, that's true.

That is true.

Well, there are several numbers that are, have some significance. Three, seven. Yeah. There's a couple of others. I don't know number five. Yeah. But to the Jews, right. To the.

Children of Israel, seven was a very important number. I think we understand that. So to the Egyptians, five seems to be an important number in this, maybe, you know, when in Rome do as the Romans. Okay.

There's something with Egypt and Pharaoh with the number five. So another way of showing respect to Pharaoh, I think that's my best guess. So let's bring five, five of you to go before Pharaoh. Yeah. Look at verse seven.

Then Joseph brought his father, Jacob and set him before Pharaoh and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. This is one of those verses that kind of jumped out at me. So you have Israel blessing the King of Egypt. And when he does this, it doesn't tell us what he said, but he would have been invoking the name of God.

So here is Jacob speaking to the most powerful man on earth. And you know what we see he's not ashamed of his faith. So he blesses the King of Egypt because he had been kind to them. And I think any serious student of the Bible, when they read this, they immediately think of something.

Hebrews chapter seven, verse seven comes to mind, which says what now beyond all contradiction, the lesser is blessed by the better. Did that verse pop into anyone said when you read this?

Okay. One or two, but then on the blessing, I think it always was. And still is today that the Aaronic blessing, the Lord bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you. And that's, that's commonly used back and forth between, uh, well, between Christian believers and Jewish.

People and Gentiles and Jewish people. Yeah. But so who's the better here. So if the lesser is blessed by the better, who's the better Jacobs, the better. Right. And we would agree with that. Jacob Israel is more significant.

He's better than Pharaoh. Now I don't know that Pharaoh would have looked at it that way. Exactly. Believers do. You know, Israel's name is still how many thousand years later, nobody knows. Right. Yeah.

That's a good point. We, we still know Jacob's name. Everyone knows the name of Israel. We've all heard of Pharaoh, but this specific Pharaoh, who is he? Nobody knows. Yeah, that's a, that's a good point.

Look at verses eight and nine. Uh, Pharaoh said to Jacob, how old are you? So this is kind of the first thing that Pharaoh asks about. And Jacob said to Pharaoh, the days of my years or the days of the years of my pilgrimage are 130 years.

And then he makes this interesting statement. 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, uh, in the days of their pilgrimage.

So in that culture, being that age, 130 years old, I mean, you were worthy of respect. I mean, that should be the way it is in our culture. The older you are, the more worthy of respect you are. Unfortunately, that's not the way many in our culture view it.

Um, the more and more people probably view, you know, the older you get, you know, the more burdensome you become or something like that. Cause we live in a very ungodly culture, but to be that age, uh, even Pharaoh had to respect this.

So I think he did. He respects his age. Now, why does he say the years of my pilgrimage? Well, that term, we know who the pilgrims were, right? Uh, they left their homeland to seek, um, a better country.

So basically this means that they're pilgrims. Uh, Jacob is a sojourner upon the earth. He had no permanent dwelling of his own. So Jacob never possessed any of the land, just like his father never possessed the land.

Abraham never possessed any of the land except his burial plot. And why does he say that his days were fewer? Well, um, Isaac lived to be how old do you know how old Isaac was when he died? All right.

180 Abraham was one 75 and then Jacob is what one. We just read it. One 37. All right. So his days were fewer, 147, right? And then his days were more evil. Okay. And that just basically means that his life was a lot more difficult, uh, than Isaac and Abraham.

You think about all the things that Jacob went through. One of the things, you know, he had to walk with a limp his whole life, you know, maybe that was painful. Um, but there's a lot of things that he went through.

So they were sojourners. They had no permanent home. And another verse that came to my mind, another, uh, verse from the book of Hebrews, Hebrews 11, nine, and 10 say by faith, he, that is Abraham dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise for he waited for the city, which has foundations whose builder and maker is God.

And this is really how we need to view the world. We are pilgrims. We are sojourners. Um, this is not our permanent home, uh, to quote the apostle Paul, what did he say? Our citizenship is where in, in heaven.

So Jacob now departs from Pharaoh's presence, verse 11 and Joseph situated his father and his brothers and gave them a possession of the land of Egypt in the best of the land, in the land of Ramses as Pharaoh had commanded.

Now this is one of those Pharaohs that is well known, uh, throughout history, uh, Ramses. And you said, well, I thought they lived in land of Goshen. Well, is this a contradiction or what's the simple solution to it?

Yeah. The land of Ramses is the land of Goshen, just to just a different name now in verses 13 through 26, we're not going to go through all of these, but the famine becomes so severe, uh, desperate times call for desperate measures.

And these are some really desperate times. So the economy completely collapses just complete and total collapse. Did you have anything else or just that? Okay. Mark. Good. No. Okay. So the economy collapses, the people are on the brink of starvation and you know, what good is all the livestock?

I mean, they could kill them and eat them and then eat for a little while, but you know, what good are these possessions? What good is the land? What good is anything? We're clearly all going to die. So what happens?

Basically the, the government of Egypt steps in. So they, you know, this is not socialism. Okay. They're not taking over the means of production and distribution, but you know, seriously though, there's really no other option.

So Joseph steps in and once again, he comes to the rescue. Uh, the nation is at this dire point. If he hadn't told Pharaoh the interpretation of his dreams, they would have all been dead by now. So once again, Joseph saves the nation.

He comes up with this plan and yeah, desperate times call for desperate measures. Nobody wants to be in this situation. Joseph doesn't. Pharaoh doesn't. Certainly the, the people don't, but it, it goes well.

It works out for three basic reasons. Number one, they have a benevolent ruler. Right? If they had some wicked tyrant on the throne, or if Joseph were a tyrant, he could have used this to gain absolute power above and beyond this, but they have a benevolent ruler.

And that's so important, obviously in a nation. Number two, the people are allowed to work. Okay. This is the agreement. Um, we're going to move you into the cities. You can still work and you're just going to have to pay some money to a Pharaoh for the tax.

So they were still able to work. And what does that do? And make sure that the government doesn't rob them of their self-worth because when nobody can do anything, when nobody can work and you have to just stay there and not do anything day after day, month after month, that just robs people of their, their dignity and self-worth.

And then number three, okay, there was this tax that was imposed. And it was a very steep, uh, tax. Wasn't it? How much was it? 20%. That was considered high. This is desperate times call for desperate measure.

Imagine that if 20 that we would take that in a heartbeat, verse 26 and Joseph made it a law over the land of Egypt to this day that Pharaoh should have one fifth. So they said, okay, you know, we'll, we'll do it.

And they agreed. So that was the case. There was one exception though. What was the exception? All right. So this did not apply to the priests, uh, that they you know, granted these were pagan priests, right?

There's no evidence, uh, otherwise, but I was thinking about this since Joseph did marry one of the priests daughters, it's not unreasonable. This is just a possibility. It's just a theory, but it's not unreasonable that Joseph would have brought the knowledge of the one true God, not only into the land, he must've done that to some degree, but also he could have brought it into the priesthood.

It's it's possible, whatever the case, we see that the government of Egypt is showing some respect for religious Liberty. So despite the hardship, uh, the taxes, what we would consider low, but they were high for them.

And this special treatment given towards the religion of the land. I mean, this has, you know, it's something to be said for, uh, Joseph certainly. And for, for Pharaoh. So this, this whole idea that, um, the land may have had some knowledge of the, the one true God, you know, I, I bring this up and, uh, this is a little more speculation.

I want to say this. I want you to hear me. I am not endorsing or saying I agree with these theories. All right. How many of you have Clarence Larkin's book dispensational truth? Does anyone know? All right.

Well, it was a very, yeah. All right. So many Christian groups have studied the great pyramids and based on the architecture and the measurements, some people believe that the story of Christ or the gospel is somehow built in to the structure and the measurements.

Uh, I brought up Clarence Larkin's book, dispensational truth. There's a whole chapter in that book on the significance of the great pyramids. Um, again, I'm not saying I agree with, I read it once a long time ago.

I forget exactly what it said. I'm not saying I agree with it, but that's interesting. Four or five years ago, do you remember when Ben Carson was running for president? Uh, Ben Carson is a devout seventh day Adventists.

And when he was running for president, a video came out and it was supposed to make him look bad, but it was him saying that he believed, and I don't know if that's the position of the church, uh, that he believed that Joseph was the one who built the great pyramids for the purpose of storing grain.

Now, of course, you know, they would have to be hollow really for that to make sense to us. But there's the point is there's all sorts of different theories out there about the pyramids and Joseph's time in Egypt.

All I'm saying it's possible there was something that's maybe not recorded or maybe is lost to history that the knowledge of Yahweh or Jehovah God was present, maybe even prevalent in Israel during the time of Joseph, whatever the case we know by the time of the Exodus, uh, the name of Jehovah was exalted throughout all of the earth because of what was going on in Egypt.

But whatever the case, the children of Israel were, were sojourners, uh, Egypt was not their home. This was a temporary situation. And the Lord of course did not want them to stay there. Why were they there?

Why did the Lord arrange this? You remember, this isn't a trick question yet to save their lives, right? So Egypt, he doesn't want them to stay there because in the Bible, Egypt is a picture of what, what bad Egypt is a picture of bad.

Yes. Well, it's a picture of the world. Generally we understand that Egypt is a picture of or symbolic for the world in revelation, uh, 11 verse eight. Do you remember the city of Jerusalem is referred to as Sodom and Egypt?

Uh, why? Because Jerusalem had become so ungodly that it got the name Sodom. And we know that Sodom is a picture of bad, right? And, uh, Egypt. So it's because of their ungodliness, but it wasn't always like that.

Um, Jerusalem certainly had its bright moments. Um, Egypt under Joseph, this may have been a brief period of a bright moment in Egypt, but this obviously wouldn't last. Uh, it was not to be the permanent home of the people of God.

And how does the book of Exodus began? It will open by say what?

I wrote this error, but Pharaoh did not know Joseph. Right. You know, in chapter 41, Joseph clearly tells Pharaoh when he is brought before Pharaoh to interpret Pharaoh's dream, you know, Pharaoh said, Oh, you can interpret my dream.

And he clearly stated it's not me. It's God. Right. And only God can. And this is what it says. And this is what God says is going to happen. And he's telling you that this is going to happen and this will come to pass.

And so he was.

Clearly, uh, not quiet. Yeah. And that's what a nation needs. It needs someone, uh, important in power. One of the leaders to let everyone know God's in charge. God gets all the credit. God gets all the glory because what's the alternative man gets all the glory man gets all the credit.

So yeah, that's how Exodus opens up, uh, this verse that says, and a new King rose up in Egypt who knew Joseph not. So this new Pharaoh didn't care about the past. Uh, he had no respect for the people of God and, you know, and making some sort of application for us, uh, today, you know, as Americans, we love this country.

Um, this country has had its bright spots, like Israel had its bright spots, maybe even Egypt, but you know, it's not perfect. It's never been perfect. Israel was never perfect. Even in their glory days under David and Solomon, it wasn't perfect.

Even while Joseph reigned, I mean, there were still things happening that it didn't go well with them. Um, but while we love this nation, uh, we ended up being very grieved over things that we, we see such ungodliness, uh, that's really all around us.

We kind of have to remind ourselves, uh, of what Jacob said, you know, the years of my pilgrimage, that's how we have to look at this. You know, this is not our home. We're citizens in this country. We love this country, but this country is ultimately not our home.

We are sojourners in the earth. So we have to remind ourselves of that. We're pilgrims and we're looking and, and waiting for that city that has foundations, who's builder and, and maker is God. You know, if that's your focus, you know, it, it, it really helps because if this world is your focus day after day, hearing everything that's happening, if that's your focus, man, you're going to be, you know, it's, it's like battery acid to your, to your gut mark, garbage in garbage out.

Jacob’s Final Request and the Hope of Burial with His Fathers

That's true. So Genesis 47 verse 27 says, so Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt in the country of Goshen, and they had possessions there and grew and multiplied exceedingly. And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt 17 years.

So the length of Jacob's life was 147 years. And when the time drew near that Israel must 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.

That may sound strange, but today, just as we may seal a, an agreement with a handshake, this was the old Testament equivalent of a handshake. You could say he was making a covenant with him, this agreement.

What is a Jacob make Joseph promise him. Do not bury me in Egypt, but let me lie with my fathers. You shall carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their burial place. And he said, I will do as you have said, and taking what is stated in Hebrews 11 21, Jacob said, swear to me.

And he swore to him. So Israel bowed himself in worship, leaning on the top of his staff.