Separation and Testimony

Well, I did not realize that there was a typo on the bulletin. We'll actually only be preaching up to verse 12 in chapter 47. I assure you the proofreader has been fired forthwith, and so we don't expect such mistakes moving forward.

But it was it was nice to be already becoming familiar with where we'll be next week in chapter 47. But this morning we'll complete chapter 46 and go to chapter 47 verse 12 rather than 27. So sorry for the typo on that.

We left off with Jacob gathering all his household, loading the carts that Pharaoh had sent his way, bringing the Israelites. Remember, Jacob's name is Israel. And so all that are with Jacob are the Israelites being brought out of the land of promise, out of the land of Canaan.

Remember, he came southward and worshipped at Beersheba on the way out of the land. So now he's the southward part of Canaan, traversing over to the northern part of Egypt. And we read in Psalm 105 verse 23, Israel came into Egypt.

Very significant for what Psalm 105 is recounting. The thought that Israel is coming out of the land of promise and being taken into the land of Egypt and there God's promise, God's warning from Genesis 15 when he told Abraham that his descendants would become slaves for 400 years in a nation that did not belong to them.

We're beginning to see the the wheels of fulfillment move in that direction as we come to the close of Genesis. Things are moving so that we can begin the great exodus in the following account. We can imagine that on this journey into Egypt, every step of the way, Jacob's heart was bursting to see Joseph.

It had been 22, 23 years since that fateful day when the bloody robe was thrust before his face and he he wept and was inconsolable. And as the years went by, we saw that the wound was still very fresh.

It was very difficult for him to let go of Benjamin because of the great loss that he felt for his first son of Rachel. And now that he has news that Joseph is indeed alive and in this fact the Lord of the land, you can only imagine as he enters into that land how his heart is bursting with anticipation, looking forward to that embrace of Joseph when he, being 130 years old, began to feel weak and thought I should have never undertaken this journey.

The thought of holding his long-lost son must have reinvigorated his steps. So as we finish out chapter 46 and begin chapter 47, we're gonna first look at the reunion. We'll see the reunion and then we'll see Joseph's commands beginning in chapter 47 and that really is a command of separation and then lastly we'll consider how that separation gives way to testimony.

So that's the three parts that will occupy us this morning. Reunion, separation and testimony. So first the reunion beginning in chapter 46 verse 28. He sent Judah before him to Joseph to point out before him the way to Goshen and they came to the land of Goshen.

So the whole family is moving toward Goshen. This wasn't a new development. This was in fact Joseph's plan all along. If you remember back in chapter 45 even before the great reveal, Joseph had in disguise told his brothers, you shall dwell in the land of Goshen.

You shall be near to me, you and your children, your children's children, your flocks and your herds and all that you have. All right. So if you trust me, you will end up in the land of Goshen, in this land of abundance and true to his word here in chapter 46, we see that that is the case.

Judah once again is singled out as the lead of the family. That's very significant to point out. It's unnecessary information for us to know that Judah was sent as reconnaissance into the land of Goshen or to at least point the way toward Goshen.

It's not a detail we need. All we need to know is that they entered into Goshen. So why is this recorded? You remember last week? I gave the analogy of a symphony and in scripture with the book of Genesis we really have the first movement within a larger symphony and little details like this help us understand musical phrases that will reappear later on in the unfolding drama of redemption.

Remember that it is from Judah's line that the serpent crusher, the promised seed, promised first to Eve in Genesis 3 15, promised to Abraham and ratified with Isaac and Jacob. It's from the line of Judah that the Messiah will finally come.

And so it's significant that Judah is pointing out the way. Judah is leading the family toward the dwelling place where they will encounter the missing son, the beloved son. So typologically we begin to see Judah literally pointing Israel toward the place where they can dwell with the Lord of the land.

Just beautiful detail that comes out of the narrative. Remember that this is the greater story unfolding of God undertaking a plan of redemption. And it was by Judah's faith, just as it was by Abraham's faith, that this drama of redemption continues to unfold.

Verse 29, Joseph makes his chariot ready, went up to Goshen to meet his father Israel and presented himself to him and fell on his neck and wept on his neck a good while. Remember that Joseph is governor over all the land.

Since the famine began and even immediately before that, Joseph would not get in his chariot to meet anyone unless it was Pharaoh. If you want to see Joseph, you get in your cart and you come before him.

He is the exalted Lord of glory. But here Joseph prepares himself to go and travel to his pilgrim shepherd father. And in that way, out of reverence and honor, he's showing respect toward his father. It is not Jacob who must come in a cart before his son Joseph.

And we'll see that he must actually get in a cart and be brought before Pharaoh. But that is not the case for his son. His son, though exalted, comes in reverence and presents himself before Jacob. That's court-like language of bowing yourself in a reverential way, approaching the one who is exalted.

So Joseph comes before Jacob and he sinks down to the earth. But you can imagine the pageantry only lasts a moment. They immediately embrace and I love little details like this. He falls on his neck and he weeps and Moses says he weeps a good while.

This is not a, hey, it's been so long. It's great to see you again. And you know, a couple wipes with the thumb. This is just a pour your heart out, embrace something that you wish you could actually see.

I wish we could be a fly on the wall to what that reunion actually looked like. As Joseph is weeping, of course, we can understand it's not just the joy of the present that is bursting within him, but it's also the pain of the past.

All the turmoil of the separation from his father, these two decades plus of real pain and suffering have finally been brought to a place of reunion, of healing. The past pain, the torment of the night has given way to the joy of the morning and how emotional this reunion is.

Can you picture his father at some point finally pulling his head back from his neck after a good long while and wiping the very tears from his face? So much of the Christian life on that great day will look like this very moment when the turmoil of our suffering and the way that we persevered by God's providential grace and the pain of the night gives way to the joy of a glorious new morn and the father himself wipes the tears from our face.

Joseph's original dream has now been completed. His whole family has come before him. He is the exalted one. He is the Lord of the land in glory and Israel, Jacob, seeing this for himself, verse 30 says, now let me die because I've seen your face because you're still alive.

Derek Kidner.

Says this is the Old Testament's version of the Nunc Domitis. If you're familiar with that particular liturgical setting, it's beautiful to listen to. There are many variations of it. You should YouTube it later on.

I think it's a proper use of the Sabbath. It comes out of Luke chapter 2.

Where.

The phrase, now let, Nunc Domitis, now let your servant depart in peace. What a statement. Now let your servant depart in peace. So the Nunc Domitis there at the beginning of Luke is an even greater fulfillment of this very scene.

Now that I know the Messiah has come, I can depart in peace. And here we see Jacob essentially saying the same thing. Jacob as Israel saying now that I know my beloved son lives, I may depart in peace.

Now that God has brought his fulfillment to pass, I can actually die. What a difference we see in Jacob. Ever since chapter 37 when he's spoken, when we have his recorded speech, it's always been full of bitterness and despair.

Fearing, not only fearing, expecting the worst. Remember when all of his sons and all of his daughters came around him, he's trembling, holding the bloody coat of many colors, and they're trying to comfort him, and he refuses to be comforted.

Just as he refused to be comforted when his beloved Rachel died on the way to Bethlehem. Remember when he said I will go down to the grave mourning for my son. Bitterness, loss, a breach that could never be closed.

That was chapter 37 verse 35. Remember when he said, my son shall not go down with you as he clutched Benjamin tight because his brother is dead. He alone is left. If anything should happen to him on the way, you will bring my gray hair down to the grave in sorrow.

But now look at him as a result of God's providence, God's grace. Now I can die in peace. He went from fearing that his head would be brought to the grave and sorrow to being filled with such hope. He knows that now he's ready to die, and he dies with peace.

Now God still has 17 years for him as we find out in the next chapter of verse 28. But those 17 years are filled with the fruit of this peace and this hope, and we'll see that unfolding in the way that he gathers his sons and even some of his grandsons, and he bestows blessing upon them.

This is a man who has been reconciled to his long-lost son, reconciled to his other sons, has been reconciled to God, and therefore now he is truly ready to depart in peace. What a portrait we have. Typologically speaking, it's our communion with the beloved Son that will give us peace when we are facing death.

There is no peace regarding death until there's communion, a relationship, a reunion with the beloved Son. We see that in seed form here with Jacob, and we're reminded as believers that it's still true for us.

Unless we have communion, unless we know the presence of this Lord of glory, there can be no peace as we encounter death. Peace and hope when we stare down death comes from knowing the Son, knowing that he lives.

Only then can we say like Jacob, now as your servants, we're ready to depart. We're reminded as Christians that how we die is just as important as how we live. In some ways, how we die is even more important than how we live, because how we die encapsulates all that we have lived for, and the way that we have lived.

What was more important for the thief hanging next to Jesus was not how he had lived, but how he was going to die. That was more important. And so we see already here the way that Jacob is filled with such peace, and you can only imagine his faith now being so utterly brought up to admiration for what God has unfolded before him, that now he's eager not only to bless his family, but even bless the Gentiles, and that will carry us into the next chapter.

But Joseph is very wise as we move now into the separation. So that's the reunion. As we move now into the separation, we see Joseph has a very wise concern for his father and his brothers, beginning in verse 31.

Now, we've said that this part of Genesis is moving us to see an intersection with wisdom literature. The way that Joseph acts is almost proverbial. Joseph is shown to be given godly wisdom, a Solomon before Solomon's time.

I say that with significance for where we're going next week, perhaps Joseph's moral lapse, a lack of wisdom on his part. But for here, for now, Joseph continues to be shown as wise, and he gives godly advice out of a godly concern for his family.

Not only do their physical needs need to be met, and he'll meet those physical needs as we see at the end of verse 12, in the next chapter, but he's more concerned about their spiritual well-being, their spiritual provision.

So he must go before Pharaoh, he must advocate for them. I will go to Pharaoh, he says, I will explain that you are shepherds, and that therefore you are not to be mixed in to the Egyptian halls of pageantry and power and paganism.

He has a godly concern that though he's in this place of exaltation, his family stays in the setting that God has allotted for them, and they're not led astray by all that they're beholding in the halls of Egyptian power.

Some of us were talking yesterday morning about Rod Dreher's book, The Benedict Option. I perhaps would call this the Goshen Option, a physical relocation for the sake of separation. But as we'll see, that separation is meant to give way to testimony.

Joseph is essentially telling his family, do not be distracted at all by what you see. Do not think that there's some nepotism at play here, that now you're going to be appointed the minister of finances, you'll be appointed the minister of defense, you'll all soon be shaved and dressed in ornate majestic robes, and you'll have power and glory just like me.

No, no, no.

You're shepherds, and you must tell Pharaoh that you're shepherds, and you must live like shepherds in the land of Goshen. Do not be led astray. Do not embrace these pagan ways. Remember who you are and the promises that God gave to you.

In other words, embrace your low status, brothers. Embrace your shepherd lineage, brothers. You're coming into the land, and you're going to be an abomination to the Egyptians. So be an abomination to the Egyptians.

Be separate from them. Why is it that the Egyptians had such a low view of shepherds? It's hard to say. Generally speaking, shepherds were always held in low esteem in ancient societies. There's always conflicts between sheep herders and cattle rearers because of the way that the grazing lands are allotted out, and wherever sheep graze, there's never anything enough for cattle.

And so that might be something to do with the Egyptians, who have stocks of cattle, and they despise the shepherds and the way that the sheep graze and so spoil the lands for their cattle raising. It may have something to do, though this is unlikely, with the way the Egyptians had been expelled from the Hyksos rule.

Those were shepherd kings that for a time were dominant over the Egyptians. But scholars point out that's most likely later than this particular period. The point is simply this. Shepherds are an abomination to Egyptians.

Joseph knows this. Joseph is an Egyptian prince, and he says to his family, now that you've come to Egypt, you must live as shepherds. You must retain that separation that makes you the offscoring, the detestation, the abomination in the eyes of the Egyptians.

He's more concerned for them to be separate than he is for them to be included. He's more concerned for them to be not only met with physical provisions, but more importantly, he's concerned for the sake of their testimony.

We see the importance also here of Joseph as the representative. I will go up and tell Pharaoh. If Joseph would not go tell Pharaoh, Pharaoh would do whatever he wanted with this family. Most likely, he would not allow them to stay as shepherds.

Most likely, he would say, no, it is not fitting. This is what I'm going to do for you. You know, be shaven, be dressed in these robes, come live here. He'd want to most likely be extravagant toward them and to bless them.

And so Joseph trains them in how they must respond, but he does so as their representative and as their advocate. I will go up on your behalf. I will tell this to the great king of the land. The family has come into Egypt.

Notice they still need Joseph to represent them. They've begun to walk in God's salvation, but they're only able to receive that salvation if they have an advocate, if they have a representative for them.

They need the Lord of the land to represent them, to advocate for them on their behalf, out of the best interest for their immediate physical needs, as well as their souls. And in the same way, that is true of believers.

We enter into the outworking of God's salvation, but we can only receive that salvation. We can only be preserved in that salvation if we have an advocate. If there is a representative who stands before us, who pleads by his own precious blood on our behalf, and has a concern for our welfare, both physically and spiritually, and so he secures our blessing, he preserves our salt and our light, he does so as our representative.

If you were to remove Joseph from this equation, if the family was here without an advocate, and as they began to multiply, you have different pharaohs in succession, what will happen? Well, what does happen?

The Israelites become slaves. For 400 years, they have no advocate. They have no representative. They can only cry out in bitterness until God raises up an advocate, raises up a representative in the form of Moses.

And so you always must have this representative, this advocate that stands before God on behalf of the people, and is therefore willing to speak to power. I will go and speak to Pharaoh for you. Notice also, Joseph is enrobed with majesty, and yet he's not ashamed to represent his family, though his family is an abomination.

Here he is in princely glory. He's not ashamed to own his family. Here's my family, Pharaoh. Get them away from me. This is my family. I represent them.

These are my loved ones. They're with me.

He's not ashamed to be identified with them. How much more so the Lord Jesus, who's not ashamed to be identified with his people. Though he's exalted and glorious, he's unashamed to stand before his Father and to own us.

Genesis 47, beginning in verse 1. Joseph went and told Pharaoh and said, my father and my brothers, their flocks and their herds, 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 then Pharaoh said to his brothers, what is your occupation? And they said to Pharaoh, your servants are shepherds, both we and also our fathers.

And they said to Pharaoh, we've 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.

So they wisely follow their brother's command. They answer as they've been told. And we see them go even a little bit beyond what Joseph had asked them to testify. They say, your servants are shepherds, both we and also our fathers.

There must have been something going on in their lives as they left Canaan. And as they came to Beersheba, as they sacrifice and worship Yahweh, they must have been reminded, we're leaving the land that God had promised to our fathers, to us.

And when Joseph warns them, you must dwell in the land of Goshen and live as an abomination to the Egyptians. They must have been reminded, like our fathers before us, we must live as pilgrims in a land that does not belong to us yet.

We must live by faith in God's promise. So they're thinking of this heritage. They're thinking of this identity, not toward the Egyptians, but toward Abraham and Isaac and their father Jacob, both we and our fathers.

And we continue, we desire to walk in the way of our fathers, faithful to their testimony. Pharaoh, verse five, speaks to Joseph saying, 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. You see this lavish favor that Pharaoh has in reserve for Joseph.

His desire is to bless Joseph. And therefore he will bless anyone who belongs to Joseph. The blessing overflows. All right, fine. If you're gonna reduce yourself just to be shepherds, then at least be chief shepherds over my livestock.

He wants to get royalty in there somehow. We see something of this glorious abundance, this good desire of God, our King, always seeking to bless those who belong to the beloved son. It's in seed form, but we see it.

Joseph's concern, of course, is the family must be separate. Imagine how obscure and pitiful these men looked when they were gathered before Pharaoh in what was detestable, unshaved beards, not shaved like the Egyptians, standing before them in shepherd's clothing and all of the smells that come with shepherd's clothing.

And they're standing before Pharaoh in all of his might and his glory. And yet they're confident. We're shepherds just like our fathers were shepherds. Let us go raise our cattle in the land of Goshen.

There's a confidence in how they address Pharaoh. And I would say that confidence comes from knowing that they are truly separate. That confidence comes from knowing we are not meant to be Egyptians. Our destiny is not that of Egypt.

It's that of Canaan and all that God had promised our fathers. So their confidence comes from not only desiring to be separate, but desiring to be separate like their fathers were separate. In other words, their identity is bound up with their heritage.

Your servants are shepherds, both we and our fathers. They understand their identity in light of their heritage. It gives them a confidence to be separate. It gives them a desire to be separate. And believers also can become confident in the ways that we separate from a fallen world the more we look to our fathers in the faith.

We have a great and godly heritage that stretches back over a millennia. And we look to that godly heritage to understand the witnesses that surround us. The way that therefore we must come out from the world and be separate.

There's a confidence, a holy confidence that comes when we recognize we're standing in a long godly train of the faithful. The more we think of our lives as just caught up in the present, the more we compartmentalize our faith.

Oh yeah, we're just gonna add Christianity onto our lives. We're just like anyone else except for what we do on the first part of a Sunday. The more we have that approach, the more disconnected we are from everything that we've been seeing in the book of Genesis.

We won't be able to live lives confidently in separation. Most likely we will not be an abomination to the Egyptians because we're too busy compromising with them. We're too busy hiding our beards and painting our eyes and putting linen cloth around us.

We're not willing to look to the heritage that we come from. A heritage which has always been a scent of death, a stench of death to those who are perishing. So where does that testimony begin to emerge?

It comes from this confidence of the separation and that confidence also comes from this idea of heritage that we're continuing on the work of the ministry where we're laboring for the faith that was once for all delivered.

And that is the third point, the testimony. Beginning in verse seven, Joseph brought in his father Jacob and set him before Pharaoh and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. Pharaoh said to Jacob,.

How old are you?

And Jacob said to Pharaoh, 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.

And so Jacob blessed Pharaoh and went out from before Pharaoh. You can picture the scene, Jacob likely still on one of the carts, too weak to move around, being brought and set before Pharaoh. Picture Joseph sort of picking him up and placing him before Pharaoh.

And he's 130 years old. And don't think, ah, people lived long back then. Not at this point in history. 130 years is 130 years. So no wonder Pharaoh says, how old are you? He probably looked like a living mummy.

How old are you?

He must have been completely bewildered. 130 years have been the years of the days of my pilgrimage. 130 years. This commanded respect, especially in Egyptian culture. Great age would have been a sign of great blessing.

There was something so unique about Joseph that drew Pharaoh's admiration and desire to bless. And now he looks at a father who's 130 years old and he says, oh, no wonder this whole family is so incredible.

What a testimony that is. And so he's struck by this peculiar aged man. And he says, how old are you? It's almost a way of condescending down to him. The Pharaoh now addressing this elderly man in a very friendly conversational way.

Tell me, how old are you? There's something of reverence here that we've largely lost in our culture. Many cultures honor shame cultures in the world today still retain this idea of reverencing the aged, reverencing the elderly among us.

In Western culture, especially contemporary Western culture, this idea has largely vanished. We get frustrated with the elderly in our culture. Let's marginalize them and put them to the side. They just slow things down.

They're not with it. They're on the wrong side of history. They're so useless. What do they contribute? It's a complete reversal of the fifth commandment, a complete undermining of how God has designed us to look upon fellow image bearers who have stomped on terror longer than we have.

That commands respect, not because of what you've done or how much you've made, but just because you've lived long. And there ought to be an immediate reverence for that. Proverbs 16 .31 says, the silver-haired head is a crown of glory when it's found in the way of righteousness.

In our culture, it's not viewed as a crown,.

But more of a curse.

And we need to, as Christians, remember the significance of this. It really belongs to and flows out of the fifth commandment. That part of reverencing our parents, honoring our mother and father, also, as we see in the way the catechism explains it, it's also a way of reverencing those who are before us, those who have authority over us, those who have lived longer than we have, who are above us in that sense.

And we ought to, as Christians, preserve and promote that view of reverencing those who are aged. We see that even in Pharaoh. In a certain way, Pharaoh is reverencing Jacob. While Pharaoh is full of wonder, impressed, struck by what he sees in this 130-year-old man, Jacob doesn't really seem all that impressed with Pharaoh.

Jacob doesn't really seem awestruck by standing before this Egyptian king in all of his glory. He's able to speak, quite frankly to him,.

In a humble way,.

But Jacob is far more interested in giving a testimony. So he talked about separation, separation here, giving way to testimony. He says, it's not just my life, my age, he talks about his father's. It's almost begging the question, tell me more about your father's.

Oh, let me tell you about my father's. Let me tell you about my father Isaac. Let me tell you about my grandfather Abraham. Let me tell you, you think my family's amazing because you know Joseph. Let me tell you about my family's history.

He considers his life in light of the lives of his father's, and he compares his life as a pilgrimage. And then he considers his life as a pilgrimage in light of their lives as a pilgrimage. In his own humility, he says, I have not attained to what they have attained to.

My life has not measured up and matched up to their lives. So notice what he says here. The days of the years of my pilgrimage, that already, what do you mean pilgrimage? I thought you were settled in the land of Canaan, but now you've come here because of the famine.

Oh, no, no, no.

Even in Canaan, I was a pilgrim. And in fact, even in Canaan, my father was a pilgrim and his father was a pilgrim, do you see? We've been pilgrims. We have not been settled in the land. It's almost saying we're looking for a city whose builder and maker is God.

Few, he says, evil have been the days of the years of my life. That's 130-year-old man saying that. My days have been few. I haven't lived long enough. And in fact, when I think about my short little life of 130 years, I realize it never has come close to that of my father or his father.

Evil have been my days. Not just evil because of the things that happened during my life outside of me, but evil because of the things I did during my life. He considers his life in contrast to his father and his grandfather.

And he can say few and evil have been my days. When I ran away from Paddan Aram, my brother was out to murder me because I had deceived him and I had robbed him of the blessing and how I so cruelly and spitefully treated him.

A lot like how I sat by passively when I watched my sons do the same to one another and how I allowed my wives to have this conflict and I never acted on their behalf. I was always showing favoritism toward Rachel and Rachel's sons.

I was never the peacemaker within my own home, not within my marriages, not within the relationships between my sons and my own daughter was raped and then my sons mass murdered the Shechemites. Few and evil have been my days.

But he's also in a way testifying to the faithfulness of God's promise. My life has not measured up to that of my father's. My pilgrimage has not been like the pilgrimage of my father's. My father's lived by faith in what God had shown them.

I've been working at understanding what that looks like for me my whole long life. God has been faithfully untwisting to this day. 130 years long he's been untwisting his servant, the twister Jacob. He's testifying to the promise that God gave to his fathers just by referencing all of them as pilgrims.

These and the writer of Hebrews picks this right up out of Abraham in Hebrews chapter 11. Of course, he goes on to describe Jacob, but I think it's sort of a what we call a pericope that's summarizing or evaluating the whole.

It's an evaluative pericope. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, that's true of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but having seen them afar off, they were assured of them, embraced them, confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

Where is the confession that there's pilgrims on the earth? It's right here out of Genesis 47. It's this confession before Pharaoh. We are pilgrims on the earth. And the writer of Hebrews says, those who say such things plainly declare they're seeking a homeland.

Jacob says, it's not in Canaan as it stands now, awaiting the seed. And it's certainly not in Egypt. We've been pilgrims and we're still pilgrims. Come, the land is before you, settle in Goshen. No, you don't understand, we're pilgrims.

He's testifying. He's testifying before Pharaoh. Notice the contrast between Jacob and Joseph as we just take a step back and just consider the difference between Joseph and his father. When Jacob says, few and evil have been the days of my life, we recognize that so much of that is the evil that he brought about by his own actions and decisions.

He, in a very real sense, made his own bed. Whereas Joseph experienced persecution and suffering, evil was done to him rather than him doing evil. So already we see this contrast where Joseph, in a very different way, could say, few and evil have been my days, but it wasn't evil that he perpetrated so much as evil that he suffered.

Evil that he endured. Whereas for Jacob, it was so much of the evil that he did. And therefore, Jacob was often blind and indifferent to seeing the hand of God and his adversity. All these things are against me!

He's always crying out. Whereas Joseph can't but see God's hand moving through the suffering, moving providentially through the adversity. And we see therefore Joseph eager to forgive, eager to be reconciled in ways that it's taken a long time for Jacob to get to that place.

We see the difference between the father and the son. We also see that the father's restoration is bound up with the reunion of the beloved son. It's also interesting to see that for Jacob, the very things he tried to retain were the things that he lost.

The very things that he held tightest to, Rachel and Benjamin and even Joseph for a time, were the things that were ultimately taken from him. But when he finally was willing to let go, as he did with Benjamin, he gained back more than he could have understood.

He gained back Benjamin and his long lost son. He gained back his faith and his standing before God. He gained back the admiration of his sons and his household. He had been blessed. And as he stands before Pharaoh testifying, we see that now his desire is to further testify.

What did God promise Abraham and Isaac and Jacob? That they would be a blessing to the nations. And what does Jacob do here? He blesses Pharaoh. Jacob invokes the blessing of God upon Pharaoh. He's thoroughly unimpressed by the pageantry of Pharaoh.

He says, God is the one who has given you this position. May God continue to bless you. God is the king over all. God himself came to me when I was worshiping at Beersheba and reminded me that he is with me.

He indeed reigns over all of the world. And so this testimony moves toward a blessing upon the Gentiles. Jacob is beginning to take another step forward in fulfilling the Abrahamic promise. And then as we finally read, closing out verses 11 and 12, Joseph situated his father and his brothers, gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Ramses.

That's how Moses' audience would have understood it when we turned to Exodus 1. The city of Ramses is built to be a storehouse. While Israel is in the midst of their bondage. And Joseph provided his father, his brothers, and all his father's household with bread, according to the number in their family.

So everyone is provided for. In the midst of five more years of famine, everyone down to the smallest is provided for by Joseph. All Israel is saved. So application. We've looked at separation. Joseph's heart is for his family to remain separate.

And that separation is going to be a low status that causes them to be abominable to the mighty culture, the mighty empire that surrounds them. In many ways, they're living off the scraps that come from the Egyptian table.