Moving Into Harms Way - With God's Blessing Series

Has God ever instructed you to go into a place where you knew eventually there would be suffering? I’m not sure that’s happened to any of us - and I am even less sure that knowing that fact would help us in any way. But in doing so we fulfill God’s plan not only for us but for His purposes on earth. And His promise is that He will never leave us - even in the darkest of times. Such is the situation in which we find Jacob. On the surface it is the best of news - his long lost son Joseph is alive and well in Egypt. Further - Joseph is inviting them to come live with him to take away the threat of starvation in the famine.

What should be great news, though, is tinged with the promise of suffering - given to Jacob’s grandfather, Abraham.

Genesis 15:13-14 Then the LORD said to him, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. 14 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.

Surely this must have been passed down to Jacob - who in the back of his mind must have been thinking about this prophecy as he packed his wagons and headed for Egypt.

Chapter 46

Verses 1 - 4

It was a big thing for Jacob to leave Canaan and bring his family to Egypt - especially since God had promised to Jacob that he would inherit Canaan as his own - was this tantamount to abandoning his post - his land? No God says.

Beersheba was a significant place. Abraham had planted a tamarisk tree there (Gen 21) and called on the name of the Lord. It was a place where treaties were made (Gen 21, 26), and where Isaac’s servants found water (Gen 26). So it was a place of worship, a place of peace, and a place of refreshing. It is often in places like this that the Lord speaks to us - when we have worshiped Him, found peace in our souls with Him, and been refreshed in His Word.

This answers a little detail that God revealed to Abraham way back in Chapter 15 - that they would be in a land not theirs for 400 years and that they would be enslaved and mistreated. This was written to a people who had just come out of Egypt after being enslaved and mistreated - but God wants them to know that this was a part of His plan. The most important thing: "I will go down with you and I will bring you back up."

Verses 5 - 7

So this is the entire clan and all their belongings. This is different than just going down to get supplies to keep them alive during the drought - this was wholesale moving.

Verses 8 - 27

This is not an actual counting but a charter of sorts. Er and Onan are dead (v 12), and Ephraim and Manasseh didn’t go down to Egypt (v 20) - they are already there. Don’t think of this as a passenger manifest, but as a document of a nation’s beginning. Each family has its place to keep.

Verses 28 - 30

They didn’t have AAA or a roadmap they could pick up at a gas station. Judah is sent on ahead - showing more his leadership in the tribe - which will continue in the blessings of chapter 49, the Davidic line, and eventually the Messiah.

Goshen is probably the delta region of the lower Nile (ie, northern Egypt). It would have been a perfect place to raise sheep and goats - good grass and well watered.

Of course - Jacob didn’t die for sometime (17 years we see at the end of Chapter 47) - but it’s what he was living life for - to once again see his son Joseph.

Verses 31 - 34

Joseph carefully rehearses how the brothers should approach Pharaoh. There really are no records indicating that Egyptians hated shepherds as a vocation - one possible solution is this:

During this period of time, a lot of Semitic people migrated to Egypt - and in fact had a ruling majority over time. These people as a whole were looked down on - and Joseph may be trying to separate his family as being different from these immigrants.

Chapter 47

Verses 1 - 6

So it was just like Joseph said - a very formal sort of presentation, though I’m sure the details were worked out beforehand.

I think this is here partially to let the Israelites know that when they came to Egypt, the king treated them much differently- and even gave them preferential treatment despite where they came from.