(Wesley’s Explanatory Notes, www.biblemaster.com used throughout)
In this chapter we have instances,
I. Of Joseph's kindness to his relations, presenting his brethren first, and then his father to Pharaoh, verse 1-10.
setting them in Goshen, and providing for them there, verse 11, 12.
paying his respects to his father when he sent for him, verse 27-31.
II. Of Joseph's justice between prince and people in a very critical affair; selling Pharaoh's corn to his subjects with reasonable profit to Pharaoh, and yet without any wrong to them, verse 13-26.
Then Joseph went in and told Pharaoh, and said, "My father and my brothers and their flocks and their herds and all that they have, have come out of the land of Canaan; and behold, they are in the land of Goshen."
2 He took five men from among his brothers and presented them to Pharaoh.
3 Then Pharaoh said to his brothers, "What is your occupation?" So they said to Pharaoh, "Your servants are shepherds, both we and our fathers."
What is your occupation? - Pharaoh takes it for granted they had something to do. All that have a place in the world should have an employment in it according to their capacity, some occupation or other. Those that need not work for their bread, yet must have something to do to keep them from idleness.
4 They said to Pharaoh, "We have come to sojourn in the land, for there is no pasture for your servants' flocks, for the famine is severe in the land of Canaan. Now, therefore, please let your servants live in the land of Goshen."
To sojourn in the land are we cane - Not to settle there for ever; only to sojourn, while the famine prevailed so in Canaan, which lay high, that it was not habitable for shepherds, the grass being burnt up much more than in Egypt, which lay low, and where the corn chiefly failed, but there was tolerable good pasture.
5 Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Your father and your brothers have come to you.
6 "The land of Egypt is at your disposal; settle your father and your brothers in the best of the land, let them live in the land of Goshen; and if you know any capable men among them, then put them in charge of my livestock."
7 Then Joseph brought his father Jacob and presented him to Pharaoh; and Jacob blessed Pharaoh.
8 Pharaoh said to Jacob, "How many years have you lived?"
How old art thou? - A question usually put to old men, for it is natural to us to admire old age, and to reverence it. Jacob's countenance no doubt shewed him to be old, for be had been a man of labour and sorrow. In Egypt people were not so long-lived as in Canaan, and therefore Pharaoh looks upon Jacob with wonder.
9 So Jacob said to Pharaoh, "The years of my sojourning are one hundred and thirty; few and unpleasant have been the years of my life, nor have they attained the years that my fathers lived during the days of their sojourning."
Observe 1. Jacob calls his life a pilgrimage, looking upon himself as a stranger in this world, and a traveller towards another. He reckoned himself not only a pilgrim now he was in Egypt, a strange country in which he never was before, but his life even in the land of his nativity was a pilgrimage.
2. He reckoned his life by days; for even so it is soon reckoned, and we are not sure of the continuance of it for a day to an end, but may be turned out of this tabernacle at less than an hours warning.
3. The character he gives of them was,
(1.) That they were few. Though he had now lived 130 years, they seemed to him but as a few days, in comparison of the days of eternity, in which a thousand years are but as one day;
(2.) That they were evil. This is true concerning man in general, Job 14:1, he is of few days and full of trouble: Jacob's life particularly had been made up of evil days. the pleasantest days of his life were yet before him.
(3.) That they were short of the days of his fathers; not so many, not so pleasant as their days. Old age came sooner upon him than it had done upon some of his ancestors.
10 And Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from his presence.
And Jacob blessed Pharaoh - Which was not only an act of civility but an act of piety; he prayed for him, as one having the authority of a prophet and a patriarch: and a patriarch's blessing was not a thing to be despised, no not by a potent prince.
11 So Joseph settled 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 ordered.
12 Joseph provided his father and his brothers and all his father's household with food, according to their little ones.
We see in verse 4 that Joseph’s dream and interpretation came true.
Are we blessing / praying for our leaders as verse 7 and 10 show us?
"The land of" (Genesis 47:11), was probably "the land of Goshen" (q.v.) 45:10. After the Hebrews had built Rameses, one of the "treasure cities," it came to be known as the "land" in which that city was built.
The city bearing this name (Exodus 12:37) was probably identical with Zoan, which Rameses II. ("son of the sun") rebuilt. It became his special residence, and ranked next in importance and magnificance to Thebes. Huge masses of bricks, made of Nile mud, sun-dried, some of them mixed with stubble, possibly moulded by Jewish hands, still mark the site of Rameses. This was the general rendezvous of the Israelites before they began their march out of Egypt. Called also Raamses (Exodus 1:11). Easton’s Bible Dictionary www.biblemaster.com/bible/dict/ebd/view.asp?number=3068
13 Now there was no food in all the land, because the famine was very severe, so that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan languished because of the famine.
14 Joseph gathered 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.
15 When the money was all spent in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, "Give us food, for why should we die in your presence? For our money is gone."
16 Then Joseph said, "Give up your livestock, and I will give you food for your livestock, since your money is gone."
17 So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and Joseph gave them food in exchange for the horses and the flocks and the herds and the donkeys; and he fed them with food in exchange for all their livestock that year.
18 When that year was ended, they came to him the next year and said to him, "We will not hide from my lord that our money is all spent, and the cattle are my lord's. There is nothing left for my lord except our bodies and our lands.
19 "Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land for food, and we and our land will be slaves to Pharaoh. So give us seed, that we may live and not die, and that the land may not be desolate."
20 So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh, for every Egyptian sold his field, because the famine was severe upon them. Thus the land became Pharaoh's.
21 As for the people, he removed them to the cities from one end of Egypt's border to the other.
He removed them to cities - He transplanted them, to shew Pharaoh's sovereign power over them, and that they might, in time, forget their titles to their lands, and be the easier reconciled to their new condition of servitude. How hard soever this seems to have been upon them, they themselves were sensible of it as a great kindness, and were thankful they were not worse used.
22 Only the land of the priests he did not buy, for the priests had an allotment from Pharaoh, and they lived off the allotment which Pharaoh gave them. Therefore, they did not sell their land.
23 Then Joseph said to the people, "Behold, I have today bought you and your land for Pharaoh; now, here is seed for you, and you may sow the land.
24 "At the harvest you shall give a fifth to Pharaoh, and four-fifths shall be your own for seed of the field and for your food and for those of your households and as food for your little ones."
25 So they said, "You have saved our lives! Let us find favor in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh's slaves."
26 Joseph made it a statute concerning the land of Egypt valid to this day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth; only the land of the priests did not become Pharaoh's.
Priests = Kohen, principal officer or chief ruler priest-king (Melchizedek, Messiah) pagan priests, priests of Jehovah, Levitical priests, Zadokite priests, Aaronic priests, the high priest. Strong's # 03548
27 Now Israel lived in the land of Egypt, in Goshen, and they acquired property in it and were fruitful and became very numerous.
28 Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years; so the length of Jacob's life was one hundred and forty-seven years.
Jacob lived seventeen years after he came into Egypt, far beyond his own expectation: seventeen years he had nourished Joseph, for so old he was when he was sold from him, and now, seventeen years Joseph nourished him. Observe how kindly Providence ordered Jacob's affairs; that when he was old, and least able to bear care and fatigue, he had least occasion for it, being well provided for by his son without his own forecast.
29 When the time for Israel to die drew near, he called his son Joseph and said to him, "Please, if I have found favor in your sight, place now your hand under my thigh and deal with me in kindness and faithfulness. Please do not bury me in Egypt,
And the time drew nigh that Israel must die - Israel, that had power over the angel, and prevailed, yet must yield to death. He died by degrees; his candle was not blown out, but gradually burnt down, so that he saw, at some distance, the time drawing nigh. He would be buried in Canaan, not because Canaan was the land of his nativity, but in faith, because it was the land of promise, which he desired thus, as it were to keep possession of 'till the time should come when his posterity should be masters of it: and because it was a type of heaven, that better country, which he was in expectation of. When this was done, Israel bowed himself upon the bed's head - Worshipping God, as it is explained, Hebrews 11:21, giving God thanks for all his favours, and particularly for this, that Joseph was ready, to put his hand upon his eyes. Thus they that go down to the dust should, with humble thankfulness, bow before God, the God of their mercies
30 but when I lie down 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."
31 He said, "Swear to me." So he swore to him. Then Israel bowed in worship at the head of the bed.
Worship in Genesis in Strong’s concordance is Shachah, to bow down (Qal) to bow down (Hiphil) to depress (fig) (Hithpael) to bow down, prostrate oneself 1c before superior in homage 1c before God in worship 1c before false gods 1c before angel
SUMMARY / APPLICATION / CONCLUSION - 4 Spiritual Laws
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
ra-am'-sez, ram'-e-sez (Exodus 1:11), (Genesis 47:11; Exodus 12:37; Numbers 33:3,5) (ra`mecec, ra`amcec; Rhamesse; Egyptian Ra-messu, "Ra created him" (or "it")):
1. The Meaning of "Store-Cities":
One of the two "settlements" (mickenoth) built, or "built up," by the Hebrews for the Pharaoh, the other being Pithom, to which the Septuagint adds a third, namely, "On which is
Heliopolis," a town near Cairo (Exodus 1:11). The Hebrew term mickenoth comes from a root meaning "to settle down" (Arabic sakan, "settlement," Assyrian sakanu or shakanu,
"to set"), but it is rendered "strong cities" in Septuagint, "treasure cities" in the King James Version, and (incorrectly) "store-cities" in the Revised Version:
The "land of Rameses," where Jacob and his sons settled, was apparently the "field of Zoan" (see ZOAN), thus lying in the Delta East of the Bubastic branch of the Nile.
2. The Meaning of the Name:
It is often assumed that no city called Rameses would have existed before the time of Rameses II, or the 14th century BC, though even before Rameses I the name occurs as that of a brother of Horemhib under the XVIIIth Dynasty. The usual translation "Child of Ra" is grammatically incorrect in Egyptian and as Ra was an ancient name for the "sun" it seems possible that a town may have borne the title "Ra created it" very early. The mention of Rameses in Ge (47:11) is often regarded as an anachronism, since no scholar has supposed that Jacob lived as late as the time of Rameses II. This would equally apply to the other notices, and at most would serve to mark the age of the passages in the Pentateuch where Rameses is mentioned, but even this cannot be thought to be proved (see EXODUS). According to De Rouge (see Pierret, Vocab. Hieroglyph., 1875, 143) there were at least three towns in Lower Egypt that bore the name Pa Rames-ses ("city of Rameses"); but Brugsch supposes that the place mentioned in the Old Testament was Zoan, to which Rameses II gave this name when making it his capital in the Delta. Dr. Budge takes the same view, while Dr. Naville and others suppose that the site of Raamses has still to be found.
3. Situation:
There appears to have been no certain tradition preserving the site, for though Silvia (about 385 AD) was told that it lay 4 miles from the town of Arabia (see GOSHEN), she found no traces of such a place. Brugsch ("A New City of Rameses, 1876," Aegyptische Zeitschrift, 69) places one such city in the southern part of Memphis itself. Goodwin (Rec. of Past, Old Series, VI, 11) gives an Egyptian letter describing the "city of Rameses-Miamun," which appears to be Zoan, since it was on the seacoast. It was a very prosperous city when this letter was written, and a pa-khennu or "palace city." It had canals full of fish, lakes swarming with birds, fields of lentils, melons, wheat, onions and sesame, gardens of vines, almonds and figs. Ships entered its harbor; the lotus and papyrus grew in its waters. The inhabitants greeted Rameses II with garlands of flowers. Besides wine and mead, of the "conqueror's city," beer was brought to the harbor from the Kati (in Cilicia), and oil from the "Lake Sagabi." There is no reason to suppose that Zoan was less prosperous in the early Hyksos age, when the Hebrews dwelt in its plain, whatever be the conclusion as to the date when the city Rameses received that name. The description above given agrees with the Old Testament account of the possession given by Joseph to his family "in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses" (Genesis 47:11).
C. R. Conder www.biblemaster.com/bible/ency/isb/view.asp?number=7209
