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CHAPTER 22: Departure of Jacob and his family into Egypt - Jacob's
Interview with Pharaoh - His last Illness and command to be buried in
Canaan - Adoption of Ephraim and Manasseh among the Sons of Israel
(GENESIS 46-48)
A DIFFICULT path lay before the patriarch Jacob. As yet he had had no direct
intimation from God that he should remove with his family to Egypt. But, on the
other hand, God's dealings with Joseph, the invitation of Pharaoh, and the famine in
Canaan served to point it out as the period of which God had spoken to Abram
(Genesis 15:13), when his seed should leave Canaan, and become strangers and
enslaved in a land that was not theirs. He knew that two things must take place before
the return of Israel to, and their final possession of the promised land. "The iniquity
of the Amorites" must be "full," and the family of Israel must have grown into a
nation. The former was still future, and as for the latter it is easy to see that any
further stay in Canaan would have been hindering and not helpful to it. For at the
time Canaan was divided among numerous independent tribes, with one or more of
whom the sons of Jacob, as they increased in numbers, must either have coalesced or
entered into warfare. Still more dangerous to their religion would have been their
continuance among and intercourse with the Canaanites. It was quite otherwise in
Egypt. Thither they went professedly as sojourners, and for a temporary purpose. The
circumstance that they were shepherds, and as such "an abomination to the
Egyptians," kept them separate, alike politically, religiously, and socially, from the
rest of the people, and, indeed, caused them to be placed in a district by themselves.
Yet "the land of Goshen" was the best for the increase of their substance in flocks and
herds. These may be designated as the outward reasons for their removal into Egypt
at that time; the higher and spiritual bearings of the event have already been stated.
The assurance which Jacob needed for his comfort was granted him, as he reached
Beersheba, the southern boundary of the promised land. There the patriarch offered
"sacrifices unto the God of his father Isaac," and there the faithful Lord spake to him
"in the visions of the night." His words gave Jacob this fourfold assurance, that God
was the covenant-God, and that Jacob need not fear to go down into Egypt; that God
would there make of him a great nation, in other words, that the transformation from
the family to the nation should take place in Egypt; that God would go down with
him; and, lastly, that He would surely bring him up again. And each of these four
assurances was introduced by an emphatic I, to indicate the personal and direct
source of all these blessings. Thus strengthened, Israel pursued his journey in
confidence of spirit.
As so often in Scripture, a very important lesson is conveyed to us in this connection,
though in a manner to escape superficial observation. It has been repeatedly
(^)