Genesis 46

Hey, welcome back, Monday as we finish the last day of February and we move into a new
chapter in Genesis, chapter 46,
a chapter that we’ll move through pretty quickly.
A lot of it is some genealogy stuff in the middle of the chapter.
But just if you haven’t been with us for a while or just to recap,
Joseph in Egypt has
now confronted his brothers.
There’s been a reunion of sorts.
He sent them home with an invitation to get their father,
to get all of their people,
all of their stuff,
and come to Egypt.
The Pharaoh has been very gracious,
telling the family, “You won’t need for anything.
You won’t want for anything.
Come and live here,
be here, and in honor of Joseph,
you will be taken care of.”
And I think the words he used was,
“You will lack nothing.”
So we closed the week last week with Jacob hearing this story that his young son,
Joseph, the second youngest,
and the two boys of his
most loved wife
were alive, that Joseph was alive.
And Jacob committed to go to Egypt to see him.
And so that’s where we start today.
Chapter 46,
when Israel, that’s Jacob,
set out on his journey with all that he had and
came to bear Sheba,
he offered sacrifice to God,
the God of his father Isaac.
God spoke to Israel in visions of the night
and said,
“Jacob, Jacob,” and he said, “Here I am.”
Then he said,
“I am God,
the God of your father.
Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt.
I will make of you a great nation there.
I myself will go with you to Egypt.
I will also bring you up again,
and Joseph’s own hand
will close your eyes.”
Then Jacob set out from bear Sheba,
and the sons of Israel carried their father Jacob,
their little ones, their wives, their wagons that the Pharaoh had sent to carry them.
They also took all the livestock and the goods they had acquired in the land of Canaan,
and they came into Egypt.
Jacob and all his offspring with him,
his sons and his sons with him,
his daughters and his sons’ daughters,
and all the offspring he brought with him
into Egypt.
Now,
this next part, verses 8 through 27,
is just a long recounting of all the names.
I would encourage you to read it.
We’re not going to go through it because it wouldn’t mean a lot to you,
but it does list
each one of the 12 sons,
as well as their wives, their children.
So, it’s sort of an accounting of the snapshot,
really, of the entire family tree
as they relocate to Egypt.
But the most significant part of this story,
Michael, I think this transitional story,
would be that after multiple chapters now,
God makes an appearance again.
And as we’ve seen before,
Jacob encounters God in a dream,
and God does what God has done consistently through this book.
Ever since we encountered Abraham,
God makes the covenant promise a renewal.
I am going to do this.
Your people are going to be numerous.
I’m going to make of you a great nation.
And Joseph is going to be with you.
In fact,
Joseph will be with you to the end of your life.
And so,
nothing new here, but I think it feels significant because we haven’t seen anything
like this in a while.
And this brings connection,
I think, to several of those stories that have gone before.
And it’s a very poignant moment for Jacob here because this is now happening
on the way to a different place.
So, we’ve said this at a few points during this study,
but it really needs repeated here as we look at this text,
that sometimes Genesis is doing many things at the same time.
One of the things here,
I think, to your point, Clint, is reminding us that it is God who’s at
work, even through these folks’ choices and difficult circumstances and ultimate successes,
like we have in the case of Joseph.
But another thing that we have happening here is an explanation
as to some of the problems we’re going to see come just a few chapters down the road.
In fact, when we turn from Genesis into Exodus in the Old Testament,
we’re going to very quickly be wondering to ourselves,
how did we end up in Egypt again?
How did God’s chosen people end up in slavery?
How did the situation become so dire as to the fact that the
Israelite people were being forced to lose their babies because of the power of this overlord?
When you know that that’s coming around the corner,
this text has a particular significance,
because it shows us that the Israelites came into this position not wantonly,
not because of a lack of faith that they went and did something outside of God’s plan,
but rather because of a direct command when God says to Jacob,
“Do not be afraid.
Go down to Egypt.”
When God says that,
that opens the door that this is in God’s will,
this is in God’s timing and God’s plan,
and it sets up for us the motivation for what will later become a massive change
in the identity of the people of Israel.
The captivity in Egypt and God’s rescue of them from that captivity is really
among the most fundamental stories of the scriptures.
And this text right here is providing a frame for us to understand the setup to that story.
So though everything I just talked about really references a book we’re not studying right now,
you need to know that is being referenced here in an intentional and important way,
because this text is giving us the background and meaning for that already.
It’s really interesting.
I think the way this text is a kind of doorway,
a shift of focus a little bit.
We have been exclusively looking through the eyes of Joseph.
I mean, really, that has been the center of the story arc for the last multiple chapters.
And now we see a kind of reconnection with this Israel narrative.
Literally, in this case, Jacob is called Israel.
But beyond that, not just Jacob as a person,
but this reference, again, this restatement of a promise to build a people,
the promise to cement a future through expanding.
You will be great.
You will be numerous.
You will be all those things.
And that promise now has come through Joseph.
But as it does so,
it reconnects with the whole family story.
So we have half a chapter of all the names,
all the children, the grandchildren.
We have the wives listed here.
We have this moment that we are moving toward reunion.
And we get that in the next part of the story.
I’m going to jump ahead.
So if you got your Bible open,
look at verse 28 is where we go back into the story.
Israel, that’s Jacob,
sent Judah ahead to Joseph to lead the way before him into Goshen.
“When they came to the land of Goshen,
Joseph made ready his chariot,
and he went up to meet his father Israel in Goshen.
He presented himself to him.
He fell on his neck.
He wept on his neck a good while.
Israel said to Joseph,
‘I can die now having seen for myself that you are alive.’
Joseph said to his brothers and to his father’s household,
‘I will go up and tell the Pharaoh and will say to him,
‘My brothers and my father’s household who were with me in the land of Canaan have come here to me.
The men are shepherds,
for they have been keepers of livestock,
and they’ve brought flocks and herds and all they have.
When Pharaoh calls you and says,
‘What is your occupation?’
You shall say to him,
‘Your servants have been keepers of livestock from youth,
even until now.
Both we and our ancestors,
in order that you may settle in the land of Goshen,
because all shepherds are abhorrent to the Egyptians.'”
So again,
kind of a large swath there,
we get to an interesting place.
But we start at a really beautiful moment in the story where for the first time in multiple,
multiple years, we have Joseph and Jacob in the same place.
And the text,
you know, the Bible’s really not prone to deep emotional outbursts,
but he wept on him for a good while,
for a long time, in other words.
They’re both overcome.
This reunion,
keep in mind that remember that Jacob until very recently in the story
believed that Joseph was dead and he now sees him.
He knows that he’s okay.
He sees that he’s made something.
And yes, I’m sure he cares about moving to Egypt.
I’m sure he cares about resources.
But all of that doesn’t matter in that moment.
In that moment, all he cares about is that he has his hands around his son.
The one that he thought was lost is now with him.
And it’s really,
it’s not told emotionally,
so you can read past it.
But if you really stop and picture this scene,
I think it makes quite an impact.
Yeah, it is a moving turn in the story,
which has been filled with a lot of really difficult moments,
as well as some substantial deception,
which has that point spent,
I think, very disturbing as we read the text together.
But now we come to this moment of reconciliation,
where things have turned out far better than anyone could have anticipated along the way.
And so certainly there’s a note here of gratitude,
of fulfillment.
When Jacob says, you know, now I can die,
now I can let my life go,
you referenced, I believe it wasn’t our last time together, Clint,
that we often will know of someone in our life
who holds out for that last thing,
for that last wedding or graduation.
And they say, I’m going to make it through whatever health challenges I might have,
or whatever life circumstances,
I will make it to that thing.
And here,
he has now learning that his son was alive,
made this journey.
And he has seen his son.
And that for him is the fulfillment of what could have not even been a dream.
He believed that this son was dead.
Now he has been found alive.
And that is unto itself,
the greatest gift.
He’s received a son that he thought was gone.
On the other hand,
as we said numerous times,
the reception that Joseph gives him in Egypt
is not just one of families reuniting.
It is in many ways the next chapter of the nation Israel’s history,
because it is in Goshen,
it is in this place where they will thrive.
And a family of 12 will continue to bear out the promise that God made,
and they will continue to be fruitful and multiply.
And so, as we said, Joseph’s story, which has been so detailed and so long,
it provides us a window in which we see one person’s encounter with the living God,
though it’s not until recently that we’ve seen God’s comments throughout it.
But it’s also the story of how God’s been working on behalf of that promise
that we know he made to Abram so many chapters ago.
That’s what makes Genesis and this part of Genesis so powerful.
The Joseph story is filled with character,
it’s filled with meaning,
it’s filled with connection points to these folks.
We can make an empathetic connection with them.
At the same time,
their story is telling a much larger story,
and that’s exactly how we’re intended to read.
That’s what Genesis is trying to tell us.
God uses individual people,
God works through families,
even and especially messy ones,
and yet we find that God is able to bring moments like this,
clint moments of reconciliation and great blessing along the way.
Yeah, and it’s very tempting to read this story as sort of finished now,
but it isn’t.
And the Bible gives us a subtle way of knowing that.
Joseph gives the brothers very specific instructions,
because while they are family of a favored person,
they’re Joseph’s family and Pharaoh favors Joseph.
Pharaoh is also frightening.
Pharaoh is also the power of the world.
And so Joseph gives his brothers very specific instructions.
When he says this to you,
say this, repeat this,
because they are aliens.
And it says here that shepherds are abhorrent to the Egyptians,
that they are outsiders.
Now, they’re going to be secure in their place,
they’re going to be given a future.
But this is not without risk.
It’s not without some uncertainty.
It’s not without some danger.
We’re not done with those themes.
In the next chapter,
we’re going to see a restatement of the famine narrative.
At the end of this book,
we have a restatement of the tension between Jacob and his brothers.
The Bible in this story is not quite finished with those possibilities,
and those ends are not tied up completely yet.
And so I think we see that here in this transition.
Tomorrow we’ll look specifically at how the Pharaoh receives the family,
what happens, and where they go from there.
But this is a pretty good moment.
All things considered, this really is a powerful place,
I think, that the text takes us.
The only other comment I would make here,
Clint, is, and I think it’s subtle,
and I don’t want to stress it or push it too far,
but there is a sense,
and my commentary points out here,
that there may be a little deception in mind here that Joseph may be pointing his brothers to.
You know, Pharaoh doesn’t really like people in the livestock profession.
He doesn’t really care for shepherds.
That has a stigma here.
So he says, you know,
maybe you should sort of keep that on the low.
Let’s maybe not emphasize that.
And if that is, in fact,
deception,
I think it’s another theme that is coming back up
and circling around, this idea that this family is doing what needs done to make things happen.
Now, in this case, it’s not going to shape the story,
but it is a detail that gets picked up again tomorrow, so remember it.
But there is a sense in which, you know,
the biblical Genesis story
doesn’t hide the fact that there’s reaching.
I mean, there’s trying to get ahead,
and using whatever tools or means to do so
is certainly lifted up in the text.
It’s not hidden by any means.
Yeah, and, you know, I don’t know what we would make of that, but it’s interesting.
I think particularly those of us who grew up in Iowa or the Midwest in a rural situation,
you know,
Egypt is very cosmopolitan.
They’re meeting with the Pharaoh,
and these are people who have,
you know, they’ve pulled lambs and they’ve shoveled stuff.
And they’ve, you know, they’ve done very menial work.
And if you’ve ever been in a situation,
you know, I can remember meeting people
who grew up in the city and were successful.
And it’s very different to say,
yeah, every town and every road in my town
was a gravel road,
and we shoveled stables,
and we threw hay.
And, you know,
it’s just,
it is a difference.
And there’s a certain distance between their life experiences.
And some of that matters in the text.
And we’ve seen a little bit of that before.
But to this point in the story,
all of Abraham’s people,
they’re outdoor people.
They’re workers.
They’re farmers.
They’re herders.
And there is a sense maybe in which Egypt,
and particularly the power structure of Egypt,
doesn’t know exactly what to do with that.
Well, Fred, we want to thank you once again for joining us for our study.
We hope that if you found it helpful,
you might like and share it.
Subscribe, of course, for more studies like this.
But we hope that you have a great day.
And I look forward to seeing you as we continue the study tomorrow.
Thanks, all.