When Israel Moved to Egypt - Genesis 45:16-47:12

©November 3rd, 2019 by Rev. Rick Goettsche SERIES: Genesis

On the old tv show, The A-Team, the group’s leader, Hannibal, was fond of saying, “I love it when a plan comes together.” Most of us would say the same thing. When everything finally comes together, it is fun to see. We have been saying all through Joseph’s story that God was working out a plan and now we get to see the plan come to fruition, as Joseph is reunited with his entire family and they all move to Egypt. This was God’s plan all along. He told Abram back in Genesis 15,

Then the Lord said to Abram, “You can be sure that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land, where they will be oppressed as slaves for 400 years. 14But I will punish the nation that enslaves them, and in the end they will come away with great wealth. 15(As for you, you will die in peace and be buried at a ripe old age.) 16After four generations your descendants will return here to this land, for the sins of the Amorites do not yet warrant their destruction.” (Genesis 15:13-16, NLT)

In other words, this whole debacle with Joseph was being used by God to do exactly what he had said all along. He told Abram his descendants would be strangers in a foreign land (Egypt), and they would become slaves for 400 years (which happens sometime after Joseph’s family moves there), but that God would punish that nation and lead them away with great wealth (which we read about in the book of Exodus). He then said Abram’s descendants would eventually return to the land of Canaan (known as the promised land) after that time, which they did. God wasn’t surprised by anything that happened, and he had foreseen the whole story more than 500 years in advance! It’s amazing to see how God was using all the trials of Joseph’s life to bring about his perfect plan to bring the nation of Israel to Egypt, so He could deliver them in a mighty and miraculous way. I love it when a plan comes together!

The Brothers’ Return

Last week we looked at Joseph’s reunion with his brothers. After testing them and seeing their remorse, he believed them to be changed men. Now Joseph sends his brothers back to get their father and the rest of the family and bring them back to Egypt to live, because he knew the famine was going to last another 5 years.

When word reached Pharaoh about all that had happened, he rejoiced with Joseph and decided he should help make the move happen. So Pharaoh sent the brothers home with several carts loaded with the best things of Egypt, and told them they could ride back in style. Joseph gave them all sorts of wealth and provisions and sent them on their way home. Before the brothers left, Joseph warned them not to quarrel along the way. We don’t know exactly what Joseph meant by this, but I think he knew his brothers might start fighting again. They might blame each other for their role in Joseph’s enslavement. They might talk about how they were going to tell their dad about what had happened without making them all look bad. They might have gotten angry at Benjamin for being Joseph’s favorite (the way Joseph was Jacob’s favorite). Whatever the case, Joseph felt the need to give them that parting encouragement before they left. It’s a good reminder to us as well—sometimes it’s better to just let some things go—because quarreling isn’t worth it.

When they arrived back in Canaan, I suspect Jacob breathed a sigh of relief. This was a very long journey, and he had surely been waiting breathless for Benjamin to return home. When they finally arrived back in their homeland, I suspect that even though these were grown men, they came running up to Jacob like giddy schoolchildren who’d had a great day and wanted to tell their dad all about it. I picture his sons all trying to tell some part of the story to their dad as he simply tried to take it all in.

And they left Egypt and returned to their father, Jacob, in the land of Canaan.26“Joseph is still alive!” they told him. “And he is governor of all the land of Egypt!” Jacob was stunned at the news—he couldn’t believe it. 27But when they repeated to Jacob everything Joseph had told them, and when he saw the wagons Joseph had sent to carry him, their father’s spirits revived. 28Then Jacob exclaimed, “It must be true! My son Joseph is alive! I must go and see him before I die.” (Genesis 45:25-28, NLT)

Initially, Jacob couldn’t believe it. It was far more wonderful than he could have possibly imagined. He didn’t dare to dream that Joseph was still alive. He had given up all hope of ever seeing his son again. He likely found himself thinking over the last 22 years of how he’d like to see him just one more time, thinking about the man he might have become, thinking about how he’d have been a great father, but how none of those things would ever come to pass. And now, suddenly, he is told that Joseph is still living and wants to see him! At first, he seems to think it is some sort of a cruel joke and was therefore hesitant to believe, but when he saw all the wagons loaded down with riches from Egypt, he began to believe that this story just might be true!

The New Living Translation doesn’t show this, but in the original language Jacob is referred to as Jacob through most of the account, but at the end, when he believes and decides to go to Egypt the text refers to him as Israel. This is significant; the man whose faith had been shaken was now trusting God the way he had before!

The Move

This move was not a vacation, but a permanent move to a foreign land. Jacob and his family (the fledgling nation of Israel) were going to leave the land they knew, the land they believed God had given to them as an inheritance, and move to be with Joseph in Egypt. This move required a great deal of faith. So as they left, Jacob stopped at a familiar place to seek the Lord.

So Jacob set out for Egypt with all his possessions. And when he came to Beersheba, he offered sacrifices to the God of his father, Isaac. 2During the night God spoke to him in a vision. “Jacob! Jacob!” he called. “Here I am,” Jacob replied. 3“I am God, the God of your father,” the voice said. “Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make your family into a great nation. 4I will go with you down to Egypt, and I will bring you back again. You will die in Egypt, but Joseph will be with you to close your eyes.” (Genesis 46:1-4, NLT)

Beersheba was a significant place in their family. Jacob had lived in Beersheba when he was younger. Abraham and Isaac both had significant encounters with God in this place. It is also the very edge of the land God had promised to Abraham. In other words, it was basically the last stop before Jacob left his homeland. So, he offered sacrifices to the Lord there, to ensure he was doing the right thing, and to acknowledge he still trusted the Lord no matter what.

During the night, God appeared to Jacob and reassured him. He told Jacob to go ahead to Egypt, because his descendants would become a great nation there. God told Jacob He would be with him even in Egypt, but that He would also bring Jacob back again (reiterating the promise God had made to Abraham all those years ago). God told him he would die in Egypt, but he would do so with Joseph by his side.

God did not appear to Jacob before he left home. It was only after he had taken this step of faith that God spoke to Jacob to reassure him and give him guidance. Many times God won’t reveal the next step for us until we’ve taken that first one. We can’t see God’s plan until we demonstrate faith in following Him. So if you feel like you’re not hearing any direction from the Lord, can I suggest that maybe it’s because you haven’t taken the last step He called you to take? Is there something you know God wants you to do, but you’ve been resisting for some reason? Is there someone He wants you to talk to, a sin He wants you to deal with, a ministry He wants you to carry out, or a conversation He wants you to have? If you know what God wants you to do, but don’t do it, you likely won’t feel His leading again until you’ve done what He asked. And you may not be able to see his reasons why until you actually take that step of faith.

After Jacob took his step of faith and God reassured him to keep going, he confidently continued his journey to Egypt. Jacob was familiar with God’s promise to Abraham. He knew Canaan was his eventual inheritance. He surely didn’t understand why God wanted him to go to Egypt. But Jacob, knowing this was what God wanted from him, went ahead into the unknown. He knew God was with him wherever he went, and that was enough.

God is with us wherever we go. When we go through hard times, God is with us. When things are great, He is there too. When we face the unknown, we know we don’t have to do it alone. And when we face a task that seems overwhelming to us, we know God will strengthen us to do what He has called us to. This should give us confidence as we face the various scenes of our lives. We tend to shy away from doing what God has called us to out of fear, but God constantly calls us to trust Him more than our fear. William Carey, a famous preacher and missionary once said that we should, “Attempt great things for God, and expect great things from God.” We will only see God do great things in our lives if we trust Him enough to attempt them. Joseph and Jacob took this to heart. We’d be wise to do the same.

Israel’s Arrival

Much of chapter 46 is devoted to listing all of Jacob’s family who came with him to Egypt. Sometimes sections like this feel like throwaway passages. They seem like unimportant details of a bygone era. But this listing of individuals tells us a couple things.

First, it teaches us that God cares about individuals. There is a temptation to conclude that these people were unimportant because we don’t have any more details about them. But they were not unimportant to God. God cares about every single person He has created, from the most influential world leader to the unborn child to the person with profound disabilities to the person who feels like just another face in the crowd. Every person is important to God. That’s something we should remember about ourselves and also about the people with whom we interact each day. Everyone matters.

Second, this record of Jacob’s descendants shows us that God was beginning to fulfill His promise of making Abraham’s descendants into a great nation, albeit not very quickly. After about 200 years, the nation of Israel only amounted to 70 people. When we pick up the story of Israel in the book of Exodus, they have grown to 600,000 men, which means a couple million people were part of the nation by that point. God always keeps His promises; just not always in the timing or way we think He will.

There is some question about how the author of Genesis arrived at 70 people as the number who went to Egypt. The reason is because when we read a couple other genealogies in the Bible, they don’t line up perfectly with this one. This isn’t of great concern to us, nor does it necessarily constitute a contradiction. Rather, it illustrates a difference in focus. It doesn’t matter whether there were 70 people, 75, or some other number. The point is to show us that the nation of Israel was quite small at this point, but that God would soon bless this tiny, fledgling nation and turn them into a great and numerous people, just as He had promised.

When the whole group arrived in Egypt, they moved to the land of Goshen. When they arrived, Joseph came down to greet them, and there was a tearful reunion between Joseph and Jacob. Both men thought they would never see each other again, and they surely marveled at God’s grace, and the unexpected blessing of a reunion they never dared to dream about. We are told that when Joseph arrived, he held his father for a long time. It’s a touching picture. If you have seen videos of family members being reunited after a long military deployment, you can have some sense of what this might have looked like. Part of what is so touching about those videos is that these people were afraid they might never see their loved one again. I can rarely watch a video like that without crying myself at the joy they feel. But this was a whole other level. It had been 22 years since Joseph and his father had seen each other, and they never dreamed they’d be together again. Of course they’d hold each other for a long time.

Jacob’s response to his son after their reunion was this,

Finally, Jacob said to Joseph, “Now I am ready to die, since I have seen your face again and know you are still alive.” (Genesis 46:30, NLT)

Jacob had experienced a greater joy than he thought possible, and he was ready for the Lord to bring him home. I find this statement thought-provoking. What would make you feel you were ready to die?

I think most of us only feel ready to die when we feel we can no longer live the way we want to. But Jacob was content. He knew had lived his purpose, and now he was ready. At the end of his life, the Apostle Paul said something similar,

7I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful.8And now the prize awaits me—the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on the day of his return. And the prize is not just for me but for all who eagerly look forward to his appearing. (2 Timothy 4:7-8, NLT)

Paul was ready to die because he had done what God had called him to do and he knew where he was going when he died. I think Jacob was the same way. We need to be sure of where we will go when we die. This isn’t about trying to live a good enough life and hoping that “God lets you in.” It’s having a settled belief in the forgiveness Jesus offers you, and trusting in him. But we also need to live each day prepared to meet the Lord. Jacob and Paul were prepared to give an account for the things they had done. We don’t know when our time will be up, so we should focus on serving God to the best of our ability right now. If we are confident in our eternal home and work hard to honor God with our lives, we too will be ready to die, whenever that day comes.

Joseph had one more gift to give his family, and that was to ensure Pharaoh let them live in the most fertile land in Egypt, the land of Goshen. So he used his political acumen once more to ensure this would happen. Joseph instructed his family to emphasize to Pharaoh that they were shepherds, knowing he would want to make sure they had land far away from the main city, as the Egyptians didn’t care for shepherds. In this way, it would be Pharaoh’s idea to give them the region of Goshen, rather than Joseph’s. Joseph wasn’t being deceptive (they were, after all, shepherds), but he was being clever. So when he came before Pharaoh, he emphasized that they were shepherds, and so did his brothers. And sure enough, Pharaoh told them they should settle in Goshen…just as Joseph had planned. He set his family up for long-term success.

The last scene in this story is when Jacob comes in to meet Pharaoh. This whole environment would have surely been overwhelming to Jacob. He was a simple shepherd. He was wealthy, but nothing like what Pharaoh would have been like. He would have been surrounded by court members dressed in fine clothing, in a palace adorned with gold and the finest materials. It would have been tempting to fear such a powerful and wealthy man. But Jacob didn’t seem intimidated at all.

When Jacob came to meet Pharaoh, he blessed him…twice. He blessed him once when he came in and once when he left. Generally, the one granting blessings was the one who had greater power. One would expect Pharaoh to give blessings to Jacob, not the other way around. But Jacob knew something Pharaoh didn’t. He had true power on his side, because he served the one true God. So Jacob took this opportunity to once again witness to the greatness of the God of Israel. Pharaoh had seen some measure of the power of God in Joseph’s life and deeds, and Jacob reiterated this to him as he came before him.

Jacob serves as a shining example for us to follow. We often fail to speak truth about God to the people around us. We shy away from talking about our faith or giving God credit, often for fear of how the people around us may respond. Jacob was a picture of what happens when we truly trust the Lord—we don’t worry about the people around us; we simply testify to what we know to be true. It’s easy to be a Christian when we’re with other Christians, it’s much harder when we’re around people who may not approve of our beliefs or may attack us for them. We should take a lesson from Jacob—if God is real, then it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks about us. If we truly trust Him, we will testify about Him, rather than worrying about what others think of us.

Conclusion

This is the happy ending we’ve been waiting to see for many chapters. It is wonderful to see how God was orchestrating things behind the scenes all along. God was concerned about Joseph, but His plan was way bigger than Joseph or his family. He was using the events of Joseph’s life to fulfill a promise he’d made hundreds of years before.

This is more than a nice story. It’s written to encourage and challenge us. We should learn:

That the only way to see God move is to take the steps of faith He’s calling us to take, even if they’re scary.

That God has a plan that’s bigger than you or me. That doesn’t mean we don’t matter, but that if God can orchestrate everything that’s going on, He also has our situation under control.

That every person matters to God, so they should matter to us as well.

That we should always look for opportunities to praise God and to point others to Him. We should have the courage to speak up, no matter who we are around.

If we have learned nothing else from the story of Joseph, we should learn that we can trust in the Lord, because He never fails in accomplishing His plan. And His plans are perfect. And when we get to see how the story ends, we tend to find that we too love it when God’s plan comes together.