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Matthew Henry |
G E N E S I S
CHAP. XLVII.
In this chapter we have instances,
I. Of Joseph’s kindness and
affection to his relations, presenting his brethren first and then
his father to Pharaoh
(ver. 1-10),
settling them in Goshen, and
providing for them there
(ver. 11, 12),
and paying his respects to
his father when he sent for him,
II. Of Joseph’s
justice between prince and people in a very critical affair, selling
Pharaoh’s corn to his subjects with reasonable profits to Pharaoh,
and yet without any wrong to them,
&c. Thus he
approved himself wise and good, both in his private and in his
public capacity.
| Pharaoh’s Generosity; Jacob Presented to Pharaoh. | B. C. 1706. |
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1 Then Joseph came and told Pharaoh,
and said, My father and
my brethren, and their flocks, and
their herds, and all that they have,
are come out of the land of Canaan;
and, behold, they are in the land of
Goshen.
2 And he took some of his
brethren, even five men, and presented
them unto Pharaoh.
3 And Pharaoh
said unto his brethren, What is your
occupation? And they said unto Pharaoh,
Thy servants are shepherds,
both we, and also our fathers.
4 They
said moreover unto Pharaoh, For to
sojourn in the land are we come; for
thy servants have no pasture for their
flocks; for the famine is sore in the
land of Canaan: now therefore, we
pray thee, let thy servants dwell in
the land of Goshen.
5 And Pharaoh
spake unto Joseph, saying, Thy father
and thy brethren are come unto
thee:
6 The land of Egypt is before
thee; in the best of the land make
thy father and brethren to dwell;
in the land of Goshen let them dwell:
and if thou knowest any men of activity
among them, then make them
rulers over my cattle.
7 And Joseph
brought in Jacob his father, and set him
before Pharaoh: and Jacob blessed
Pharaoh.
8 And Pharaoh said unto
Jacob, How old art thou?
9 And
Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of
the years of my pilgrimage are a
hundred and thirty years: few and
evil have the days of the years of my
life been, and have not attained unto
the days of the years of the life of my
fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.
10 And Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and
went out from before Pharaoh.
11 And Joseph placed his father and his
brethren, and gave them a possession
in the land of Egypt, in the best of
the land, in the land of Rameses, as
Pharaoh had commanded.
12 And Joseph nourished his father, and his
brethren, and all his father’s household,
with bread, according to their families.
Here is, I. The respect which Joseph, as
a subject, showed to his prince. Though he
was his favourite, and prime-minister of
state, and had had particular orders from
him to send for his father down to Egypt,
yet he would not suffer him to settle till he
had given notice of it to Pharaoh,
v. 1.
Christ, our Joseph, disposes of his followers
in his kingdom as it is prepared of his Father,
saying, It is not mine to give,
Matt. xx. 23.
II. The respect which Joseph, as a brother,
showed to his brethren, notwithstanding all
the unkindness he had formerly received
from them.
1. Though he was a great man, and they
were comparatively mean and despicable,
especially in Egypt, yet he owned them.
Let those that are rich and great in the world
learn hence not to overlook nor despise their
poor relations. Every branch of the tree is
not a top branch; but, because it is a lower
branch, is it therefore not of the tree? Our
Lord Jesus, like Joseph here, is not ashamed
to call us brethren.
2. They being strangers and no courtiers,
he introduced some of them to Pharaoh, to
kiss his hand, as we say, intending thereby
to put an honour upon them among the
Egyptians. Thus Christ presents his brethren
in the court of heaven, and improves
his interest for them, though in themselves
unworthy and an abomination to the Egyptians.
Being presented to Pharaoh, according
to the instructions which Joseph had given
them, they tell him,
(1.) What was their
business–that they were shepherds,
v. 3.
Pharaoh asked them (and Joseph knew it
would be one of his first questions,
What is your occupation? He takes it
for granted they had something to do, else
Egypt should be no place for them, no harbour
for idle vagrants. If they would not
work, they should not eat of his bread in this
time of scarcity. Note, All that have a
place in the world should have an employment
in it according to their capacity, some
occupation or other, mental or manual.
Those that need not work for their bread
must yet have something to do, to keep them
from idleness. Again, Magistrates should
enquire into the occupation of their subjects,
as those that have the care of the public
welfare; for idle people are as drones in the
hive, unprofitable burdens of the commonwealth.
(2.) What was their business in
Egypt–to sojourn in the land
(v. 4),
not to
settle there for ever, only to sojourn there
for a time, while the famine so prevailed 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,
while there was tolerably good pasture.
3. He obtained for them a grant of a settlement
in the land of Goshen,
This
was an instance of Pharaoh’s gratitude to
Joseph; because he had been such a blessing
to him and his kingdom, he would be kind
to his relations, purely for his sake. He offered
them preferment as shepherds over his
cattle, provided they were men of activity;
for it is the man who is diligent in his business
that shall stand before kings. And,
whatever our profession or employment is,
we should aim to be excellent in it, and
to prove ourselves ingenious and industrious.
III. The respect Joseph, as a son, showed
to his father.
1. He presented him to Pharaoh,
v. 7.
And here,
(1.) Pharaoh asks Jacob a common question:
How old art thou?
v. 8.
A question
usually put to old men, for it is natural to us
to admire old age and to reverence it
(Lev. xix. 32),
as it is very unnatural and unbecoming
to despise it,
Jacob’s
countenance, no doubt, showed him to be
very old, for he 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; he was
as a show in his court. When we are reflecting
upon ourselves, this should come
into the account, “How old are we?”
(2.) Jacob gives Pharaoh an uncommon
answer,
v. 9.
He speaks as becomes a patriarch,
with an air of seriousness, for the instruction
of Pharaoh. Though our speech
be not always of grace, yet it must thus be
always with grace. Observe here,
[1.] He
calls his life a pilgrimage, looking upon himself
as a stranger in this world, and a traveller
towards another world: this earth his inn,
not his home. To this the apostle refers
(Heb. xi. 13),
They confessed that they were
strangers and pilgrims. He not only reckoned
himself a pilgrim now that 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, and those who so
reckon it can the better bear the inconvenience
of banishment from their native soil;
they are but pilgrims still, and so they were
always.
[2.] He reckons 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 hour’s warning. Let
us therefore number our days
(Ps. xc. 12),
and measure them,
[3.] The
character he gives of them is, First, That
they were few. Though he had now lived
130 years, they seemed to him but a few days,
in comparison with the days of eternity, the
eternal God, and the eternal state, in which a
thousand years (longer than ever any man
lived) are but as one day. Secondly, That
they were evil. This is true concerning man
in general, he is of few days, and full of
trouble
(Job xiv. 1);
and, since his days are
evil, it is well they are few. Jacob’s life, particularly,
had been made up of evil days;
and the pleasantest days of his life were yet
before him. Thirdly, 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. As the young man
should not be proud of his strength or beauty,
so the old man should not be proud of his
age, and the crown of his hoary hairs, though
others justly reverence it; for those who are
accounted very old attain not to the years of
the patriarchs. The hoary head is a crown
of glory only when it is found in the way of
righteousness.
(3.) Jacob both addresses himself to Pharaoh
and takes leave of him with a blessing
(v. 7):
Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and again,
which was not only an act of civility (he paid
him respect and returned him thanks for his
kindness), but an act of piety–he prayed for
him, as one having the authority of a prophet
and a patriarch. Though in worldly wealth
Pharaoh was the greater, yet, in interest with
God, Jacob was the greater; he was God’s
anointed,
And a patriarch’s blessing
was not a thing to be despised, no, not
by a potent prince. Darius valued the prayers
of the church for himself and for his sons,
Pharaoh kindly received Jacob,
and, whether in the name of a prophet or no,
thus he had a prophet’s reward, which sufficiently
recompensed him, not only for his
courteous converse with him, but for all the
other kindnesses he showed to him and his.
2. He provided well for him and his, placed
him in Goshen
(v. 11),
nourished him and all
his with food convenient for them,
This bespeaks, not only Joseph a good man,
who took this tender care of his poor relations,
but God a good God, who raised him
up for this purpose, and put him into a capacity
of doing it, as Esther came to the
kingdom for such a time as this. What God
here did for Jacob he has, in effect, promised
to do for all his, that serve him and trust in
him.
In the days of famine
they shall be satisfied.
| Distressed Occasioned by the Famine. | B. C. 1706. |
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13 And there was no bread in all
the land; for the famine was very sore,
so that the land of Egypt and all the
land of Canaan fainted by reason of the famine.
14 And Joseph gathered
up all the money that was found in
the land of Egypt, and in the land of
Canaan, for the corn which they
bought: and Joseph brought the
money into Pharaoh’s house.
15 And
when money failed in the land of
Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, all
the Egyptians came unto Joseph, and
said, Give us bread: for why should
we die in thy presence? for the money
faileth.
16 And Joseph said, Give
your cattle; and I will give you for
your cattle, if money fail.
17 And they
brought their cattle unto Joseph: and
Joseph gave them bread in exchange
for horses, and for the flocks, and for
the cattle of the herds, and for the
asses: and he fed them with bread
for all their cattle for that year.
18 When that year was ended, they came
unto him the second year, and said
unto him, We will not hide it from
my lord, how that our money is spent;
my lord also hath our herds of cattle;
there is not ought left in the sight
of my lord, but our bodies, and our
lands:
19 Wherefore shall we die
before thine eyes, both we and our
land? buy us and our land for bread,
and we and our land will be servants
unto Pharaoh: and give us seed, that
we may live, and not die, that the land
be not desolate.
20 And Joseph
bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh;
for the Egyptians sold every
man his field, because the famine prevailed
over them: so the land became
Pharaoh’s.
21 And as for the people,
he removed them to cities from one
end of the borders of Egypt even to
the other end thereof.
22 Only the
land of the priests bought he not; for
the priests had a portion assigned
them of Pharaoh, and did eat their
portion which Pharaoh gave them:
wherefore they sold not their lands.
23 Then Joseph said unto the people,
Behold, I have bought you this day
and your land for Pharaoh: lo, here
is seed for you, and ye shall sow the
land.
24 And it shall come to pass
in the increase, that ye shall give the
fifth part unto Pharaoh, and four parts
shall be your own, for seed of the field,
and for your food, and for them of
your households, and for food for your
little ones.
25 And they said, Thou
hast saved our lives: let us find grace
in the sight of my lord, and we will
be Pharaoh’s servants.
26 And Joseph
made it a law over the land of
Egypt unto this day, that Pharaoh
should have the fifth part; except the
land of the priests only, which became
not Pharaoh’s.
Care being taken of Jacob and his family,
the preservation of which was especially designed
by Providence in Joseph’s advancement,
an account is now given of the saving
of the kingdom of Egypt too from ruin; for
God is King of nations as well as King of
saints, and provideth food for all flesh. Joseph
now returns to the management of that
great trust which Pharaoh had lodged in his
hand. It would have been pleasing enough
to him to have gone and lived with his father
and brethren in Goshen; but his employment
would not permit it. When he had
seen his father, and seen him well settled, he
applied himself as closely as ever to the execution
of his office. Note, Even natural
affection must give way to necessary business.
Parents and children must be content to be
absent one from another, when it is necessary,
on either side, for the service of God or their
generation. In Joseph’s transactions with
the Egyptians observe,
I. The great extremity that Egypt, and the
parts adjacent, were reduced to by the famine.
There was no bread, and they fainted
(v. 13),
they were ready to die,
1. See
here what a dependence we have upon God’s
providence. If its usual favours are suspended
but for a while, we die, we perish, we
all perish. All our wealth would not keep
us from starving if the rain of heaven were
but withheld for two or three years. See
how much we lie at God’s mercy, and let us
keep ourselves always in his love.
2. See
how much we smart by our own improvidence.
If all the Egyptians had done for
themselves in the seven years of plenty as
Joseph did for Pharaoh, they had not been
now in these straits; but they regarded not
the warning they had of the years of famine,
concluding that to-morrow shall be as this
day, next year as this, and much more abundant.
Note, Because man knows not his
time (his time of gathering when he has it)
therefore his misery is great upon him when
the spending time comes,
3. See how early God put a difference between
the Egyptians and the Israelites, as
afterwards in the plagues,
Exod. viii. 22; ix. 4, 26; x. 23.
Jacob and his family,
though strangers, were plentifully fed on free
cost, while the Egyptians were dying for
want. See
My servants shall
eat, but you shall be hungry. Happy art thou,
O Israel. Whoever wants, God’s children
shall not,
II. The price they had come up to, for
their supply, in this exigency.
1. They parted
with all their money which they had hoarded
up,
Silver and gold would not feed
them, they must have corn. All the money
of the kingdom was by this means brought
into the exchequer.
2. When the money
failed, they parted with all their cattle, those
for labour, as the horses and asses, and those
for food, as the flocks and the herds,
By this it should seem that we may better
live upon bread without flesh than upon flesh
without bread. We may suppose they parted
the more easily with their cattle because they
had little or no grass for them; and now
Pharaoh saw in reality what he had before
seen in vision, nothing but lean kine.
3. When they had sold their stocks off their land,
it was easy to persuade themselves (rather than
starve) to sell their land too; for what good
would that do them, when they had neither
corn to sow it nor cattle to eat of it? They
therefore sold that next, for a further supply
of corn.
4. When their land was sold, so
that they had nothing to live on, they must
of course sell themselves, that they might
live purely upon their labour, and hold their
lands by the base tenure of villanage, at the
courtesy of the crown. Note, Skin for skin,
and all that a man hath, even liberty and property
(those darling twins), will he give for his
life; for life is sweet. There are few (though
perhaps there are some) who would even dare
to die rather than live in slavery, and dependence
on an arbitrary power. And perhaps
there are those who, in that case, could
die by the sword, in a heat, who yet could
not deliberately die by famine, which is much
worse,
Now it was a great mercy
to the Egyptians that, in this distress, they
could have corn at any rate; if they had all
died for hunger, their lands perhaps would
have escheated to the crown of course, for
want of heirs; they therefore resolved to make
the best of bad.
III. The method which Joseph took to
accommodate the matter between prince and
people, so that the prince might have his just
advantage, and yet the people not be quite
ruined.
1. For their lands, he needed not come
to any bargain with them while the years of
famine lasted; but when these were over (for
God will not contend for ever, nor will he be
always wroth) he came to an agreement,
which it seems both sides were pleased with,
that the people should occupy and enjoy the
lands, as he thought fit to assign them, and
should have seed to sow them with out of the
king’s stores, for their own proper use and
behoof, yielding and paying only a fifth part
of the yearly profits as a chief rent to the
crown. This became a standing law,
And it was a very good bargain to have food
for their lands, when otherwise they and
theirs must have starved, and then to have
their lands again upon such easy terms.
Note, Those ministers of state are worthy of
double honour, both for wisdom and integrity,
that keep the balance even between prince
and people, so that liberty and property may
not intrench upon prerogative, nor the prerogative
bear hard upon liberty and property:
in the multitude of such counsellors there is
safety. If afterwards the Egyptians thought
it hard to pay so great a duty to the king out
of their lands, they must remember, not only
how just, but how kind, the first imposing of
it was. They might thankfully pay a fifth
where all was due. It is observable how
faithful Joseph was to him that appointed
him. He did not put the money into his
own pocket, nor entail the lands upon his
own family; but converted both entirely to
Pharaoh’s use; and therefore we do not find
that his posterity went out of Egypt any
richer than the rest of their poor brethren.
Those in public trusts, if they raise great
estates, must take heed that it be not at the
expense of a good conscience, which is much
more valuable.
2. For their persons, he removed
them to cities,
He transplanted
them, to show Pharaoh’s sovereign power
over them, and that they might, in time, forget
their titles to their lands, and be the more
easily reconciled to their new condition of
servitude. The Jewish writers say, “He removed
them thus from their former habitations
because they reproached his brethren
as strangers, to silence which reproach they
were all made, in effect, strangers.” See
what changes a little time may make with a
people, and how soon God can empty those
from vessel to vessel who had settled upon
their lees. How hard soever this seems to
have been upon them, they themselves were
at this time sensible of it as a very great
kindness, and were thankful they were not
worse used: Thou hast saved our lives,
v. 25.
Note, There is good reason that the Saviour
of our lives should be the Master of our lives.
“Thou hast saved us; do what thou wilt
with us.”
IV. The reservation he made in favour of
the priests. They were maintained on free
cost, so that they needed not to sell their
lands,
All people will thus walk in the
name of their God; they will be kind to those
that attend the public service of their God,
and that minister to them in holy things; and
we should, in like manner, honour our God,
by esteeming his ministers highly in love for
their work’s sake.
| Jacob’s Charge Concerning His Burial. | B. C. 1706. |
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27 And Israel dwelt in the land of
Egypt, in the country of Goshen; and
they had possessions therein, and
grew, and multiplied exceedingly.
28 And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt
seventeen years: so the whole age of
Jacob was a hundred forty and seven
years.
29 And the time drew nigh
that Israel must die: and he called
his son Joseph, and said unto him, If
now I have found grace in thy sight,
put, I pray thee, thy hand under my
thigh, and deal kindly and truly with
me; bury me not, I pray thee, in
Egypt:
30 But I will lie with my
fathers, and thou shalt carry me out
of Egypt, and bury me in their buryingplace.
And he said, I will do as
thou hast said.
31 And he said, Swear
unto me. And he sware unto him. And
Israel bowed himself upon the bed’s
head.
Observe,
1. The comfort Jacob lived in
(v. 27, 28);
while the Egyptians were impoverished
in their own land, Jacob was replenished
in a strange land. He 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, by way of requital, seventeen
years Joseph nourished him. Observe how
kindly Providence ordered Jacob’s affairs,
that when he was old, and least able to bear
care or fatigue, he had least occasion for it,
being well provided for by his son without
his own forecast. Thus God considers the
frame of his people.
2. The care Jacob died
in. At last the time drew nigh that Israel
must die,
v. 29.
Israel, a prince with God,
that had power over the angel and prevailed,
yet must yield to death. There is no remedy,
he must die: it is appointed for all men,
therefore for him; and there is no discharge
in that war. Joseph supplied him with
bread, that he might not die by famine; but
this did not secure him from dying by age or
sickness. He died by degrees; his candle
was not blown out, but gradually burnt down
to the socket, so that he saw, at some distance,
the time drawing nigh. Note, It is
an improvable advantage to see the approach
of death before we feel its arrests, that we
may be quickened to do what our hand finds
to do with all our might: however, it is not
far from any of us. Now Jacob’s care, as he
saw the day approaching, was about his
burial, not the pomp of it (he was no way
solicitous about that), but the place of it.
(1.) He would be buried in Canaan. This
he resolved on, not from mere humour, 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 that said these
things declared plainly that he was in expectation
of,
He aimed at a good
land, which would be his rest and bliss on
the other side death.
(2.) He would have
Joseph sworn to bring him thither to be
buried
(v. 29, 31),
that Joseph, being under
such a solemn obligation to do it, might
have that to answer to the objections which
otherwise might have been made against it,
and for the greater satisfaction of Jacob now
in his dying minutes. Nothing will better
help to make a death-bed easy than the certain
prospect of a rest in Canaan after death.
(3.) When this was done Israel bowed himself
upon the bed’s head, yielding himself, as
it were, to the stroke of death (“Now let it
come, and it shall be welcome”), or worshipping
God, as it is explained,
giving God thanks for all his favours, and
particularly for this, that Joseph was ready,
not only to put his hand upon his eyes to
close them, but under his thigh to give him
the satisfaction he desired concerning his
burial. Thus those that go down to the
dust should, with humble thankfulness, bow
before God, the God of their mercies,
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