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About Jesus Steve Sweetman Chapter 47 Chapter
47:1 – 12 -
carries on from chapter 46 in the NIV In verses 1 and 2 Joseph
tells Pharaoh that his family had now arrived in In verse 3 Pharaoh asks
the question that the brothers were expecting.
He asks what their occupation was.
In verses 4 and 5 they
answered Pharaoh according to what Joseph had told them in the last
chapter. They told Pharaoh
that they were shepherds as was their forefathers.
Then they ask, almost pleading, that they could stay in Note also in verse 4 that
the brothers viewed their stay in Goshen
as temporary. God had told
Jacob in the last chapter that it would be temporary.
Besides, the Abrahamic Covenant stated, and had been restated on
many occasions, that In verses 5 and 6 Pharaoh
grants Joseph's family the right to live in the best Pharaoh also told Joseph
that if any of his family had special ability to look after livestock,
have them put in charge of looking after his livestock.
Pharaoh obviously knew that Joseph had special ability, so it is
only likely that more in his family had special ability as well. After permission to stay
in Note how Jacob puts it.
He says that "the years of his pilgrimage" are one
hundred and thirty years." Jacob
understood his life on earth as we should understand it.
He saw his life as a "pilgrimage", a trip in this
present age that would eventually lead to the next life.
We should view life in the same way.
Those who don't believe in a life after death can't view this
life as a pilgrimage. A
pilgrimage is simply a trip from point A to point B.
If there is no point B, there is no pilgrimage.
Our life on earth is a pilgrimage, and what we do here has great
consequences to the next life, where the pilgrimage ends. In verse 9 Jacob also
says that the years of his pilgrimage have been "few and
difficult". It is quite
evident that most of Jacob's life was difficult.
He had just spent that last couple of decades in depression.
He spent a couple decades away from his home working for his
father-in-law. He had
trouble with his brother Esau. Jacob
did not live a real happy life, although he has become one of the most
important men in Israeli history. You might wonder why
Jacob would view one hundred and thirty years of life as being
"few". He
qualifies this in verse 9 as well. He
compares his life span to his fathers.
They lived longer than he, therefore he considered his life in
fewer years. But Jacob
wasn't dead yet. You might
wonder how he would know that he would die soon.
Well, he was probably feeling pretty old at this time, and he
might not have been in good health.
Beyond that, I
believe he just believed in his heart that now that he saw Joseph, he
could now die in peace, and that is what he expected would happen. Verse 10 simply states
that Jacob blessed Pharaoh and left. Verse 11 states that
Pharaoh gave Verse 12 states that
Joseph provided all the food for all of Joseph
And The Famine (ch. 47:13 - 31)
We need to note again
that verse 13 is historically accurate.
The verse re-emphasizes the severe state of the famine.
There are other non-Biblical historical writings that confirm
this famine at this time. This
only goes to show just another reason why the Bible is historically
authentic. In verses 14 and 15 we
see that not only was the food gone from the land, but people now had
run out of money to buy the food that Joseph had stored.
They were now coming to Joseph, asking for free food so they
would not die. This is how
bad things were getting. We note in verses 16 and
17 that Joseph did not give the people of Well, the food dried up
again. The next year people
were returning to Joseph. They
had no money or livestock to give. They
didn't ask for free food this time.
They said that they would exchanged their land for food, leaving
them with nothing but their lives. In verses 20 and 21 we
see that Joseph agreed to the people's deal.
He exchanged land for food. In
the process, the people became servants of the state.
They lost their freedom, but they still had their lives.
That's interesting to me. I
know things were severe, but a great price was paid for their survival.
This reminds me of the
time that will come at the end of this age.
Economically, things will get so bad that we will do the same as
these Egyptians did. We will
gladly becomes slaves to the state to maintain our own peace and
prosperity. The foundation
to this mentality is now being laid.
The present day bail-outs of General Motors, banks, and now even
countries, shows this to be true. We
tell the state to bail us out, and we will serve the state.
No matter the cost, people of the world will hand their freedom
over to the anti-christ in exchange for a better economy and
personal peace and affluence. In verse 22 we note that
the Egyptian priests did not have to sell their land.
They had no need because they received their food from Pharaoh.
They worked for the state. In
our terms today, they were civil servants.
They worked for the government, something the new religious order
will do in the days of the anti-christ. Again, we see the
shrewdness of Joseph in verses 23 and 24.
He gave the people seed to grow crops.
Yet, since the land was now owned by Pharaoh, a fifth, twenty
percent, of the crops had to be given to Pharaoh.
The people's land now belonged to Pharaoh, and part of what was
grown on the land was given to Pharaoh.
No wonder Pharaoh liked Joseph so much.
Notice the reaction of
the people in verse 25. This
is amazing, and prophetic of what will shortly come to pass at the end
of this age. The Egyptian
people were grateful to Pharaoh. He
saved their lives, so they gladly became his slaves.
Once again. bondage for security.
Verse 26 states that the
giving of a fifth to Pharaoh became the law of the land that lasted for
years and years. Taxation is
nothing new. Once government
takes, it's hard for government to stop taking. Verse 27 appears to tell
a different story when it came to Israel. They were able to buy the
land for themselves, something the Egyptians could not do.
He, strangers in a land were better off than those who had always
lived in the land. This
would become a problem in later years. In verse 28 we note that
Jacob lived a total of seventeen years in In verses 29 to 31 we see
that Jacob made Joseph promise him that when he died, he would burry his
body with his fathers. The
text does not say it here, but we know that would be in To confirm this oath,
Jacob made Joseph swear to this by having Joseph place his hand under
his thigh. Note here that Jacob
calls Joseph lord. Here, the
father calls the son lord. How
amazing that is when you think of the culture of Israel
of the day. The father was
well respected as "the lord of the family', not
so in this case. Once
again, Joseph's dreams are realized.
This reminds me of Jesus Himself.
I'm sure He respected His earthly father Joseph, but like this
situation in Genesis, Joseph was to respect Jesus, his adopted son, as
his "Lord". |