Page 38 - Pentateuch - Student Textbook

The family immigrates to Egypt, leaving the Promised Land at God’s encouragement. God appears to
Israel in a vision at night, calling out to him, “Jacob! Jacob! (46:2).” This aged man is still mixed in
character, part Israel and part Jacob. Another reunion scene occurs when Jacob and Joseph meet
(chapter 46). Pharaoh allows them to settle in Goshen, a part of the land more fitted for shepherds. The
famine continues until even the people of Egypt have sold their animals and lands to Pharaoh for food.
Joseph then establishes a law in the land requiring everyone to give a fifth of their produce to Pharaoh
every year (chapter 47).

Joseph visits Jacob on his death bed, taking his two sons Manasseh and Ephraim with him. Jacob
recounts the keynote of his life, God’s blessing, and reaches out to bless them. His eyes are dim with
age. He reaches out to the younger and purposely gives him the elder brother’s blessing. When Joseph
tries to correct him, Jacob insists that the younger would be greater. It is a strange reminder of an
earlier scene when Jacob the deceiver stole the elder brother’s blessing from his own father who could
hardly see (chapter 48).

The blessings continue as Jacob runs down through his own sons in
blessing before he dies. The one of greatest consequence is Judah, the
visitor to prostitutes. Jacob prophesies of the Messiah. “The scepter will
not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he
to whom it belongs shall come and the obedience of the nations shall be
his” (49:10). How strange are the twists and turns of history! Jacob’s
grandson Perez through Judah is the product of incest, yet his descendent
will be the Messiah (chapter 49). God is bringing about a very different
Fig. 22: Staff to punish type of rule than that practiced in Egypt and Canaan.

The final chapter of Genesis ties up loose ends. Joseph is given permission to return to Canaan to bury
his father. His brothers speculate about their future with Joseph now that Jacob is dead. They bow down
to him as slaves, fulfilling the dream of Joseph the teenager. He reassures them and promises to treat
them with grace. In the last scene, Joseph is dying at 110 years of age. He reminds his brothers of God’s
promise to settle them in Canaan and asks them to bury him back home (chapter 50).

The writing in Genesis is complicated, detailed when we do not expect it. Yet one theme with two
threads dominates the life of Joseph from beginning to end. God is sovereign. He can take the greatest
evil that happens to a person and use it for good. He can also take the greatest evil and out of it bring
the Messiah. His purposes to bless do not depend on the goodness of a person or of mankind
altogether. For that we are deeply and eternally thankful.

The life of Joseph resonates with the message of Genesis. Mankind has sinned from the very beginning
and can do nothing to save himself. People pass on to their children a deeply evil heart. Generation after
generation deserves destruction at God’s hand only to be spared a succession of floods due to God’s
patience. From the beginning of all the sin, YHWH promises a Savior. Moses allows us to watch how God
keeps his promise through the lives of three men, Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph.

We are encouraged. We who know this Savior are still sinners ourselves. We wonder at times how God
can use us. We wonder if he is interested. We wonder if he is bigger than the evils that threaten us. We
wonder if the gospel spoken by our mouths or lived at least partially in our daily walk can make a

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