In Genesis 46:31-47:31, God’s providence causes His people to be both set
apart from the world and a blessing to the world at the same time. God’s working in our lives is also intended
to bring us to the place where we are both set apart from the world and a
blessing to the world at the same time.
My desire is that we would resolve to cooperate by faith with God
towards our own sanctification and mission.
Let’s consider three ways from this text that this can
happen.
[31] Joseph said to his brothers and to his
father's household, “I will go up and tell Pharaoh and will say to him, ‘My
brothers and my father's household, who were in the land of Canaan, have come
to me. [32] And the men are shepherds, for they have been keepers of
livestock, and they have brought their flocks and their herds and all that they
have.’ [33] When Pharaoh calls you and says, ‘What is your occupation?’
[34] you shall say, ‘Your servants have been keepers of livestock from our
youth even until now, both we and our fathers,’ in order that you may dwell in
the land of Goshen, for every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians.”
[47:1] So Joseph went in and told Pharaoh,
“My father and my brothers, with their flocks and herds and all that they
possess, have come from the land of Canaan. They are now in the land of
Goshen.” [2] And from among his brothers he took five men and presented
them to Pharaoh.
[3] Pharaoh said to his brothers, “What is
your occupation?” And they said to Pharaoh, “Your servants are shepherds, as
our fathers were.” [4] They said to Pharaoh, “We have come to sojourn in
the land, for there is no pasture for your servants' flocks, for the famine is
severe in the land of Canaan. And now, please let your servants dwell in the
land of Goshen.” [5] Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Your father and your
brothers have come to you. [6] The land of Egypt is before you. Settle
your father and your brothers in the best of the land. Let them settle in the
land of Goshen, and if you know any able men among them, put them in charge of
my livestock.” (Genesis 46:31-47:6 ESV)
I.
We are to Take Measures to Ensure Our Separation
from the World (46:31-47:6)
Here Joseph takes measures
to bless His family and to preserve
their identity during their stay in Egypt.
This is part God’s wisdom in them becoming a nation in Egypt instead of
Canaan: as shepherds, they will be an abomination to the Egyptians and
Goshen was a place outside the mainstream of Egyptian society. These measures ensure that there will be no syncretism between Egyptian society and
God’s people. In the land of Canaan,
they may have incorporated the worship of other Canaanite gods.
This is a beautiful
picture of what Jesus prayed in John
17:15-18, that His people would be “in”
the world but not “of” the
world. As believers, we are to take
seriously the command to “not love the world
or the things in the world” (1 John
2:15-17). James 4:4 warns us that whoever makes themselves a friend of this
world makes themselves an enemy of God.
These are strong words. But while
shake our heads in agreement with this charge, we still remain far more in love
with this world than we would dare admit.
Here is the question that this passage lays before us: what measures
have you taken to sever the roots that your heart wants to plant in this
world? What or who have you distanced
yourself from? What truths of scripture
have you hid in your heart? Know this:
you will not naturally or accidentally fall out of love with this world. You must take measures to do so.
II.
We are to Seize Opportunities to be a Blessing to
the World (47:7-26)
[7] Then Joseph brought in Jacob his father
and stood him before Pharaoh, and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. [8] And Pharaoh
said to Jacob, “How many are the days of the years of your life?” [9] And
Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The days of the years of my sojourning are 130 years.
Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not
attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of
their sojourning.” [10] And Jacob blessed Pharaoh and went out from the
presence of Pharaoh. [11] Then Joseph settled his father and his brothers
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 provided
his father, his brothers, and all his father's household with food, according
to the number of their dependents.
[13] Now there was no food in all the land,
for the famine was very severe, so that the land of Egypt and the land of
Canaan languished 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, in
exchange for the grain that they bought. And Joseph brought the money into
Pharaoh's house. [15] And when the money was all spent in the land of
Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said,
“Give us food. Why should we die before your eyes? For our money is gone.”
[16] And Joseph answered, “Give your livestock, and I will give you food
in exchange for your livestock, if your money is gone.” [17] So they brought
their livestock to Joseph, and Joseph gave them food in exchange for the
horses, the flocks, the herds, and the donkeys. He supplied them with food in
exchange for all their livestock that year. [18] And when that year was
ended, they came to him the following year and said to him, “We will not hide
from my lord that our money is all spent. The herds of livestock are my lord's.
There is nothing left in the sight of my lord but our bodies and our land.
[19] Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and
our land for food, and we with our land will be servants to Pharaoh. And give
us seed that we may live and not die, and that the land may not be desolate.”
[20] So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt
for Pharaoh, for all the Egyptians sold their fields, because the famine was
severe on them. The land became Pharaoh's. [21] As for the people, he made
servants of them from one end of Egypt to the other. [22] Only the land of
the priests he did not buy, for the priests had a fixed allowance from Pharaoh
and lived on the allowance that Pharaoh gave them; therefore they did not sell
their land.
[23] Then Joseph said to the people, “Behold,
I have this day bought you and your land for Pharaoh. Now here is seed for you,
and you shall sow the land. [24] And at the harvests you shall give a
fifth to Pharaoh, and four fifths shall be your own, as seed for the field and
as food for yourselves and your households, and as food for your little ones.”
[25] And they said, “You have saved our lives; may it please my lord, we
will be servants to Pharaoh.” [26] So Joseph made it a statute concerning
the land of Egypt, and it stands to this day, that Pharaoh should have the
fifth; the land of the priests alone did not become Pharaoh's. (Genesis
47:7-26 ESV)
We see at least two
blessings in this passage: Jacob blesses Pharaoh and Joseph blesses the Egyptians. Jacob’s blessing on Pharaoh is much more than
a simple “God bless you.” Jacob is blessing Pharaoh in the name of the one true
God! Also, when we take into account
that Hebrews 7:7 says an inferior is
blessed by a superior, this means that Pharaoh is recognizing Jacob as his
superior and the God of Jacob as superior to the gods of Egypt! That is incredible! Genesis
12:1-3 is being fulfilled right before our eyes as Abraham’s line mediates
God’s blessing to the Gentile nations!
We also see the blessing
of Abraham upon the Egyptians here as Joseph ensures that they are fed during
this famine. Some people are very
critical of Joseph’s leadership in securing all this wealth and property for
Pharaoh. But that is a terrible view of
what’s taking place in this chapter. The
Egyptians do not see Joseph as someone who is exploiting their need, but as
someone who is graciously saving their lives (47:25). And isn’t it a novel idea that the needy are
seen given help but not handouts! They
get government assistance, but are required to work for it. Notice also two things here in passing: the fulfillment
of Jacob’s blessing upon Pharaoh (Joseph acquires for him all the money,
livestock, land, and people of Egypt), and the contrast of the
Israelites’ abundance and the Egyptians’ poverty during the remainder of the
famine.
There is a rich
application in this passage. First, God desires to be known among the nations. He desires to be known by Pharaohs and
Egyptians and Israelites and Americans and Arabs and Africans and Asians and
every other people in the world. Second,
God’s people (the church) are still
called to take the blessing of Abraham to the nations, because Jesus
is ultimately the blessing of Abraham to the nations. “And
the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith,
preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all the
nations be blessed.’” (Galatians
3:8) God desires to be known and to be made known. This leads us to ask, “Who are you making
Jesus known to?” So this is the
tightrope that we are called to walk: to be separate from the wickedness of
this world and at the same time bless the world by making Jesus Christ
known.
III.We are to Rest Our Faith in the God
of a Better World to Come (47:27-31)
[27] Thus Israel settled in the land of
Egypt, in the land of Goshen. And they gained possessions in it, and were
fruitful and multiplied greatly. [28] And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt
seventeen years. So the days of Jacob, the years of his life, were 147 years.
[29] And when the time drew near that Israel
must die, he called his son Joseph and said to him, “If now I have found favor
in your sight, put your hand under my thigh and promise to deal kindly and
truly with me. Do not bury me in Egypt, [30] but let me lie with my
fathers. Carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their burying place.” He answered,
“I will do as you have said.” [31] And he said, “Swear to me”; and he
swore to him. Then Israel bowed himself upon the head of his bed. (Genesis
47:27-31 ESV)
For all of his
shortcomings, Jacob finishes his race with exemplary faith in the
God Whose promises he will not even live to see. In this passage, Jacob makes Joseph swear to
bury him in in the Promised Land with Abraham and Isaac. In doing so, he is displaying radical covenant faithfulness. He is more concerned about being buried in
the place God has for His people than being buried with the woman who was the
love of his life, Rachel. Why? Because God has now become the love of his
life and he is persuaded that God is going to bring His people back to the
Promised Land. This is a major note
that Genesis ends on: Patriarchs who die
in faith that God will keep His promises, even though they will not live to see
it.
Consider the commentary
the author of Hebrews gives upon the Patriarchs’ “sojournings”: “[8] By
faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to
receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.
[9] By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land,
living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise.
[10] For he was looking forward to the city
that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. [11] By faith
Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since
she considered him faithful who had promised. [12] Therefore from one man,
and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven
and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.
[13] These all died in faith, not having
received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar,
and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
[14] For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a
homeland. [15] If they had been thinking of that land from which they had
gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. [16] But as it is,
they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not
ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.” (Hebrews 11:8-16)
This passage is saying is
that the Patriarchs all died before the fulfillment of God’s promise of the
Promised Land because they were looking forward to an even better country than
the Promised Land. What they were
ultimately looking forward to was a “better
country, that is, a heavenly one.” Jacob
is not just wanting to be buried in Canaan because he believes God will take
the Israelites back there, but also because he realizes that he is simply a
stranger in this world and has rested his faith in the God of a better world to
come: where God’s people will get to know and enjoy God forever.
Have you rested your hope
and faith in God who will bring about a better world, even if He doesn’t bring
it in our lifetime? People who have long
for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. People who have echo the heart of John in Revelation 22:20: “Amen. Come Lord Jesus!” And people who have see the empty promises of
this world for what they are and lose their life for what ultimately matters: knowing God through His Son Jesus Christ
and making Him known to everyone they can with everything they have. Have you met Him today? You can right now. God sent His Son to this world live and die
and rise again to earn a right standing for you before Himself and to wake you
up from the eternally deadly love of this world and give you eternal life in
Him.
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