Genesis 47 – Study

For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each passage has a four-Part approach to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage: Genesis 47:1-12

1 Joseph went and told Pharaoh, ‘My father and brothers, with their flocks and herds and everything they own, have come from the land of Canaan and are now in Goshen.’ 2 He chose five of his brothers and presented them before Pharaoh.

3 Pharaoh asked the brothers, ‘What is your occupation?’

‘Your servants are shepherds,’ they replied to Pharaoh, ‘just as our fathers were.’ 4 They also said to him, ‘We have come to live here for a while, because the famine is severe in Canaan and your servants’ flocks have no pasture. So now, please let your servants settle in Goshen.’

5 Pharaoh said to Joseph, ‘Your father and your brothers have come to you, 6 and the land of Egypt is before you; settle your father and your brothers in the best part of the land. Let them live in Goshen. And if you know of any among them with special ability, put them in charge of my own livestock.’

7 Then Joseph brought his father Jacob in and presented him before Pharaoh. After Jacob blessed Pharaoh, 8 Pharaoh asked him, ‘How old are you?’

9 And Jacob said to Pharaoh, ‘The years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty. My years have been few and difficult, and they do not equal the years of the pilgrimage of my fathers.’ 10 Then Jacob blessed Pharaoh and went out from his presence.

11 So Joseph settled his father and his brothers in Egypt and gave them property in the best part of the land, the district of Rameses, as Pharaoh directed. 12 Joseph also provided his father and his brothers and all his father’s household with food, according to the number of their children.

A. Find Out:

1. How many brothers did Joseph present? v.2
2. What did the brothers say they did? v.3
3. What did Pharaoh invite them to do? 6b
4. What privileged job did he offer them? v.6c
5. How old was Jacob at this time? v.9
6. What did Jacob do to Pharaoh? v.7,10

B. Think:

1. What does this passage say about the brothers?
2. What does it say about Pharaoh’s feelings for Joseph?
3. What does it tell us about Jacob now?

C. Comment:

We saw in the previous study how Joseph had warned his brothers to play down their role as shepherds because Egyptians detested shepherds. However when the five brothers chosen by Joseph are brought before Pharaoh and are asked their occupations, they blandly come out with what they are, just like their fathers had been.  Now this indicates either they have short memories, or that they are overwhelmed by Pharaoh’s presence and forgot all Joseph’s advice, or that they disdain their brother’s advice and give a proud answer.

Whatever their reason for responding in such a way, Pharaoh’s response is exemplary!  He gives no negative reaction and instead he graciously offers them a home, and indeed a privileged job if they wish for it.  Pharaoh’s response, more than any other at this stage, shows us the amazing thing that God has done through Joseph. It was worth the hard years!  Jacob’s position is also worth noting. He is the patriarch who is now highly respected for his old age, and in that old age he blesses the younger man, Pharaoh, even though he is the more powerful. From a twister he has become the respected elder.   God has worked some wonderful changes in this man, but then changing men is one of the Lord’s favorite jobs it seems!

D. Application?

1. Do we take advice? Look up Proverbs 12:1b
2. When others are insensitive are we gracious like Pharaoh was?
3. Are we changing as we grow older, for the good?

Passage: Genesis 47:13-26

13 There was no food, however, in the whole region because the famine was severe; both Egypt and Canaan wasted away because of the famine. 14 Joseph collected all the money that was to be found in Egypt and Canaan in payment for the grain they were buying, and he brought it to Pharaoh’s palace. 15 When the money of the people of Egypt and Canaan was gone, all Egypt came to Joseph and said, ‘Give us food. Why should we die before your eyes? Our money is all gone.’

16 ‘Then bring your livestock,’ said Joseph. ‘I will sell you food in exchange for your livestock, since your money is gone.’ 17 So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and he gave them food in exchange for their horses, their sheep and goats, their cattle and donkeys. And he brought them through that year with food in exchange for all their livestock.

18 When that year was over, they came to him the following year and said, ‘We cannot hide from our lord the fact that since our money is gone and our livestock belongs to you, there is nothing left for our lord except our bodies and our land. 19 Why should we perish before your eyes – we and our land as well? Buy us and our land in exchange for food, and we with our land will be in bondage to Pharaoh. Give us seed so that we may live and not die, and that the land may not become desolate.’

20 So Joseph bought all the land in Egypt for Pharaoh. The Egyptians, one and all, sold their fields, because the famine was too severe for them. The land became Pharaoh’s, 21 and Joseph reduced the people to servitude, from one end of Egypt to the other. 22 However, he did not buy the land of the priests, because they received a fixed allowance from Pharaoh and had food enough from the allowance Pharaoh gave them. That is why they did not sell their land.

23 Joseph said to the people, ‘Now that I have bought you and your land today for Pharaoh, here is seed for you so you can plant the ground. 24 But when the crop comes in, give a fifth of it to Pharaoh. The other four-fifths you may keep as seed for the fields and as food for yourselves and your households and your children.’

25 ‘You have saved our lives,’ they said. ‘May we find favour in the eyes of our lord; we will be in bondage to Pharaoh.’

26 So Joseph established it as a law concerning land in Egypt – still in force today – that a fifth of the produce belongs to Pharaoh. It was only the land of the priests that did not become Pharaoh’s.

A. Find Out:    

1. What did Joseph first take in return for grain? v.14
2. What did he next take? v.16
3. What did he finally take? v.20
4. What did he finally require from them? v.24
5. Who had not surrendered their land? v.22
6. What did the general people feel about what had happened? v.25

B. Think:

1. Why does what Joseph did perhaps appear hard to us today?
2. Why might it have had good results?
3. How has Pharaoh benefited by listening to Joseph?

C. Comment:

Joseph, with God’s wisdom, knows how long the famine is going to last and has made provision for it. Others have not done so, and thus when the famine gets worse and worse Joseph is in an increasingly strong position, until eventually the entire nation has sold its assets to Joseph so that everything belongs to Pharaoh. Now that naturally repulses us with our enlightened view of what is fair in Society but we need to remember that these are still very early days of civilisation. For us absolute authority being invested in a leader usually results in abuse from dictatorship.

When the leader is a man conscious that he is there because of God’s leading (as we shall see later), it means that we may have a means of order for society that can only bring blessing. Romans 13:1-4 speaks of authority as being God given for our blessing. With Joseph in control there would be a greater possibility of bringing good to the nation than ever before.   Joseph has the means to bring peace and order to this land, which is of course, God’s desire for all nations.  He looks for His people that He can use to bring it through!

D. Application?

1. What is our attitude towards authority? Do we see it as there for the good of society or as a means of suppressing society?
2. Ask the Lord to help you have right attitudes in respect of authority today.

Passage: Genesis 47:27 – 48:9

27 Now the Israelites settled in Egypt in the region of Goshen. They acquired property there and were fruitful and increased greatly in number.

28 Jacob lived in Egypt seventeen years, and the years of his life were a hundred and forty-seven. 29 When the time drew near for Israel to die, he called for his son Joseph and said to him, ‘If I have found favour in your eyes, put your hand under my thigh and promise that you will show me kindness and faithfulness. Do not bury me in Egypt, 30 but when I rest with my fathers, carry me out of Egypt and bury me where they are buried.’

‘I will do as you say,’ he said.

31 ‘Swear to me,’ he said. Then Joseph swore to him, and Israel worshipped as he leaned on the top of his staff.

1 Some time later Joseph was told, ‘Your father is ill.’ So he took his two sons Manasseh and Ephraim along with him. 2 When Jacob was told, ‘Your son Joseph has come to you,’ Israel rallied his strength and sat up on the bed.

3 Jacob said to Joseph, ‘God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and there he blessed me 4 and said to me, “I am going to make you fruitful and increase your numbers. I will make you a community of peoples, and I will give this land as an everlasting possession to your descendants after you.”

5 ‘Now then, your two sons born to you in Egypt before I came to you here will be reckoned as mine; Ephraim and Manasseh will be mine, just as Reuben and Simeon are mine. 6 Any children born to you after them will be yours; in the territory they inherit they will be reckoned under the names of their brothers. 7 As I was returning from Paddan, to my sorrow Rachel died in the land of Canaan while we were still on the way, a little distance from Ephrath. So I buried her there beside the road to Ephrath’ (that is, Bethlehem).

8 When Israel saw the sons of Joseph, he asked, ‘Who are these?’

9 ‘They are the sons God has given me here,’ Joseph said to his father.

Then Israel said, ‘Bring them to me so that I may bless them.’

A. Find Out:

1. What did Jacob make Joseph promise? v.29-31
2. Why did Joseph go to Jacob again? v.1
3. What did Jacob tell Joseph about? v.3
4. What had the Lord promised? v.4
5. What did Jacob therefore want to do? v.5
6. What did he next want to do? v.9

B. Think:

1. How is Jacob’s desire to be buried in Canaan later seen to be an act of faith?
2. Why do you think Jacob wanted to adopt Joseph’s first two sons?
3. Why would he want to bless them? (see previously- “Jacob’s Story”)

C. Comment:

As Jacob senses he is near the end of his life, having lived 17 years since coming to Egypt, he makes Joseph promise he will take his body back to Canaan when he dies. When he later talks to Joseph, we see he has remembered God’s promise to give him that land, and going back, even after death, is an act of faith.  He then states that he wants to adopt Joseph’s two sons as his own.  By his reference to his favorite wife Rachel, we may surmise that he felt that if Rachel had lived after having Benjamin, she might have had at least one more son. In a sense therefore, he is trying to bring into being what he felt OUGHT to have happened.  Whatever is the truth here, Jacob wants to make sure that these two sons of Joseph, born away from Canaan, are reckoned as part of the family of Israel.

1 Chronicles 5:1 tells us that these two sons took Reuben’s rights as firstborn after Reuben had insulted his father by sleeping with his concubine (see Genesis 35:25). Whether Jacob had this in mind at this moment is not made clear. Whatever it is, these two sons move into the Biblical records of the tribes of Israel.

D. Application?

1. Are we people of faith who persevere in obtaining what God has promised in His word, right to the very end of our lives?
2. Ask the Lord to help us persevere like Jacob.