Genesis chapter 47 and verse
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. And he took some of his
brethren, even five men, and presented them unto Pharaoh.
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. 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. And Pharaoh spake
unto Joseph, saying, Thy father and thy brethren are come unto
thee. "'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.'
"'And Joseph brought in Jacob his father, "'and set him before
Pharaoh, and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said unto Jacob,
How old art thou? And Jacob said unto Pharaoh,
The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an 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. And Jacob blessed Pharaoh. and
went out from before Pharaoh. And Joseph placed his father
and his brethren and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt
and the best of the land in the land of Ramesses, as Pharaoh
had commanded. And Joseph nourished his father
and his brethren and all his father's household with bread
according to their families. 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. 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. 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. And Joseph
said, Give your cattle, and I will give you for your cattle if money
fail. 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 asses. And he fed them with bread for
all their cattle for that year. 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 aught left in the
sight of my lord but our bodies and our lands. 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. 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. And as for the people, he removed
them to cities from one end of the borders of Egypt even to
the other end thereof. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. And Israel dwelt in the land
of Egypt. in the country of Goshen and
they had possessions therein and grew and multiplied exceedingly. And Jacob lived in the land of
Egypt seventeen years, so the whole age of Jacob was one hundred
forty and seven years. 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. But I will lie with my fathers,
and thou shalt carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their burying
place.' And he said, I will do as thou hast said. And he said,
Swear unto me. And he swear unto him. And Israel
bowed himself upon the bed's head. Amen. May the Lord bless
to us this reading from his word. Jacob and his sons. or perhaps
we should say Israel and his children, because this is the
people, the children of Israel, that much of the Old Testament
scriptures are about. And as we see them here in Egypt,
we see that they are a picture of the church in the New Testament. and all the people of the covenant
of grace and peace of every age. The children of Israel are now
in Egypt at the direction and the provision and the purpose
of God. They began as just 75 people,
and they would stay there in Egypt for just over 200 years. 210 years, I think. And when
they left Egypt, that 75 had become a mighty nation. And we read here in the passage
that they grew and multiplied exceedingly. In the verses that
we read, Joseph takes five of his brothers to speak to Pharaoh,
and they tell Pharaoh that they are shepherds, as Joseph had
instructed them to. And they obtained Pharaoh's permission
to live in the land of Goshen, which was a particularly fertile
part of Egypt, and very suitable, therefore, for raising sheep
and for farming. Then after some time Joseph takes
Jacob to meet Pharaoh and the old man blesses Pharaoh with
a genuine sincerity and it is good to see how peoples of different
countries and traditions and even religions can live peaceably
together. And then, as the chapter unfolds,
we have another account of the wisdom of Joseph as the famine
intensifies. And we see the gratitude of Pharaoh
and his people as Joseph works out a plan to deliver them out
of the rigours of the famine. And finally in the last few verses
we've got a reference to Jacob's awareness that his life was nearing
its end and his desire not to be buried in Egypt but to return
to Canaan for his burial. And thereby he reminds his sons
of their inheritance in that land and the temporary nature
of their stay in Egypt. And I think out of this that
there's a couple of interesting lessons for us today. The first thing I wanted you
to notice particularly in this is that Pharaoh wanted to know
how old Jacob was. And Jacob's reply, in some ways,
is quite sad. He tells Pharaoh that his life
has been shorter than his father's, which it had been, and it was
full of trouble. And he calls his life a pilgrimage,
or a journey. And in a sense, there seems to
be something odd here. Something a little bit surprising,
because we know that Jacob was the line of blessing. And usually,
or often, we think of blessing in terms of joy and happiness
and good things? Had not God promised to take
care of Jacob? Had not meeting Joseph again
been an example of God's goodness? Had that not been a wonderful
deliverance for his family and for himself in a time of famine? And yet as this old man reflected
on the days of his life, they seemed to be full of fear and
anxiety and hardship and indeed family tragedy. He had fled from
his brother Esau who wanted to kill him. He was cheated and
exploited in Laban's house for more than 20 years. His daughter
was abused by Shechem. His sons brutally killed the
Shechemites, and he feared that his name would stink amongst
the people because of it. He buried his beloved Rachel,
and he spent years mourning his son Joseph, believing that he
was dead by a wild beast. And as a paradox, a puzzle, In
this for us, Jacob's life was filled with regrets and sadness. And yet, notwithstanding those
regrets and sadnesses, he was still blessed by God with spiritual
life and spiritual understanding. And the lesson here, I think,
for us all is to remember faith. Our lives might well be hard,
and I know that life is hard for some of you right now. And
even when you look back over the years of your lives, you
might be able to say with Jacob that they've been hard, and indeed,
they've been evil. But if we have spiritual life,
and if we have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, then we are blessed
above all people. This is a gift that God has given
to us as a few amongst many, many in this world. Jacob knew
that his life was a pilgrimage. He knew that he was just a traveller
in this world because his real home was in heaven. He looked
forward to a better time, a better place and in better company. His eternal rest was with God
and we too shall know tough times But still we thank the Lord for
his grace and his mercy and for the faith that he has given us
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And here's another lesson. Verse 12 tells us that Joseph
nourished his father and his brethren and all his father's
household with bread. And that is a picture of the
Lord Jesus Christ's care for us. The Lord Jesus Christ, despite
all of the problems that are in our lives, the famines that
are in our lives, the displacement and having to leave our home
and go away and live amongst strange people with strange customs
or whatever it is. that is a weariness to us. The Lord nourishes his people
as Joseph nourished his family. They lived in a strange land,
but their needs were supplied by the kindness and the goodness
of their brother. And we too live in a land that
is not our real home. We too are pilgrims. And soon
the Lord will take us to heaven. But until then, He will provide
for us here in this land and in this world. The Lord's provision
for us is not primarily worldly things like physical bread and
food or a place to live, although these things are the good blessings
of His hand also. But the Lord's provisions are
spiritual things. forgiveness by the blood of Jesus
Christ, perfect holiness by the righteousness of Christ, faith
to trust that these things are so, and the comfort of knowing
Christ's presence with us. We are nourished not with the
bread of this world, but by the bread of heaven. And who is the
bread of heaven? Well, you know the answer to
that. The Lord Jesus Christ said, I am the living bread which came
down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread,
he shall live forever. And lastly, just one more little
point. Jacob's desire was to be buried
with his fathers. And that shows us again a glimpse
of God's covenant promise, which Jacob remembered and which he
held to be dear and valuable to him. By that request that
he made of Joseph, he reminded his sons of their inheritance
in the promised land. They'd already been there for
some 17 years when Jacob came to the end of his life. He realised
that they'd become stuck there in that land because, well, it
was a fertile place to live and it was attractive to them. but
he asked that he would be buried in Canaan because he knew that
was the land of promise. It's so very easy for us to become
entangled with this world and taken up with its demands and
its activities, even with its good things and its blessings. But let us remember, by grace
we are first and foremost the covenant people of God, and we
are blessed of the Lord. And as we trust in the Lord and
exercise our faith, which is God's gift to us in the Lord
Jesus Christ, let us also remember that our inheritance is not of
this world, but it is in heaven with our dear Saviour and Lord. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us. Amen.