Genesis 47–48

Chapter 47

¹And Joseph came and told Pharaoh and said, My father and my brethren, and their sheep and their cattle, and all that they have, are come out of the land of Canaan; and behold, they are in the land of Goshen. ²And he took from the whole number of his brethren, five men, and set them before Pharaoh. ³And Pharaoh said to his brethren, What is your occupation? And they said to Pharaoh, Thy servants are shepherds, both we and our fathers. ⁴And they said to Pharaoh, To sojourn in the land are we come; for there is no pasture for the sheep that thy servants have, for the famine is grievous in the land of Canaan; and now, we pray thee, let thy servants dwell in the land of Goshen. ⁵And Pharaoh spoke to Joseph, saying, Thy father and thy brethren are come to thee. ⁶The land of Egypt is before thee; in the best of the land settle thy father and thy brethren: let them dwell in the land of Goshen. And if thou knowest men of activity among them, then set them as overseers of cattle over what I have. ⁷And Joseph brought Jacob his father, and set him before Pharaoh. And Jacob blessed Pharaoh. ⁸And Pharaoh said to Jacob, How many are the days of the years of thy life? ⁹And Jacob said to Pharaoh, The days of the years of my sojourning are a hundred and thirty years. Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they do not attain to the days of the years of the life of my fathers, in the days of their sojourning. ¹⁰And Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from Pharaoh. ¹¹And Joseph settled his father and his brethren, 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. ¹²And Joseph maintained his father, and his brethren, and all his father’s household, with bread, according to the number of the little ones.

¹³And there was no bread in all the land; for the famine was very grievous; and the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan were exhausted through the famine. ¹⁴And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, for the grain which they bought; and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh’s house. ¹⁵And when money came to an end in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph, saying, Give us bread! for why should we die before thee? for our money is all gone. ¹⁶And Joseph said, Give your cattle, and I will give you for your cattle, if your money be all gone. ¹⁷And they brought their cattle to Joseph; and Joseph gave them bread for horses, and for flocks of sheep, and for herds of cattle, and for asses; and he fed them with bread for all their cattle that year. ¹⁸And that year ended; and they came to him the second year, and said to him, We will not hide it from my lord that since our money is come to an end, and the herds of cattle are in the possession of my lord, nothing is left before my lord but our bodies and our land. ¹⁹Why should we die before thine eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be bondmen to Pharaoh; and give seed, that we may live, and not die, and that the land be not desolate. ²⁰And Joseph bought all the soil of Egypt for Pharaoh; for the Egyptians sold every man his field, because the famine prevailed over them; and the land became Pharaoh’s. ²¹And as for the people, he removed them into the cities, from one end of the borders of Egypt even to the other end of it. ²²Only the land of the priests he did not buy; for the priests had an assigned portion from Pharaoh, and ate their assigned portion which Pharaoh had given them; so they did not sell their land. ²³And Joseph said to the people, Behold, I have bought you this day and your land for Pharaoh: lo, here is seed for you, and sow the land. ²⁴And it shall come to pass in the increase that ye shall give the fifth to Pharaoh, and the 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. ²⁵And they said, Thou hast saved us alive. Let us find favour in the eyes of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh’s bondmen. ²⁶And Joseph made it a law over the land of Egypt to this day, that the fifth should be for Pharaoh, except the land of the priests: theirs alone did not become Pharaoh’s.

²⁷And Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen; and they had possessions in it, and were fruitful and multiplied exceedingly. ²⁸And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years; and the days of Jacob, the years of his life, were a hundred and forty-seven years. ²⁹And the days of Israel approached that he should die. And he called his son Joseph, and said to him, If now I have found favour in thine eyes, put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me: bury me not, I pray thee, in Egypt; ³⁰but when I shall lie with my fathers, thou shalt carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their sepulchre. And he said, I will do according to thy word. ³¹And he said, Swear to me; and he swore to him. And Israel worshipped on the bed’s head.

Chapter 48

¹And it came to pass after these things, that one told Joseph, Behold, thy father is sick. And he took with him his two sons Manasseh and Ephraim. ²And one told Jacob and said, Behold, thy son Joseph is coming to thee. And Israel strengthened himself, and sat upon the bed. ³And Jacob said to Joseph, The Almighty •God appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and blessed me, ⁴and he said to me, Behold, I will make thee fruitful and multiply thee, and I will make of thee a company of peoples; and will give this land to thy seed after thee for an everlasting possession. ⁵And now thy two sons, who were born to thee in the land of Egypt before I came to thee into Egypt, shall be mine: Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine, as Reuben and Simeon. ⁶And thy family which thou hast begotten after them shall be thine: they shall be called after the name of their brethren in their inheritance. ⁷And as for me, when I came from Padan, Rachel died by me in the land of Canaan on the way, when there was yet a certain distance to come to Ephrath; and I buried her there on the way to Ephrath, that is, Bethlehem.

⁸And Israel beheld Joseph’s sons, and said, Who are these? ⁹And Joseph said to his father, They are my sons, whom God has given me here. And he said, Bring them, I pray thee, to me, that I may bless them. ¹⁰But the eyes of Israel were heavy from age: he could not see. And he brought them nearer to him; and he kissed them, and embraced them. ¹¹And Israel said to Joseph, I had not thought to see thy face; and behold, God has let me see also thy seed. ¹²And Joseph brought them out from his knees, and bowed down with his face to the earth. ¹³And Joseph took them both, Ephraim in his right hand toward Israel’s left hand, and Manasseh in his left hand toward Israel’s right hand, and brought them near to him. ¹⁴But Israel stretched out his right hand, and laid it on Ephraim’s head—now he was the younger—and his left hand on Manasseh’s head; guiding his hands intelligently, for Manasseh was the firstborn. ¹⁵And he blessed Joseph, and said, The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God that shepherded me all my life long to this day, ¹⁶the Angel that redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and let my name be named upon them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the land! ¹⁷When Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it was evil in his eyes; and he took hold of his father’s hand to remove it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s head. ¹⁸And Joseph said to his father, Not so, my father, for this is the firstborn: put thy right hand on his head. ¹⁹But his father refused and said, I know, my son, I know: he also will become a people, and he also will be great; but truly his younger brother will be greater than he; and his seed will become the fulness of nations. ²⁰And he blessed them that day, saying, In thee will Israel bless, saying, God make thee as Ephraim and Manasseh! And he set Ephraim before Manasseh. ²¹And Israel said to Joseph, Behold, I die; and God will be with you, and bring you again to the land of your fathers. ²²And I have given to thee one tract of land above thy brethren, which I took out of the hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my bow.