Genesis 46–47

Chapter 46

Jacob Moves to Egypt

¹So Israel set out with all that he had, and came to ^aBeersheba, and offered sacrifices to the ^bGod of his father Isaac.

^2aGod spoke to Israel ¹in visions of the night and said, “^bJacob, Jacob.” And he said, “Here I am.”

³He said, “^aI am God, the God of your father; do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will ^bmake you a great nation there.

⁴“^aI will go down with you to Egypt, and ^bI will also surely bring you up again; and ^cJoseph will ¹close your eyes.”

⁵Then Jacob arose from Beersheba; and the sons of Israel carried their father Jacob and their little ones and their wives in the ^awagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him.

⁶They took their livestock and their property, which they had acquired in the land of Canaan, and ^acame to Egypt, Jacob and all his ¹descendants with him:

⁷his sons and his grandsons with him, his daughters and his granddaughters, and all his ¹descendants he brought with him to Egypt.

Those Who Came to Egypt

⁸Now these are the ^anames of the sons of Israel, Jacob and his sons, who went to Egypt: Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn.

⁹The sons of Reuben: Hanoch and Pallu and Hezron and Carmi.

¹⁰The ^asons of Simeon: ¹Jemuel and Jamin and Ohad and ²Jachin and ³Zohar and Shaul the son of a Canaanite woman.

¹¹The sons of Levi: ¹Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.

¹²The sons of Judah: Er and Onan and Shelah and Perez and Zerah (but Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan). And the ^asons of Perez were Hezron and Hamul.

¹³The sons of Issachar: Tola and ¹Puvvah and ²Iob and Shimron.

¹⁴The sons of Zebulun: Sered and Elon and Jahleel.

¹⁵These are the sons of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob in Paddan-aram, with his daughter Dinah; ¹all his sons and his daughters numbered thirty-three.

¹⁶The ^asons of Gad: ¹Ziphion and Haggi, Shuni and ²Ezbon, Eri and ³Arodi and Areli.

¹⁷The ^asons of Asher: Imnah and Ishvah and Ishvi and Beriah and their sister Serah. And the ^bsons of Beriah: Heber and Malchiel.

¹⁸These are the sons of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to his daughter Leah; and she bore to Jacob these sixteen persons.

¹⁹The sons of Jacob’s wife Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin.

^20aNow to Joseph in the land of Egypt were born Manasseh and Ephraim, whom Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera, priest of On, bore to him.

²¹The ^asons of Benjamin: Bela and Becher and Ashbel, Gera and Naaman, ¹Ehi and Rosh, ²Muppim and ³Huppim and Ard.

²²These are the sons of Rachel, who were born to Jacob; there were fourteen persons in all.

²³The sons of Dan: ¹Hushim.

²⁴The sons of Naphtali: ¹Jahzeel and Guni and Jezer and ²Shillem.

²⁵These are the ^asons of Bilhah, whom ^bLaban gave to his daughter Rachel, and she bore these to Jacob; there were seven persons in all.

^26aAll the persons belonging to Jacob, who came to Egypt, ¹his direct descendants, not including the wives of Jacob’s sons, were sixty-six persons in all,

²⁷and the sons of Joseph, who were born to him in Egypt were ¹two; ^aall the persons of the house of Jacob, who came to Egypt, were seventy.

²⁸Now he sent Judah before him to Joseph, to point out the way before him to ^aGoshen; and they came into the land of Goshen.

²⁹Joseph ¹prepared his chariot and went up to Goshen to meet his father Israel; as soon as he appeared ²before him, he fell on his neck and ^awept on his neck a long time.

³⁰Then Israel said to Joseph, “Now let me die, since I have seen your face, that you are still alive.”

³¹Joseph said to his brothers and to his father’s household, “^aI 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;

³²and the men are shepherds, for they have been ¹keepers of livestock; and they have brought their flocks and their herds and all that they have.’

³³“When Pharaoh calls you and says, ‘^aWhat is your occupation?’

³⁴you shall say, ‘Your servants have been ^1akeepers of livestock from our youth even until now, both we and our fathers,’ that you may ²live in the land of ^bGoshen; for every shepherd is ^3cloathsome to the Egyptians.”

Chapter 47

Jacob’s Family Settles in Goshen

¹Then ^aJoseph went in and told Pharaoh, and said, “My father and my brothers and their flocks and their herds and all that they have, have come out of the land of Canaan; and behold, they are in the land of ^bGoshen.”

²He took five men from among his brothers and ^apresented them to Pharaoh.

³Then Pharaoh said to his brothers, “^aWhat is your occupation?” So they said to Pharaoh, “Your servants are ^bshepherds, both we and our fathers.”

⁴They said to Pharaoh, “^aWe have come to sojourn in the land, for there is no pasture for your servants’ flocks, for ^bthe famine is severe in the land of Canaan. Now, therefore, please let your servants ^1clive in the land of Goshen.”

⁵Then Pharaoh said to ¹Joseph, “Your father and your brothers have come to you.

⁶“The land of Egypt is ¹at your disposal; ²settle your father and your brothers in ^athe best of the land, let them ³live in the land of Goshen; and if you know any ^bcapable men among them, then ⁴put them in charge of my livestock.”

⁷Then Joseph brought his father Jacob and ¹presented him to Pharaoh; and Jacob ^ablessed Pharaoh.

⁸Pharaoh said to Jacob, “How many ¹years have you lived?”

⁹So Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The ^1ayears of my sojourning are one hundred and ²thirty; few and ³unpleasant have been the years of my life, nor have they ⁴attained ^bthe years ⁵that my fathers lived during the days of their sojourning.”

¹⁰And Jacob ^ablessed Pharaoh, and went out from ¹his presence.

¹¹So Joseph ¹settled his father and his brothers and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in ^athe best of the land, in the land of ^bRameses, as Pharaoh had ordered.

¹²Joseph ^aprovided his father and his brothers and all his father’s household with ¹food, according to their little ones.

¹³Now there was no ¹food in all the land, because the famine was very severe, so that ^athe land of Egypt and the land of Canaan languished because of the famine.

^14aJoseph gathered 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.

¹⁵When the money was all spent in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph ¹and said, “Give us ²food, for ^awhy should we die in your presence? For our money ³is gone.”

¹⁶Then Joseph said, “Give up your livestock, and I will give you food for your livestock, since your money ¹is gone.”

¹⁷So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and Joseph gave them ¹food in exchange for the horses and the ²flocks and the herds and the donkeys; and he ³fed them with food in exchange for all their livestock ⁴that year.

¹⁸When that year was ended, they came to him the ¹next year and said to him, “We will not hide from my lord that our money is all spent, and the ²cattle are my lord’s. There is nothing left ³for my lord except our bodies and our lands.

¹⁹“Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land for ¹food, and we and our land will be slaves to Pharaoh. So give us seed, that we may live and not die, and that the land may not be desolate.”

Result of the Famine

²⁰So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh, for ¹every Egyptian sold his field, because the famine was severe upon them. Thus the land became Pharaoh’s.

²¹As for the people, he removed them to the cities from one end of Egypt’s border to the other.

²²Only the land of the priests he did not buy, for the priests had an allotment from Pharaoh, and they ¹lived off the allotment which Pharaoh gave them. Therefore, they did not sell their land.

²³Then Joseph said to the people, “Behold, I have today bought you and your land for Pharaoh; now, here is seed for you, and you may sow the land.

²⁴“¹At the harvest you shall give a ^afifth to Pharaoh, and ²four-fifths shall be your own for seed of the field and for your food and for those of your households and as food for your little ones.”

²⁵So they said, “You have saved our lives! Let us find favor in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh’s slaves.”

²⁶Joseph made it a statute concerning the land of Egypt valid to this day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth; ^aonly the land of the priests ¹did not become Pharaoh’s.

²⁷Now Israel ¹lived in the land of Egypt, in ²Goshen, and they ^aacquired property in it and ^bwere fruitful and became very numerous.

²⁸Jacob lived in the land of Egypt ^aseventeen years; so the ¹length of Jacob’s life was one hundred and forty-seven years.

²⁹When ^1athe time for Israel to die drew near, he called his son Joseph and said to him, “Please, if I have found favor in your sight, ^bplace now your hand under my thigh and ^cdeal with me in kindness and ²faithfulness. Please do not bury me in Egypt,

³⁰but when I ^alie down with my fathers, you shall carry me out of Egypt and bury me in ^btheir burial place.” And he said, “I will do as you have said.”

³¹He said, “^aSwear to me.” So he swore to him. Then ^bIsrael bowed in worship at the head of the bed.