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Sermon preached on Genesis 46 by Rev. W. Reid Hankins during the Morning Worship Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 08/18/2024 in Petaluma, CA.
Sermon Manuscript
Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
Here we go again. We pick up our Genesis series and find Jacob on the road again. He again heads out of the Promised Land. But we’ve seen God’s care for Jacob in the past. We’ve recognized how God has been faithful to Jacob, to keep all those covenant promises he has given to him and the family. As Jacob heads off to this next chapter in Israel’s history, he can be sure that God continues to be with him. Our passage is a testament to us, even as the rest of Scripture confirms this. As we find this true for Jacob and family, we know that it continues to be true for us. God have made us Christians to share in certain covenant promises with Israel. God continues to be faithful to these promises in our day. His faithfulness here reminds us of this quality of God that we still enjoy today.
Let us begin our first point today by looking at verses 1-7. There, we find Jacob and family heading for Egypt. Remember, we ended last chapter back in Egypt with Joseph revealing his identity to his brothers. Then, he called for his brothers to go and get his father and return to Egypt where they could live safely during the famine. Today, we see that Jacob has gathered up his family and is heading out to Egypt where he’ll see Joseph again and be able to take refuge during the famine.
Jacob likely headed out from Hebron and proceeded southward toward Egypt. In verse 1, we see him arriving in the place of Beersheba. In other words, as they head out of their home of the Promised Land, Beersheba is the last sort of significant stop for them before they leave Canaan. Remember, Beersheba was where father Abraham had purchased a well there back in Genesis 21. More significantly, it is the place that God appeared to Father Isaac, Jacob’s father, in Genesis 26. There God reaffirmed to Isaac the covenant promises God had given to his father Abraham. But interestingly, God appeared there to Isaac back in Genesis 21 during the time of a famine and specifically commanded Isaac to not go to Egypt for refuge during the famine, but to stay in the Promised Land instead.
And so it may be those words that especially prompted Jacob to here at Beersheba proceed into a time of worship with the offering of sacrifices. This location was this historical spot where God had met with Jacob’s father. And it was this spot where God had told Jacob’s father not to go to Egypt during a famine. This may be Jacob seeking divine confirmation before actually leaving the Promised Land.
Well, indeed, God gives him such. For in verse 2, God appears and calls to Jacob and reaffirms to him yet again his covenant promises. Let us appreciate the recapitulation of what happened there with Isaac but with the contrast too. For God tells Jacob that he should go to Egypt! And indeed, God explains to Jacob that it is there, in Egypt, that he will be continuing to fulfill his covenant promises to this family. There, in Egypt, they will grow into a great, numerous, nation. And God promises that he will ultimately bring Israel up from Egypt. In other words, yes, they will leave the Promised Land for now, but God is saying that one day he will bring them back to the Promised Land. God also adds the note that Joseph’s hands shall close Jacob’s eyes, hinting that he will die in Egypt after being reunited there with Joseph.
We might ask why Isaac was forbidden from going to Egypt whereas Jacob is commanded. The simple answer is that all this was God’s plan. Back in Genesis 15, God had told Abraham that they wouldn’t actually possess the Promised Land for four hundred years. He told Abraham that first they would be sojourners in a foreign land where they’d end up as afflicted servants. Only then, would God deliver them out of that land and bring them back to bring judgment on the land of Canaan. Yet, that sojourning wasn’t going to happen during Isaac’s day leaving the Promised Land. No, God had planned for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to first begin to plant roots there in Canaan. Now will start the time of this extended sojourning. God calls Jacob to that. God’s plans are inscrutable, but we know they are all-wise, aimed to keep God’s promises to us. Jacob and family then can leave the Promised Land for Egypt with God’s blessings and the assurance that this is God’s will.
With that in mind, let us move to our second point and consider the genealogy in verses 8-27. Besides being factual records, something to look for when studying a genealogy is what are the special out-of-the-ordinary notes included with it. These are literally the noteworthy items amidst the familial records. In this case, several things stand out as such.
A first noteworthy item is the way this makes repeated references back to Laban and Paddan-aram, such as in verses 15, 18, and 25. Recall, Joseph found his wives, the daughters of Laban, not in the Promised Land but back in Paddan-Aram where his grandparents and mother had originally been from. Remember, Jacob had fled from the Promised Land to Paddan-aram when he was younger because his brother Esau wanted to kill him, while at the same time going there to find a wife. Remember, back then, on his way out of town going north, God appeared to Jacob at Bethel. There, God not only affirmed the covenant promises to him, but that God would be with him while he sojourned out of the Promised Land and would one day bring him back to the Promised Land. Sound familiar? I suspect that is why these notes here about Laban and Paddan-aram are highlighted here. They remind us that this is not the first time Jacob had to leave the Promised Land. But back then and now again today, he is assured that God would be with him, that he didn’t need to fear the journey away, and that God would ultimately bring him back to the Promised Land.
A second noteworthy item is the brief concerns about having a Canaanite wife. Verse 10 specifically mentions that for Simeon’s wife. It’s implied in verse 12 as well because Judah’s two evil sons are called out for their evil, but that reminds us back to that chapter in Genesis where we saw that Judah had these sons also with a Canaanite wife. And so, we remember that Genesis has repeatedly made the point to us that the women in Canaan are not good choices for a wife. So, now as they are again headed out of Canaan, and God just told them that he would multiply the family down in Egypt, we are again reminded that Canaanite wives were not good choices. In other words, while they were living among Canaanites, this was a temptation that they were facing. But now going down to sojourn in Egypt for a time, they will surely not have the same level of temptation to find a Canaanite wife. Instead, they’ll be able to be fruitful and multiply away from such women. This is surely part of God’s plans here too.
A third noteworthy item in this genealogy is the total at the end in verses 26-27. There, they add up the number of the genealogy to seventy people. When thinking backward, we realize God has grown this family quite a bit since the days of just Abraham and Sarah, when God covenanted to make their descendants as numerous as the stars in the heavens. Yet, God said the people would be so great that they’d be uncountable. Well, at this point, bigger though they are, they are still countable. But what we find is exactly what God said to Jacob in verse 3, that it would be in Egypt that God would greatly multiply this family’s numbers. This count was necessary to show the starting amount as they enter Egypt, so that after their exodus from Egypt we can see that God kept his promised to multiply them there. Indeed, Moses notes this fact in Deuteronomy 10:22, saying to Israel after the Egyptian Exodus, “Your fathers went down to Egypt seventy persons, and now the LORD your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven.”
So then, these three noteworthy items in the genealogy underscore that their going down to Egypt is all according to God’s plan. Indeed, what God promised them here at Beersheba today is corroborated with this genealogy. It details how they are yet few in number and need a place to safely grow. It also reminds us that God can indeed bring his people back to the Promised Land after a period of sojourning. And once they do return, the genealogy confirms that God kept what we promised here at Beersheba, using their sojourn in Egypt as part of keeping his covenant promises to his people.
Let us turn now to our third point as we consider verses 28-34. This section describes their arrival in Egypt. So, we see first the sweet union of father and son in verse 28. Joseph is reunited with his father Israel. We see the emotion of Joseph again, with him hugging him and weeping upon his neck. It says he did this for “a good while.” How special this was. And let us also appreciate how this becomes fulfillment of prophecy as well. For we remember back to Joseph’s dreams in chapter 37. The dream with the sun, moon, and stars bowing down to Joseph foretold how not only would Joseph’s brothers bow down to him, but also his father and mother. Now, Judah has come to Egypt and now is before Joseph who is the head of all Egypt. For Jacob to come to sojourn in Egypt is to put himself and his family under the reign of Joseph. Yet, this was foretold, all part of God’s plan.
And for Jacob, we see him also express that this was part of God’s plan with his words in verse 30. He tells Joseph that now he can die, since he has seen Joseph’s face and wellbeing. Recall, at Beersheba, God told Jacob that it would be Joseph’s hand who would close his eyes. Jacob’s words here show the trust and contentment is now prepared to die when he comes to see Joseph. Yet, in God’s mercy, Jacob would go on to yet live several more years. But you see him trusting himself here to God’s good plan.
In the remainder of this section, we then find Joseph arranging things so that his family will end up living in Goshen. Goshen apparently was within the broader Egyptian area, but apparently separate enough from where the Egyptians generally lived. It’s thought it may have been in the northern part of Egypt in the Nile Delta, where the Nile spreads out an empties into the Mediterranean Sea. Joseph explains to his family that he will speak with Pharoah and let them know that his family’s occupation is shepherding livestock. He likewise coaches his brothers what to say to Pharoah when they also come before him. I suspect Pharoah, under other circumstances, might have encouraged Joseph’s family to move into the city alongside all the other Egyptian citizens. But Joseph believes that emphasizing their occupation as shepherds will result in them being able instead to have their own space in the land of Goshen. As verse 34 tells us, that shepherds are an abomination to Egyptians. This obviously doesn’t mean that there weren’t Egyptian shepherds, for next chapter Pharoah will even offer a job to any of Jacob’s men who’d like to care for Pharoah’s livestock. But surely what it represents is that in the Egyptian society, being a shepherd was considered as some lower caste among Egypt, and they lived somehow segregated from others.
Let us appreciate the benefit this will give Israel. Whether it was all part of Joseph’s master plan or not, we can look at see that it was indeed part of God’s master plan. What I mean is that Joseph’s arranging for them to live set apart in Goshen will have the practical effect of limiting any assimilating or integration of Israel into Egyptian culture. Imagine that if they had just moved into the capital city where Pharoah and Joseph lived, they would very well after a few generations be hard to recognize as a distinct people group. Over time they may have just integrated fully into Egyptian society and become one homogenous people with them. But by having them live separate, it keeps their identity as a distinct people group. You could say, their living situation in Goshen allows them to live holy from the rest of the Egyptians, as in “set apart” and “distinct” from the rest of Egypt.
Let me pause and clarify something very important. All things being equal, there is nothing inherently wrong with immigrants assimilating into the culture of where they are moving. Yet, in Israel’s case, all things are not equal. This family of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had been called out from all the pagan nations of the world to be a family that worshipped the one true God and lived holy lives. God has promised to make that family into a great nation of the same sort. It is true, that God’s plan will ultimately use that great nation of God’s people to bring the true religion to all the nations of the world. But right now, we are still very early in God’s redemptive plans for the world. Right now, God’s plan was to use this time of Egyptian sojourning as a refuge where the family Israel can grow from this seventy person family into a huge number of people who know and worship the one true God. Yes, the time will come for Israel to live more in the world, and yet even then they are never to be of the world. But I digress. My clarification was to say that the Bible is not opposed to immigration that assimilates into their new country. Rather, the application that applies to us today is to make sure that we as Christian, while we live in but not of this world, maintain holy lives and thus seek godly unions and partnerships lest we become unequally yoked with this world that God has placed us in as witnesses to Christ.
So then, as we conclude our message for today, let us recognize that God had his plans this whole time. Their arrival to Egypt was only a part of God’s bigger plans. It is interesting how we were reminded today of these two major periods of sojourning in Jacob’s life, first in Paddan-aram, and now in Egypt. Yet, Jacob lived by faith during these sojournings, a faith that continued to grow to trust God’s plans more and more in his life.
Trinty Presbyterian Church, God planned and God promised to the patriarchs. Everything that God promised to Jacob at Beersheba has come to pass. God was with Israel when he went down to Egypt, just as he promised and according to plan. God was with Israel when they were in Egypt to multiply them into a great nation, just as he promised and according to plan. God would later bring them out of Egypt in power back to the Promised Land, just as he promised and according to plan. Jacob didn’t need to fear. He could trust God. And, since all that God promised to Jacob came to pass, then we know that everything God promised before to Abraham would also come to pass. Such as his promise to bring blessings to all the nations from his seed. That has begun to happen with the coming of Jesus. Jesus, seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, born in Bethlehem, called out of Egypt, the true Israel came to live, die, and rise again for our salvation, just as he promised and according to plan.
It is this Jesus that speaks to the nations today. He calls all men to repent of their sins and find salvation in his name. He promises to be our Shepherd and Lord who is with us even now while we sojourn in this world. He promises to be with us in this life and even when we die. He promises to guide us into the eternal Promised Land. No matter what may befall us as a Christian, we do not need to fear. While our life for now is a sojourn with both joys and sorrows, yet everything is happening as he promised and according to plan. And when we finally are led through death’s dark veil unto eternal life, it will not be the streets of gold or the ever-fruiting tree of life or the unending day that will ultimately hold our gaze. No, surely, it will be to finally see our Lord’s face, to see our risen Jesus alive. What joy that we will be able to behold the majesty of our Lord for all eternity.
Amen.
Copyright © 2024 Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
All Rights Reserved.
