GENESIS

JOSEPH

Joseph in Egypt
Jacob Transfers to Egypt

Genesis 46:1-47:12

INTRODUCTION

Watchman Nee and C. S. Lewis claim that one of the truest indicators of God's will is circumstances. If I believe God wants me to go to a certain school and yet the doors are not open for me to go there, then it just might be God's will that He doesn't want me to go to that particular school. Maybe I feel that it is God's will for me to have a particular job. If the supervisor doesn't hire me, then it probably isn't God's will that I get that job.

Whereas circumstances are a tremendous indicator of God's will, they are not the ONLY indicator of God's will. Maybe not often, but sometimes circumstances and God's will actually clash. At that point the Christian has to decide which will determine what he does: circumstances or God's will. How does he know though what God's will is? This episode from Jacob's life helps us understand.

JACOB SEEKS GOD AT BEERSHEBA (46:1-7)

Joseph has sent for his father and family to join him in Egypt where he will care for the family, especially during the next five years of famine. With Pharaoh's approval he has promised to make available to them the best that the land of Egypt has to offer. All the circumstances seem to indicate to Jacob that this is the Lord's will. Famine in Canaan, Joseph being second-in-command of all Egypt, the promise of provision in the land of Egypt, all these seem to indicate that it is God's will for Jacob to take his family to Egypt.

Yet Jacob is hesitant. Twice before his grandfather Abraham and his father Isaac had been placed in the exact same situation. Abraham had actually gone on down to Egypt where he caused a mini disaster in Pharaoh's household. Isaac didn't make it that far because God stopped him and told him NOT to go to Egypt. Twice before even though circumstances seemed to indicate that God's people were to go to Egypt, it was not God's will for them to do so.

Moreover, God had promised to give this land specifically to Jacob and to his descendants. When Jacob left the land for Haran, God had told him that he would return him to this land. Never had God mentioned anything about going down to Egypt. What should he do? This is a crisis between circumstances and former instructions from the Lord.

As Jacob journeys from Shechem to Egypt, he arrives at Beersheba, the place where his father had made his homestead. It is quite likely that arriving in Beersheba, the former home of his father who was not allowed to go to Egypt, made Jacob think twice about going to Egypt. It is there that Jacob rebuilds the altar where his father worshipped and seeks the Lord's guidance in prayer.

That night God speaks to Jacob in a vision: "I am God, the God of your father; do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you a great nation there." God first informs Jacob that the God who is about to tell him to go to Egypt is the same God who told Isaac NOT to go to Egypt. A new god was not appearing to him and leading him astray. The God who had been faithful to both Abraham and Isaac was now appearing to him and was going to be as faithful to him as He had been to Jacob's ancestors.

Moreover, although God's ultimate will for the descendants of Abraham, the Jewish people, was to occupy the land of Canaan, God was going to take a detour until the time came for them to occupy the land of Canaan. The destination had NOT changed; the route to that destination though had somewhat been altered. Jacob learned this not simply by means of circumstances but also through prayer.

I learned the invaluable lesson 10 years ago that circumstances alone don't indicate God's will but that prayer plays a vital role in determining His will. It was 1998 and I got a call from a pastor from a growing church in the Austin area. One of my good friends, a dynamic youth minister, was on staff at that church and had advised the pastor to call me to be his education minister. My friend informed me that everything was great at that church, that the pastor was super and that the church was growing by leaps and bounds.

I received a phone call from that pastor and had one of the best interviews I had ever had. In fact, the pastor didn't interview me: I interviewed him. After the phone call I felt like that was the exact church I wanted to serve and the exact pastor I wanted to support. All he needed me to do was to come down to Austin and finish the interview process. Since Nancy, the kids, and I were headed down that way the next week for some vacation time in San Antonio, I set up the appointment for that next week.

That morning as we headed for Austin, my spirit felt more and more uncomfortable about the situation. All along the way to Austin I was in constant prayer about the Lord's will regarding this. By the time we got to Austin my spirit was panicking within me. I felt like the Holy Spirit was telling me that this was going to be a gargantuan mistake if I accepted this position.

When we arrived in Austin, I told Nancy that I couldn't go through with this, that this was NOT of the Lord, no matter what the circumstances seemed to indicate. As always, she was very supportive; so I called the pastor and informed him of my decision. At first he tried to talk me into coming on to the church: "What could it hurt?" Well, the truth is that it hurts a lot when you even play with something the Lord tells you to avoid. I adamantly refused to meet with him. That was the end of that. Maybe I had made a big mistake. I just knew that every time I felt like the Lord was talking to me, He never let me down when I obeyed Him.

A month later I got a phone call from my good friend, the youth minister. He told me that I should be so grateful that I had not gone to that church. The pastor had really revealed his true colors--a true control freak who badgered his staff. Within just a few months the entire staff had left the church and the church had severely disciplined him. Circumstances are a GREAT indicator of God's will; however, they are not the ONLY indicator. When it is all said and done, we must ultimately follow the dictates of the Spirit who lives within us.

So why does God send Jacob to Egypt? And why now? For the previous 2 generations (Abraham and Isaac) Canaan had been appropriate. For the longest Abraham's family consisted of only him, Sarah, and his servants. He only had 2 sons. Later Isaac would be the head of a family of 4: himself, Rebekah, Esau and Jacob. Canaan again would be sufficient for this small family. Jacob though as we will see in the next section had become the head of quite a household, at least 210 if not 400 people. For them to reach the next stage the family would need a better venue. That place would he Egypt. Moving them to Egypt was necessary to transform them from a family into a great nation.

God continues: "I will go down with YOU to Egypt, and I will also surely bring YOU up again; and Joseph will close YOUR eyes." Why does God bother to address Jacob's own PERSONAL situation? Wasn't it enough that he was going down to Egypt because of a great cause, to transform his family into a great nation? Unfortunately many great people look only at the big picture. Communism had behind it a "great" goal, and yet millions of people were crushed by that great goal. The same can be said for all the great movements of history, all except for Christianity. The reason is that Christianity is designed for the benefit of the individual. Whenever all individuals are benefited, only then has the great movement achieved its goal. Just as God didn't run over Jacob or any other of the fathers to achieve His goal, neither does He run over you and me. God is not only going to bless His people, He is also going to bless Jacob, specifically by Joseph being with Jacob at the time of his death and by Joseph bringing Jacob back to his homeland for burial. (It is interesting that Jacob who gave the name "Israel" to the land of his people spent less time in that land than any of the other great patriarchs.)

THE SIZE OF JACOB'S FAMILY (46:8-27)

We are definitely not going to spend as much time showing the size of Jacob's family as Genesis does. We'll just say that by means of his 2 wives and 2 concubines, Joseph has fathered 70 sons and grandsons (33 by Leah, 14 by Rachel,16 by Zilpah, and 7 by Bilhah). This number does NOT include daughters, daughters-in-law, granddaughters, and great-granddaughters. If these had been included, the number of Jacob's household most likely would have been anywhere between 210-400, a sizeable household indeed.

Why does Moses give us this headcount at this point? First at the end of Genesis Moses is showing us that God's promise to Abraham to make of him a great nation is actually being fulfilled. God started with this one man, Abraham, and his barren wife, Sarah, and within 3 generations has produced a family of close to 400 people. We should not be stunned then when we turn the last page of Genesis to Exodus that we find his family now numbers in the millions. God had told him He was going to keep His promise; Jacob himself has seen that God is being faithful to that promise.

Moreover, He is fulfilling that promise quickly. For over 100 years Abraham and his family numbered first 3 (Abraham, Isaac, and Sarah), and then 4 (Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob and Esau). Surely God was taking His sweet time to fulfill that promise. Then all of a sudden, bang!, there are 400 people (Jacob, his 4 wives, 12 sons, and their wives and their descendants). The slow pace at which God fulfills His promises doesn't mean He's not going to fulfill them. He may be doing some very important things between the time He promises and the time He fulfills. When the time is ripe for fulfillment, many times you need to strap on your seat belt because it may come at you with a force of 50 g's.

JACOB LOCATES TO THE LAND OF GOSHEN (46:28-47:12)

Jacob and his family depart Beersheba for Egypt. He sends Judah (who has now become the leader of the 10 brothers) on up ahead to get directions from Joseph to Goshen. When Joseph learns that Jacob is nearing Goshen, he mounts his chariot and heads out to meet his father. In one of the most touching scenes in the Bible, Joseph falls upon his father's neck and weeps for a long, long time. Jacob who had experienced the terror of not knowing about the fate of his favorite son is now at peace: "Now let me die, since I have seen your face, that you are still alive." For months we were glued to cable TV news as it showed the anguish that Natalie Holloway's parents were going thru when she turned up missing in Aruba. It's been 3 years since Natalie went missing; her missing been a nightmare for her parents, even though they know she is dead. They just want closure. Jacob now has closure. He can now die in peace.

Before Joseph presents his brothers, father, and their family to Pharaoh, Joseph instructs them to tell Pharaoh that they are shepherds. The reason he instructs them to say this is that he wants his family to be isolated in some wonderful part of Egypt away from the rest of the Egyptians. They will stay in a wonderful place because Pharaoh is so indebted to Joseph; Pharaoh and the other Egyptians will want to isolate them because they are shepherds. At that time Egypt lived under a strict caste system with shepherds being pretty low in the system. Since Goshen (the eastern region of the Nile Delta) was fertile and pretty much isolated, Joseph is going to recommend that Pharaoh send them there. The brothers follow Joseph's instructions. As Joseph had predicted, Pharaoh sends them to Goshen.

So why did Joseph plan for them to locate to Goshen? First, if Jacob's family was going to develop into a great nation, they needed fertile territory of do so. Goshen, at the eastern end of the Nile Delta near the Mediterranean Sea, would be ideal since it was extremely fertile.

Also, earlier Jacob's family had learned the need for isolation. The story of Shechem and Dinah revealed to Joseph that his family was always in danger of being assimilated into the pagan cultures surrounding them; Shechem and the townspeople of Shechem had tried to assimilate Jacob's family into their culture by having Shechem and his people intermarry with the family of Jacob. Joseph knows that they are to be a peculiar, special people. God's people are to be "in" the world but not "of" the world.

Parents, teenagers, all Christians need to remember this principle. Don't hide behind the excuse "It's just a movie! Or I need artistic freedom! Or it won't hurt them!" Our main problem is that we are trying to find out how close we can get to the fire without getting burned, when our attitude all along should be: "How far can we get away from the fire." If Jesus wouldn't watch that movie or TV show, then we shouldn't either. Christ not only calls us to radical love; He also calls us to radical purity. The truth is that you can't have radical love without radical purity.