Goshen, and a shepherd before Pharaoh
28 Jacob sent Judah before him to Joseph, to show the way before him to Goshen, and they came into the land of Goshen. 29 Joseph prepared his chariot, and went up to meet Israel, his father, in Goshen. He presented himself to him, and fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while. 30 Israel said to Joseph, “Now let me die, since I have seen your face, that you are still alive.” 31 Joseph said to his brothers, and to his father’s house, “I will go up, and speak with Pharaoh, and will tell him, ‘My brothers, and my father’s house, who were in the land of Canaan, have come to me. 32 These men are shepherds, for they have been keepers of livestock, and they have brought their flocks, and their herds, and all that they have.’ 33 It will happen, when Pharaoh summons you, and will say, ‘What is your occupation?’ 34 that you shall say, ‘Your servants have been keepers of livestock from our youth even until now, both we, and our fathers:’ that you may dwell in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians.” Genesis 47 1 Then Joseph went in and told Pharaoh, and said, “My father and my brothers, with their flocks, their herds, and all that they own, have come out of the land of Canaan; and behold, they are in the land of Goshen.” 2 From among his brothers he took five men, and presented them to Pharaoh. 3 Pharaoh said to his brothers, “What is your occupation?” They said to Pharaoh, “Your servants are shepherds, both we, and our fathers.” 4 They also said to Pharaoh, “We have come to live as foreigners in the land, for there is no pasture for your servants’ flocks. For the famine is severe in the land of Canaan. Now therefore, please let your servants dwell in the land of Goshen.” 5 Pharaoh spoke to Joseph, saying, “Your father and your brothers have come to you. 6 The land of Egypt is before you. Make your father and your brothers dwell in the best of the land. Let them dwell in the land of Goshen. If you know any able men among them, then put them in charge of my livestock.” 7 Joseph brought in Jacob, his father, and set him before Pharaoh; and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. 8 Pharaoh said to Jacob, “How old are you?” 9 Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The years of my pilgrimage are one hundred thirty years. The days of the years of my life have been few and evil. They have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.” 10 Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from the presence of Pharaoh. 11 Joseph placed his father and his brothers, 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. 12 Joseph provided his father, his brothers, and all of his father’s household with bread, according to the sizes of their families.
Joseph coaches his family to say the one thing that will keep them separate, and a nomad in a palace blesses the most powerful man on earth.
Jacob sent Judah before him to Joseph, to show the way. Judah again — the brother who proposed the sale is now the one trusted to go ahead and arrange the meeting.
The reunion is one sentence and it does not describe Jacob at all: He presented himself to him, and fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while. The weeping is Joseph's, and the phrase means a long time. Whatever the old man did, the writer keeps his eyes on the son.
Jacob's words are the ones he has been carrying since the wagons arrived: Now let me die, since I have seen your face, that you are still alive.
Then Joseph coaches them, and the coaching is shrewd. Pharaoh will ask their occupation; they are to say they are keepers of livestock, as their fathers were — and the reason is given in the last clause: for every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians.
The strategy is the opposite of what it looks like. He is not helping them conceal a stigma; he is telling them to lead with it. Because the Egyptians find shepherds distasteful, a family of shepherds will be housed apart, in the pasture country of Goshen, rather than absorbed into Egyptian society. Joseph, who has an Egyptian name, an Egyptian wife and an Egyptian office, is arranging for his relatives not to become Egyptians.
That decision preserves the family. Four centuries later they will come out as a distinguishable people rather than a memory, and the reason is a policy set here on a single sentence about what Egyptians could not stand.
The brothers do exactly as told, and Pharaoh's response is even better than asked — the best of the land, and an offer of employment for any able men among them.
And then Joseph brings his father in, and the scene is quietly astonishing. Joseph brought in Jacob, his father, and set him before Pharaoh; and Jacob blessed Pharaoh.
A hundred-and-thirty-year-old herdsman, a foreigner, a refugee from a famine, with no title and no property, standing in the court of the most powerful man in the world — and he blesses him. Not thanks him. Blesses him, and does it again at the end of the audience, so the writer records it twice. The rule that the lesser is blessed by the greater Hebrews 7:7 puts this old man above the throne, and Genesis states it without a word of explanation.
Pharaoh's question is the one people ask the very old: How old are you?
Jacob's answer is the saddest self-assessment in Scripture and the most honest: The years of my pilgrimage are one hundred thirty years. The days of the years of my life have been few and evil. They have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers.
Few, in a man of a hundred and thirty. Evil, meaning hard — and the record bears him out: exile, fourteen years' labor for a wife he was cheated of, a daughter violated, sons who massacred a city, the wife he loved dead on a road, and twenty-two years believing his favorite son was torn apart.
He calls it a pilgrimage, twice. It is the word Abraham used at Machpelah and the word the New Testament picks up for all of them — strangers and pilgrims, who confessed they were looking for a country Hebrews 11:13.
settled What this mark means