Genesis 47

Jacob’s Family Settles in Goshen

1So Joseph #ch. 46:31 went in and told Pharaoh, “My father and my brothers, with their flocks and herds and all that they possess, have come from the land of Canaan. They are now in #See ch. 45:10the land of Goshen.” 2And from among his brothers he took five men and #Acts 7:13presented them to Pharaoh. 3Pharaoh said to his brothers, #ch. 46:33 “What is your occupation?” And they said to Pharaoh, #ch. 46:32, 34“Your servants are shepherds, as our fathers were.” 4They said to Pharaoh, #ch. 15:13; Deut. 26:5 “We have come to sojourn in the land, for there is no pasture for your servants’ flocks, for the famine is severe in the land of Canaan. And now, please let your servants dwell #ch. 46:34in the land of Goshen.” 5Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Your father and your brothers have come to you. 6The land of Egypt is before you. Settle your father and your brothers #ch. 45:18 in the best of the land. #ver. 4 Let them settle in the land of Goshen, and if you know any #Ex. 18:21, 25able men among them, put them in charge of my livestock.”

7Then Joseph brought in Jacob his father and stood him before Pharaoh, #ver. 10and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. 8And Pharaoh said to Jacob, “How many are the days of the years of your life?” 9And Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The days of the years of my #1 Chr. 29:15; Ps. 39:12; 119:19, 54; Heb. 11:9, 13 sojourning are 130 years. #Job 14:1; [Ps. 39:4, 5; James 4:14] Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and #ch. 11:32; 25:7; 35:28they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their #1 Chr. 29:15; Ps. 39:12; 119:19, 54; Heb. 11:9, 13 sojourning.” 10And Jacob #ver. 7blessed Pharaoh and went out from the presence of Pharaoh. 11Then Joseph settled 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 #Ex. 1:11; 12:37; [ch. 45:10] Rameses, #ver. 6as Pharaoh had commanded. 12And Joseph #ch. 45:11; 50:21provided his father, his brothers, and all his father’s household with food, according to the number of their dependents.

Joseph and the Famine

13Now there was no food in all the land, for the famine was very severe, so that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan languished by reason of the famine. 14#ch. 41:56And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, in exchange for the grain that they bought. And Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh’s house. 15And when the money was all spent in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, “Give us food. #ver. 19Why should we die before your eyes? For our money is gone.” 16And Joseph answered, “Give your livestock, and I will give you food in exchange for your livestock, if your money is gone.” 17So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and Joseph gave them food in exchange for the horses, the flocks, the herds, and the donkeys. He supplied them with food in exchange for all their livestock that year. 18And when that year was ended, they came to him the following year and said to him, “We will not hide from my lord that our money is all spent. The herds of livestock are my lord’s. There is nothing left in the sight of my lord but our bodies and our land. 19Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? #[Neh. 5:2, 3]Buy us and our land for food, and we with our land will be servants to Pharaoh. And give us seed that we may live and not die, and that the land may not be desolate.”

20So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh, for all the Egyptians sold their fields, because the famine was severe on them. The land became Pharaoh’s. 21As for the people, he made servants of them#47:21 Samaritan, Septuagint, Vulgate; Hebrew he removed them to the cities from one end of Egypt to the other. 22#[Ezra 7:24]Only the land of the priests he did not buy, for the priests had a fixed allowance from Pharaoh and lived on the allowance that Pharaoh gave them; therefore they did not sell their land.

23Then Joseph said to the people, “Behold, I have this day bought you and your land for Pharaoh. Now here is seed for you, and you shall sow the land. 24And at the harvests you shall give a #ch. 41:34fifth to Pharaoh, and four fifths shall be your own, as seed for the field and as food for yourselves and your households, and as food for your little ones.” 25And they said, “You have saved our lives; #See ch. 33:15may it please my lord, we will be servants to Pharaoh.” 26So Joseph made it a statute concerning the land of Egypt, and it stands to this day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth; #ver. 22the land of the priests alone did not become Pharaoh’s.

27Thus Israel settled in the land of Egypt, #See ch. 45:10 in the land of Goshen. #ch. 46:3And they gained possessions in it, and were fruitful and multiplied greatly. 28And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years. #[ver. 9]So the days of Jacob, the years of his life, were 147 years.

29And #Deut. 31:14; 1 Kgs. 2:1 when the time drew near that Israel must die, he called his son Joseph and said to him, “If now #See ch. 33:15 I have found favor in your sight, #ch. 24:2 put your hand under my thigh and #ch. 24:49 promise to deal kindly and truly with me. #[ch. 50:25]Do not bury me in Egypt, 30but let me lie with my fathers. Carry me out of Egypt and #ch. 49:29; 50:5, 13bury me in their burying place.” He answered, “I will do as you have said.” 31And he said, “Swear to me”; and he swore to him. Then #ch. 48:2; 1 Kgs. 1:47; [Heb. 11:21]Israel bowed himself upon the head of his bed.#47:31 Hebrew; Septuagint staff

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Genesis 47

Pharaoh let Jacob and his family live in Egypt country

1Joseph left Goshen, and he went to Pharaoh’s house. Then Joseph said to Pharaoh, “My father and my brothers came here from Canaan country. They brought all their sheep and cows with them, and everything else that they own. They are staying in the place called Goshen.”

2Joseph took 5 of his brothers to Pharaoh. 3Then Pharaoh said to Joseph’s brothers, “What sort of work do you do?”

Joseph’s brothers said to Pharaoh, “Sir, we look after animals, just like our father and our grand-fathers used to.” 4Then they said, “Sir, it is a really hard time in Canaan country. There is no rain, so there are no food plants growing, and there isn’t any grass there for our animals to eat. That’s the reason why we came here to Egypt country. We want to live here for a while. Please, sir, let us stay in the place called Goshen.”

5Then Pharaoh talked to Joseph. He said, “It is good that your father and your brothers have come here to be with you. 6There is lots of land here in Egypt country. Your father and brothers can live in the best part of the land. Let them live in Goshen, the land is good there.”

Pharaoh also said to Joseph, “Maybe some of the men in your family are really good at looking after animals. You can tell those men to look after my animals for me.”

7Then Joseph got his father Jacob, and he took Jacob to meet Pharaoh. Then Jacob said good things to Pharaoh, and he showed him respect.

8Pharaoh said to Jacob, “How old are you?”

9And Jacob said to Pharaoh, “I am 130 years old. All my life, I’ve lived on country that belongs to other people. I never had my own land, just like my grand-fathers never had their own land. You know, my grand-fathers lived for a long time, and they died when they were very old. But my life has been short, and I had a lot of trouble in my life.”

10Then Jacob said good-bye to Pharaoh, and he went out of Pharaoh’s house.

11After that, Joseph gave his father and his brothers the best land in Egypt country, just like Pharaoh said, and they lived on that land. That land was in the place called Goshen, but later on, people called that place Rameses. 12And Joseph gave food to his father, and his brothers, and the rest of his father’s family. He made sure that each brother always had enough food for their whole family.

Joseph gave the Egypt people food

13There was no rain in all of Egypt and Canaan country, and no food plants grew. It was really hard for everyone. The people did not have enough food, so they got really hungry and weak.

14At first, all the people in Egypt and Canaan country, they paid money to Joseph, and he gave them food. And Joseph took all that money into Pharaoh’s house. 15But after a while, the people in Egypt and Canaan country had no more money left. So all the Egypt people went to Joseph, and they said to him, “We’ve got no more money to buy food. You have to help us. Give us food, or we will die.”

16Joseph said to them, “All right. You don’t have any money, so you can give me your animals instead of money, and then I will give you food.”

17So the people brought their animals to Joseph. They brought horses, and sheep, and cows, and donkeys. Every time somebody gave an animal to Joseph, he gave them some food, so they had enough food to eat. They kept on doing that for one year. Then after that, they had no more animals left.

18The next year, the people went to Joseph again, and they said, “Sir, you know that we’ve got no money, and we gave you all our animals. The only things we have left are our own bodies and our land. There’s nothing else we can give you. 19We need food, and we need seeds to plant in the ground. We know we can plant seeds now, and those food plants will grow, but we don’t have any seeds to plant. You have to help us, or we will die, and our land will be useless.”

Then the people said, “This is what we want to do. We will give you our land and ourselves. Then all the land that belongs to us will belong to Pharaoh. And we will belong to Pharaoh too, we will become his workers. Then you give us food to eat and seeds to plant, so that we can grow food plants on the land again. It will be like we are paying for that food and those seeds with ourselves and our land. That way, we will have food to eat, and we will stay alive. But if you don’t do that, we will die, and our land will be useless.”

20So Joseph did what the people asked. You see, there was no rain and no food plants growing in Egypt country. It was really bad, and the people needed food. So everyone in Egypt country gave all their land to Joseph, and he gave their land to Pharaoh. Then that land didn’t belong to the people any more, it belonged to Pharaoh. 21And Joseph got all the Egypt people to work for Pharaoh.

22-26And Joseph said to the people, “Listen. Today I gave you mob to Pharaoh, to work for him. And I gave him your land as well. Now I will give you seeds to plant in the ground, so that you can grow food plants. Every time you take food from those plants, you have to split up that food into 5 piles, and give one pile to Pharaoh. You can keep the rest of that food for yourselves. Then you and your families and your little kids, and all the people that live in your homes, you will all have food to eat. And you can take some of the seeds from those food plants, and you can plant those seeds in the ground, so that you can keep growing more food plants.”

Then the Egypt people said to Joseph, “Sir, you saved our lives. Thank you for being good to us. We will be Pharaoh’s workers, just like you said.”

So Joseph made a new law for Egypt country. That law said that every time the Egypt people got food from their food plants, they had to split up that food into 5 piles, and give one pile to Pharaoh. And you know, that law is still there in Egypt country.

After that time, Pharaoh owned all the land in Egypt country. Only the ceremony men still owned their own land. You see, Pharaoh always paid those ceremony men, so they didn’t need to sell him their land to get food. So their land still belonged to them, it didn’t belong to Pharaoh.

Jacob told Joseph to bury his body in Canaan country

27At that time, Jacob and his family started to live in Egypt country, in the place called Goshen. They got their own land in that place, and lots more kids were born into their family, so that they became a really big mob of people.

28Jacob lived in Egypt country for 17 years. He lived until he was 147 years old.

29This story is about some things that happened before Jacob died.

Jacob knew that he was going to die soon, so he sent somebody to get his son Joseph. Then Jacob said to Joseph, “I am going to ask you to put your hand under my leg, and make me a strong promise.” You see, in that culture, people sometimes made promises to each other that way. The person that made the promise, they put their hand under the other person’s leg, and that showed that they had to keep their promise.

Then Jacob said to Joseph, “I know that you love me, so I want you to promise that you will be good to me, and do the right thing. When I die, don’t bury my body here in Egypt country. 30You have to take my body out of Egypt country, and go back to Canaan country, and bury me in the same grave as my father and grand-father.”#Genesis 49:29-32; 50:6

And Joseph said, “I will do those things that you said.”

31Jacob said, “Make me that strong promise.” So Joseph put his hand under Jacob’s leg, and he made him that strong promise. Then Jacob put his face down towards his bed, to thank God.#Hebrews 11:21

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