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Dec 22, 2023 · Why did God feel it necessary to tell Jacob to go to Egypt and “not to fear” (Gen. 46:1–5) when, by the time of this divine communication, Jacob had already decided on his own to go (Gen. 44:28)? Did Jacob’s sons bring Jacob to Egypt (Gen. 46:5-6) or did Jacob bring them (Gen. 46:6–7)?
According to the Book of Exodus, there was a famine in the land of Canaan (later known as Israel). Because of this famine, the Hebrew patriarch Jacob traveled with his extended family of 70 to Egypt to both live inbetter conditions and be with his son Joseph.
- What Did Jacob Fear?
- God’s Reassurance: “I Myself Will Go Down with You”
- A Revelation to The Readers: God Is with You in Exile Too
- “I Will Bring You Back” – The Meaning of God’s Enigmatic Promise
- The Story of Jacob: A Story For Exiles
Fear Based on Life-Experience
Jacob fears the exile because he has already experienced it, and hence needs God’s encouragement. Jacob lives in the exile of Haran under the patronage of his conniving uncle Laban, who fools him whenever he can and takes advantage of Jacob’s status as a stranger to squeeze as much work out of him as possible. Now Jacob and all his children are moving to a new country where they will yet again experience the vulnerability of being strangers.
Fear of Leaving the Holy Land
From the beginning of the revelation, God tells Jacob not to fear to go down into Egypt. Rashi (1040-1105) says, “He was troubled at being compelled to leave the Holy Land.” Nahmanides (1194-1270) claims that this same verse contains a secret, “[God] calls him Jacob (i.e., not Israel) to hint that now he will no longer ‘struggle with God and man and succeed’, but rather he will be in a house of bondage until he is brought up again, for from this moment the exile began with himself and his see...
Fear of Egyptian Aggression
From a reader’s point of view, Jacob’s fear foreshadows what happens in the beginning of the book of Exodus, where the Israelites are becoming “too numerous”; at a certain point, the Egyptians will no longer desire their massive presence. Jacob’s revelation therefore begins to implement the promise to Abraham in the Covenant between the Parts: “Know well that your offspring shall be strangers in a land not theirs, and they shall be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years;” (Gen. 15:13). Alt...
God’s encouragement in the face of Jacob’s fear includes another reassurance, the promise that the divine presence and providence will be with him in Egypt: “I Myself will go down with you to Egypt.” These words respond not only to Jacob, but also to the argument about the scope of divine providence. Jacob, according to the narrative, learns that G...
It seems that this promise is addressed to the readers of Genesis, opposing an old view that divine providence is limited and effective only in the land of His inheritance, so that leaving the land means leaving God and exposure to the influence of other gods.
The stories of the ancestors were not written as biographies. The stories were written or redacted during the exilic period with an eye towards the future of Israel/Judah, whose history as a people in exile had already begun in the time of the First Temple and continued in the time of the redaction of Genesis, meaning the Persian period. From these...
The book of Genesis, then, in its final form, outlines the fate of the nation, whose future is marked by exiles, calling on its people to preserve their identity as servants of God even in exile. It is hard to believe that this book, written some 2500 years ago, continues to be relevant from generation to succeeding generation. That raises the ques...
Jun 23, 2012 · The first time, Jacob’s grandfather, Abraham, went to Egypt in order to find food, with nearly disastrous results (Genesis 12:10-20). During the second famine, God warned Jacob’s father, Isaac, not to go to Egypt (Genesis 26:2).
Jacob’s Journey to Egypt. 46 So Israel took his journey with all that he had, and came to Beersheba, and offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. 2 Then God spoke to Israel in the visions of the night, and said, “Jacob, Jacob!” And he said, “Here I am.”
Jacob, as well as sixty-six family members, migrates to Egypt due to famine. He reunites with his son Joseph after twenty-two years. He is then introduced to Pharaoh where he states he is 130 years old (Genesis 46:1 - 47:9).
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Jacob’s children fulfilled their promise and carried the coffin all the way to Canaan. When the procession reached the border of Canaan, thirty-one kings turned out to pay homage to the dead. Esau, too, heard of his brother’s death, and came to accompany his body to its place of rest.
