You Have Saved Our Lives: The Land of Goshen скачать в хорошем качестве

You Have Saved Our Lives: The Land of Goshen

a. Honoring the Pharaoh. The scene of chapter 47 opens as Joseph goes in to meet with Pharaoh. Even though he was commanded to send his brothers to Canaan to fetch his father, there is still a royal protocol that Joseph follows. He followed what Peter would teach many years later, “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution…honor everyone…honor the king.” But this must be done for the Lord’s sake and, as he says in verse 17, with the fear of God. Peter makes the paradoxical statement that we are to live as people who are free but living as slaves of God. Joseph honored his masters but when Potipher’s wife wanted him to dishonor God, he drew the line. Joseph did what was good and suffered for it but he endured. It was “a gracious thing in the sight of God.” b. The brothers before Pharaoh. Joseph goes before the Pharah and states that his family has arrived in Egypt and that they are currently in Goshen. Joseph presents a representative contingency of five of his brothers. Pharaoh proceeds to ask them what their occupation was just as Joseph stated that he would. The brothers then repeat what Joseph had told them to say. They were shepherds like their fathers before them. They explain that the famine had destroyed the pasture land in Canaan and so they request to sojourn in Goshen and keep their animals there. Pharaoh speaks to Joseph and commands him to settle his family in the best of the land, in the land of Goshen. The Pharaoh also tells Joseph that if there are any able men among his family to put them in charge of his royal livestock. If you skip down to verses 11-12 you’ll see that they settled in Goshen, in the land of Rameses, and they took possession of the land. And Joseph was able to provide them with their food according to the number of their dependents. God had told Jacob that he did not have to fear to go to Egypt because there he would make his family into a great nation. Here, at the very outset of this time of sojourning in Egypt, God is showing that he has truly gone down with Jacob to Egypt. c. Jacob before Pharaoh. After the brothers speak, Jacob is brought in to speak with Pharaoh. Jacob is asked about his age and he says that he was 130 years old and had not attained to the age of his fathers. This is true. Jacob will die at the age of 147. He lives the shortest life of all the men that are in his genealogy before him. He describes his short years as few, evil, and sojourning. Jacob recognized that his life was a pilgrimage. Even when he was at home in Canaan he was not truly at home. His life was filled with evil that he himself committed and evil that was done against him. It was a hard life, but this was not his home. This is true of all God’s people, is it not? Our years are few, no matter how old we live to and they are filled with evil. But this is not our home. We are merely pilgrims passing through.