Genesis 46

1. Beer-sheba. Jacob did not pass the place where he and his fathers had worshipped, nor cross the boundary of Canaan, without obtaining the sanction of God. For the fulfilment of this promise in ver. 3, see Deut. x. 22.

4 put his hand upon thine eyes. To close them in death.

7 his daughters. Including sons’ wives and grand-daughters.

10 a Canaanitish woman. Implying, apparently, that marriage with a Canaanite was an exception to the rule in Jacob’s family.

13. Job. Called “Jashub,” Numb. xxvi. 24; 1 Chron. xxiv. 11.

15 thirty and three. In this number, Er and Onan are of course omitted.

26 threescore and six. That is, besides Jacob himself; when he is added, with Joseph and his two sons, the number is seventy. See next verse.

27 threescore and ten. This is not a list of persons who actually travelled with Jacob to Egypt (cp. in ch. xxxv., vers. 16-18, with vers. 24-26); but a genealogical table of founders of families in the several tribes about the period of Jacob’s migration. This account cannot be harmonised with Numb. xxvi., 1 Chron. iv., etc., in default of information as to the changes in the family relations of the Israelites, first between the settlement in Egypt and the exodus, and secondly between the entrance upon Canaan and the establishment of the kingdom. If all the missing facts were known, the harmony would doubtless be clear.

34 land of Goshen. Thus, while enjoying a fertile settlement, they would be kept distinct from the Egyptians and preserved from the contamination of their idolatry and vices.

every shepherd, etc. This language of Joseph appears to imply that what was an abomination to the Egyptians would be a recommendation to Pharaoh; and some think that this apparent anomaly, together with the king’s heartiness in receiving the family of Israel, and his readiness to give them charge of his own cattle, favours the opinion that the king belonged to the hated shepherd race, the Hyksos, at one time dominant in Egypt. These invaders were a wandering pastoral people from the north-east, akin in habits of life, though not in religion, to the family of Jacob. The antipathy of the true Egyptian race to all shepherds is illustrated in many ways by ancient monuments (cp. xii. 1).