They also took their livestock and their goods, which they had gained in the land of Canaan, and came into Egypt, Jacob and all his offspring with him,
Genesis 46:6 records the point of no return. The livestock, the property gathered in Canaan, and every descendant of Jacob cross into Egypt. Was the move a retreat from faith, or a step inside God's own plan?
A move God Himself directed
Egypt had once been off limits to this family. Commentators note that God's word to Jacob reverses an earlier word to his father:
F. B. HoleIn Genesis 26:2, God appeared to Isaac and said, "Do not go down to Egypt." Because of that command, Egypt stays out of the picture until Joseph is carried there. Now God's direction is the exact opposite: Jacob was not to be afraid to go. God's word to him was brief, but it contained four distinct promises.
So the move in verse 6 is not Jacob improvising under pressure. He set out only after God spoke.
The famine and God's purpose
Hunger drove them south. But writers trace the move back to a promise God made to Abram long before:
Edward DennettThe famine was what sent them down to Egypt. But by the famine — as by the wickedness of Jacob's sons in selling their brother to the Ishmaelites (Gen. 37:28) — God was only bringing about His own purposes. Long before this He had said to Abram, "Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions." (Gen. 15:13-14.)
Owners, not dependents
The verse notes the livestock and goods they had gained in Canaan. Kelly reads that detail as deliberate — they did not come to live off Pharaoh:
William KellyJacob and his sons had no thought of entering that land as mere dependents of its ruler. That was true however much he wanted to show Joseph every honour, and whatever his promise that the best of all the land of Egypt would be theirs. So they took their belongings along with them into Egypt.
They walked in with property of their own, and God had promised they would walk out with more (Gen. 15:14).
Strangers for a while
To anyone watching the road that day, the sight was unimpressive. Kelly adds that Egypt was never meant to be their home:
William KellyTo the natural eye it was a sorry sight... Yet here was the seed of a people, who would live as strangers in a land not their own for a while, but then return and take possession of Canaan.
A welcome that would not last
Kelly warns that the warm welcome hid what Egypt was in God's eyes:
William KellyIsrael came down under the prestige of Egypt's greatest governor and the warmest royal favour. They might have looked for nothing but ease and honour, settled as they were in the best of the land, in Goshen... Yet despite appearances, Egypt in the LORD's eyes meant servitude and affliction. That is what happened once Joseph's protection was gone.
God's presence in Egypt
Hole takes up the second of the four promises made to Jacob:
F. B. HoleBut, in the second place, this result would only come about because God Himself would go down with them. If He had not, the many evils of that land would quickly have swamped them. As it was, those evils did infect them, as their later history showed. But God's presence with them secured the testimony to Himself among them.
Hole draws out the difference between God's purpose and His ways:
F. B. HoleGod never swerves from His declared purpose, though to reach it He may take ways that seem to contradict it... Our calling is a heavenly one, so we must take firm hold of God's purpose for us as members of Christ. On the other hand, we should not be surprised at, or stumble over, the ways He may take with us to reach that purpose.
What seemed against them
Grant sets the size of the family against what God made of them:
F. W. GrantHere we see grace in its first workings. A nation had a small beginning: the seventy people who came into Egypt with Jacob. Set that against their remarkable and unstoppable increase. Even the bondage ahead of them had already been promised to them, and what seemed most against them was really the working out of promise for them.
Summary
- Command. The move was not a lapse of faith. God reversed the earlier ban given to Isaac and told Jacob not to be afraid to go.
- Company. Their safety rested on God going down with them, not on Joseph's position. Joseph's protection is what failed them later.
- Cargo. They brought their own herds and property from Canaan. They came as a household with something of their own, not as dependents of Pharaoh.
- Crucible. The welcome was real but short-lived. The land that received them with honour was already named as a place of servitude and affliction.
- Count. Seventy people walked in and a nation walked out. What looked most against them was God's promise doing its work.