Genesis 46:7

What grace on God's part! Famine pushed Abram down into Egypt, and he failed badly there, whatever riches he gained. Famine might have drawn Isaac away too, as it drew his father. But God forbade Isaac to go there. He told him to stay in the land, with the promise of His blessing. Israel needed God to tell him not to fear going down there — and God did. There He would make of him a great nation, and gave him a comfort closer still to his heart.

But they took their livestock also, and their goods which they had gained in Canaan, and came into Egypt. Jacob and his sons had no idea of entering that land as mere dependents on its prince. It made no difference that Pharaoh wanted to show every honour to Joseph, or that he had promised them the good of all the land of Egypt.

It was a sorry spectacle to the eye of sense... Yet there was the seed of a people, to live as strangers in a land not their own for a while, but to return and take possession of Canaan.

Here we see grace in its first working. A nation begins small, in the seventy souls that came into Egypt with Jacob. Set that against their marvellous, unstoppable increase. God had already promised them even the bondage they were coming into, and what seemed most against them was really the working out of promise for them. The hand of power works in disguise, yet faith can see right through it. The story is the same in essence, whether told of the nation of Israel or of any of the Lord's redeemed.

It is God's register of Jacob and his house... Scripture reveals the interest God took in recording things little in man's eyes. Nature revels in what it counts great in its own eyes and before the world.

Now we learn the names of everyone in Jacob's household who came with him. This shows that our great God takes an interest in people one by one, not only in nations or great companies.

They would only reach that result because God Himself would go down with them. Had He not done so, the abounding evils of that land would soon have swamped them. As it was, those evils did infect them, as their later history showed; but the presence of God with them secured the testimony to Himself among them.

God never swerves from His declared purpose, though to reach it He may pursue ways that seem to contradict it. So verse 4 shows the difference between God's purpose and His ways. We need to keep that difference in mind when we think about God's dealings with us today.

As this wonderful story moves on, the reconciliation is now complete. Joseph has received his brothers, so everything is ready for Israel's full blessing. Restoration must follow conversion. Times of refreshing and restitution must come when Israel repents.