And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years. So the days of Jacob, the years of his life, were 147 years.
Genesis ends its account of Joseph with a quiet piece of arithmetic: Jacob came to Egypt at 130 and lived seventeen more years there. Those years raise a question the chapter never asks — what was God doing with an old man who had stopped travelling and scheming?
The arithmetic of the verse
The number 147 only means something when set beside the other lifespans Genesis records.
L. M. GrantJacob remained there until his death seventeen years after his arrival in Egypt. So his age at death was 147 years, not as long as the ages of Abraham (175) or Isaac (180), but longer than Joseph (110). See Genesis 25:7; Genesis 35:28; and Genesis 50:26.
Seventeen for seventeen
The number is not random. It answers seventeen earlier years in Joseph's own life.
Hamilton SmithFor the first seventeen years of Joseph's life his father Jacob cared for him. Now, with beautiful fitness, the son gives tender care to his aged father through the last seventeen years of that father's life (Gen. 47:28). At the end of this period we reach the last and brightest stage of Jacob's varied path. The calm of his dying hours stands in bright contrast to the stormy life in which he had followed his crooked and self-willed way.
Years with nothing to show
The chapter records nothing of these seventeen years. That silence is the point.
J. G. BellettThe glory is hidden in an earthen vessel, but it is there, and the vessel knows it is there. Jacob does nothing in those Egypt-years of his to make history for the world. He takes no part in its changes. Its interests and progress mean nothing to him. He is at the disposal of others, taking what they may give him, and being what they may make him. But he knows a secret that lifts his spirit above them. Others may flourish in Egypt; he only spends the remnant of his days there.
Silence as cultivation
An old man with nothing to do can rust. One writer sees the opposite here — a field under the plough.
J. G. BellettI stand in admiration of this way of the Lord, of the Spirit of God, with Jacob. Such an end as this now is suited such a life as his had been. It is a poor thing that we should need such a pause at the end of the journey. But if we do need it, it is beautiful to see it bear fruit like this. Those seventeen years in Egypt were a long cultivation of his soul under "the Father of spirits." How often, I dare to suppose, did Jacob sit before the Lord and go back over the past years with shame on his face. Then the fire would kindle, and the refiner's work would go on.
The best land he ever lived in
Goshen was good pasture. For Jacob the gain was not in the soil. It outran even Bethel and Peniel, the two places where he had met God before.
J. G. BellettJacob's last days were his golden days. To others, and to their flocks and herds, Egypt was a land of Goshen. It was not so to Jacob's flocks and herds, for we do not read that he had any. Egypt was a Goshen to Jacob's soul, the very richest, fairest, best-watered land his spirit had ever enjoyed. It was more the gate of heaven to him than Bethel had been. It was more the face of God to him than Peniel had been. He had the Lord with him there in secret and in silence, but in real, living power.
A pause he should not have needed
Commentators differ here. One writer takes the need for such a pause as a verdict on the life that came before.
The Bible TreasuryJacob had seventeen years in Egypt before he was called away; Paul was called up while still at work. (2 Tim. 4) It is a bad sign about a person's earlier ways when they need a pause like Jacob's in Egypt.
The turn to faith
From here the record changes. The man who had schemed for every blessing stops arranging his own future.
F. B. HoleFrom the time we found Jacob in the land of Goshen — Genesis 47:27 — to the finish, we see him acting and speaking as a man of faith. He had reached Joseph, but not by his own scheming, clever or otherwise. He got there as the fruit of God's wonderful intervention. The storms of his life were over and he had sailed into a haven of rest. The eye of his faith had been cleared of mist and dimness, and God was fully in view in the certainty of His promise and His power.
Summary
- Counted — 147 years: shorter than Abraham's and Isaac's, longer than Joseph's.
- Returned — Jacob cared for Joseph for seventeen years; now Joseph cares for Jacob for seventeen years.
- Emptied — Jacob makes no history in Egypt and takes no part in its affairs. He lives instead on a secret that lifts his spirit above it all.
- Cultivated — the silence is not rust but refining. Egypt became the brightest, richest ground his soul had known.
- Warned — one writer reads the need for such a pause as a poor sign of earlier ways. Paul went straight from his work.