Genesis 47:4-14

4 They said to Pharaoh, "¹We have come to sojourn in the land, for there is no pasture for your servants' flocks, for ²the famine is severe in the land of Canaan. Now, therefore, please let your servants ³live in the land of Goshen."

5 Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Your father and your brothers have come to you.

6 "The land of Egypt is at your disposal; settle your father and your brothers in ⁴the best of the land, let them live in the land of Goshen; and if you know any ⁵capable men among them, then put them in charge of my livestock."

7 Then Joseph brought his father Jacob and presented * him to Pharaoh; and Jacob ⁶blessed Pharaoh.

8 Pharaoh said to Jacob, "How many years have you lived?"

9 So Jacob said to Pharaoh, "The ⁷years of my sojourning are one hundred and thirty; few and unpleasant have been the years of my life, nor have they attained ⁸the years that my fathers lived during the days of their sojourning."

10 And Jacob ⁹blessed Pharaoh, and went out from his presence.

11 So Joseph settled his father and his brothers and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in ¹⁰the best of the land, in the land of ¹¹Rameses, as Pharaoh had ordered.

12 Joseph ¹²provided his father and his brothers and all his father's household with food, according to their little ones.

13 Now there was no food in all the land, because the famine was very severe, so that ¹³the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan languished because * of the famine.

14 ¹⁴Joseph gathered all the money that was found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan for the grain which they bought, and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh's house.

Genesis 47:4-14 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS 47

This chapter gives an account of the presentation of five of Joseph's brethren, and then of his father, to Pharaoh, and of what passed between them, Ge 47:1-10; of Joseph's settlement of them, according to the direction of Pharaoh, in the land of Rameses in Goshen, and of his provision for them there, Ge 47:11,12; of his getting into his hands, for Pharaoh, the money, cattle, and lands, of the Egyptians, excepting the lands belonging to the priests, for corn he had supplied them with, Ge 47:13-22; of his giving them seed to sow with, on condition of Pharaoh's having a fifth part of the produce, Ge 47:23-26, of the increase of Jacob's substance in Egypt, and that of his children; of the time of his living there, and his approaching death, when he called Joseph to him, and obliged him by an oath to bury him in the burying place of his fathers, Ge 47:27-31.

Cross References

• 1. Genesis 15:13; Deuteronomy 26:5; Psalms 105:23
• 2. Genesis 43:1; Acts 7:11
• 3. Genesis 46:34
• 4. Genesis 45:10, 18; Genesis 47:11
• 5. Exodus 18:21, 25; 1 Kings 11:28; Proverbs 22:29
• 6. Genesis 47:10; 2 Samuel 14:22; 1 Kings 8:66
• 7. Hebrews 11:9, 13
• 8. Genesis 25:7; Genesis 35:28
• 9. Genesis 47:7
• 10. Genesis 47:6, 27
• 11. Exodus 1:11; Exodus 12:37
• 12. Genesis 45:11
• 13. Genesis 41:30; Acts 7:11
• 14. Genesis 41:56

Footnotes

• [a] Lit "dwell"
• [b] Lit "Joseph, saying"
• [c] Lit "before you"
• [d] Lit "cause them to dwell"
• [e] Lit "dwell"
• [f] Lit "appoint them rulers"
• [g] Lit "set him before"
• [h] Lit "are the days of the years of your life"
• [i] Lit "days of the years"
• [j] Lit "thirty years"
• [k] Lit "evil"
• [l] Lit "days of the years"
• [m] Lit "reached"
• [n] Lit "days of the years"
• [o] Lit "of the life of my fathers"
• [p] Lit "Pharaoh's"
• [q] Lit "caused to dwell"
• [r] Or "bread"
• [s] Or "bread"