Genesis46chapter 46

Genesis 46:8-11

these are the names of the sons of Israel: The roll opens with Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, who loses the birthright in chapter 49 for what he did with his father's bed. Simeon and Levi stand next, the two who took Shechem by the sword, and the same blessing answers their anger. Shaul is marked the son of a Canaanite woman, one of the few mothers named in the list. Exodus 1:1 repeats the line and counts from it.

Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi: Reuben's four sons become the four clans of his tribe in Numbers 26:5 to 6. Names repeat across the tribes. A Hezron stands in Judah's line at verse 12, and Achan's father at Joshua 7:1 is a Carmi of Judah.

Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jachin, Zohar: Numbers 26:12 to 13 lists the clans of Simeon with five names. Ohad is missing there, Jemuel appears as Nemuel, and Zohar as Zerah. Ohad founded no clan that the later census records.

Gershon, Kohath, and Merari: Levi's three sons head the families that carry the tabernacle in Numbers 3 and 4. Kohath is the grandfather of Moses and Aaron. The tribe scattered at 49:7 for its anger becomes the tribe of the priests.

The sons of Judah: Er, Onan, Shelah, Perez, and Zerah: Judah's line is the only one in the roll with deaths written into it, Er and Onan, who died in the land of Canaan. The line runs on through Perez and Zerah, the twins Tamar bore him in chapter 38. Perez broke through ahead of the scarlet thread, the younger set before the elder again. Ruth ends by tracing David back to Perez.

Genesis 46:13-15

The sons of Issachar: Tola, Puvah, Job, and Shimron: Issachar and Zebulun complete Leah's six sons, and her branch is the largest in the count, thirty-three of the seventy. She is the wife Jacob had not chosen, and the LORD opened her womb at 29:31 while Rachel stayed barren. Out of Leah come Levi and Judah, the priesthood and the kingship. Dinah stands in her total, the only daughter named.

Sered, Elon, and Jahleel: Each of Zebulun's three sons gives his name to a clan in Numbers 26:26. A later Elon of Zebulun judges Israel for ten years at Judges 12:11. The seventy who go down become the clans who come up.

The total number of sons and daughters was thirty-three: The names listed under Leah come to thirty-two once Er and Onan are left out as dead and Dinah is added. Jacob himself makes the thirty-third, and verse 8 sets him at the head of the roll. The seventy of verse 27 counts him the same way.

Genesis 46:16-18

The sons of Gad: Ziphion, Haggi: Gad and Asher are Zilpah's, and between them they bring sixteen, more than Rachel's fourteen. The list keeps saying who gave whom to whom, Zilpah to Leah and Bilhah to Rachel, both out of Laban's hand. Laban is the man Jacob worked twenty years for. Serah, Asher's daughter, is the second woman named in the roll after Dinah.

Heber and Malchiel: The roll reaches a fourth generation here, with Jacob's great-grandsons Heber and Malchiel. Both return as clans of Asher in Numbers 26:45. Serah is named there as well, at 26:46.

Laban gave Zilpah to Leah at 29:24, on the night Jacob was deceived at his wedding. Leah gave her to Jacob at 30:9, when she had stopped bearing. Two gifts made in a family quarrel produce two tribes.

Genesis 46:19-22

The sons of Jacob’s wife Rachel: Rachel alone is called Jacob's wife in the roll, though she has been dead since chapter 35 and Leah bore him twice as many sons. Her two are Joseph and Benjamin. Manasseh and Ephraim are counted in, born in Egypt to Asenath, daughter of Potiphera, priest of On. In chapter 48 a blind man crosses his hands over those two and says he knows which is which.

Potiphera, priest of On: On is the city the Greeks called Heliopolis, near modern Cairo, a centre of the worship of the sun. The sons of a priest's daughter from that city are counted with the house of Israel. Jacob adopts both as his own at 48:5.

The sons of Benjamin: Ten sons stand under Benjamin, whom Judah called a boy at 44:30. Numbers 26:40 makes Ard and Naaman sons of Bela, and so Benjamin's grandsons. The roll gives the house by its founding heads, and some of them were born after the move to Egypt.

These are the sons of Rachel: Rachel died giving birth to her second son at 35:18. Fourteen descendants stand under her name here, a larger house than she lived to see. Her grave on the road to Bethlehem stays in Canaan while her line goes down to Egypt.

Genesis 46:23-25

The son of Dan: Hushim: The Hebrew heading reads sons of Dan with one name under it, Hushim. John Gill takes the plural as the form the list keeps, and the Berean gives it as the son of Dan. Bilhah's two sons bring seven, and with Zilpah's sixteen that puts nearly a third of the seventy in the handmaids' line. The twelve tribes stand on four mothers.

The sons of Naphtali: Naphtali's four sons give his tribe its four clans in Numbers 26:48 to 49. The four names become a tribe. At the first census in Numbers 1:43 the tribe of Naphtali counts 53,400 men able to serve in the army.

Bilhah came to Rachel from Laban at 29:29. Rachel gave her to Jacob at 30:3 so she could have children through her, and Dan and Naphtali were named by Rachel as her own. Bilhah is also the woman Reuben lay with at 35:22.

Genesis 46:26-27

The count is given twice, sixty-six who came from his own body and seventy for the whole house once Joseph and his two sons are added. Acts 7:14 says seventy-five, following the Greek text, which counts in grandsons of Ephraim and Manasseh born in Egypt. Jerome works the arithmetic through against the Hebrew. Exodus 1:5 repeats the seventy, and by 1:7 the land is filled with them.

seventy in all: Seventy is also the number of the nations listed in Genesis 10. Deuteronomy 10:22 looks back on the seventy who went to Egypt, and says the LORD made them as numerous as the stars in the sky. The promise of 15:5 is measured from Jacob's small family.

sent Judah ahead of him to Joseph: Jacob sends Judah ahead to Joseph to get directions to Goshen. Adam Clarke reads the errand as given him on the strength of the speech he made in chapter 44. The brother who proposed the sale is now the one sent first. Genesis keeps putting Judah in front until chapter 49 hands him the sceptre.

Genesis 46:29-30

Joseph prepared his chariot: The governor of Egypt has his chariot made ready to drive out to a shepherd. He presents himself to his father, embraces him, and weeps profusely. Israel's answer is that he can die now, having seen the face and known that Joseph is alive. Adam Clarke hears Simeon in the temple at Luke 2:29 saying the same thing over a different child.

At 37:35 Jacob said he would go down to Sheol mourning for his son. Seeing Joseph alive ends the mourning, and by 47:28 Israel lives seventeen more years in Egypt. The day he says he can die waits until chapter 49.

Genesis 46:31-32

Joseph goes up to the throne himself and puts his own name behind his brothers before Pharaoh hears a word from them. Matthew Henry sets the two scenes beside each other, the brothers once contriving to be rid of him, and Joseph now contriving to settle them well. He tells Pharaoh what the men are. They are shepherds, and their flocks and herds have come with them.

The men are shepherds: Joseph gives Pharaoh the answer before the question is asked, and at 47:3 the question comes as he expected. He names two trades, keepers of flocks and men of livestock. Both belong on grazing land at the edge of Egypt.

Genesis 46:33-34

Joseph coaches them to answer with the plain fact, that they have raised livestock since their youth. Abraham and Isaac had each stood before a foreign king and shaded the truth about a wife, and each time the king rebuked him. Here the truth is told and the land is granted. Shepherds are detestable to the Egyptians, and that is what keeps the household on ground of its own.

Detestable translates toevah, the word used at 43:32 for Egyptians eating with Hebrews. The same scorn kept Joseph's table apart from his brothers' table. Exodus 8:26 uses it again, when Moses says Israel's sacrifices would be detestable to the Egyptians.