Mga Komentaryo sa Bibliya

Verses 26, 27. - All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins, besides Jacob's sons' wives, all the souls were threescore and six; and the sons of Joseph, which were born him in Egypt, were two souls: all the souls of the house of Jacob, which came into Egypt, were threescore and ten. According to the LXX. the number of Joseph's sons was nine; and the number of those who came with Jacob into Egypt seventy five, a number adopted by Stephen (Acts 7:14). The apparent confusion in these different numbers, sixty-six, seventy, seventy- five, will disappear if it be observed that the first takes no account of Jacob, Joseph, Manasseh, and Ephraim, while they are as palpably included in the second computation, and that Stephen simply adds to the seventy of ver. 27 the five grandsons of Joseph who are mentioned in the Septuagint version, from which he quoted, or to the sixty-six of ver. 26 the nine mentioned above, consisting of Jacob, Joseph, Manasseh, Ephraim, and Joseph's five grandsons, thus making seventy five in all. There is thus no irreconcilable contradiction between the Hebrew historian and the Christian orator.

Verse 28. - And he sent Judah before him unto Joseph (the noble qualities displayed by Judah had manifestly secured, as they had Certainly merited, the affectionate admiration and hearty confidence of the aged patriarch), to direct his face unto Goshen; - i.e. that Joseph might supply him with the necessary instructions for conducting the pilgrims to their appointed settlement (Dathius, Rosenmüller, Keil, Lange, Ainsworth, Murphy, 'Speaker's Commentary'), rather than that Joseph might meet him in Goshen (LXX., Vulgate, Samaritan, Kalisch) - and (having received the necessary directions) they came into the land of Goshen. The LXX. read εἴς γῆν Ῥαμεσσῆ, as in Genesis 47:11.

Verse 29. - And Joseph made ready his chariot, and went up to meet Israel his father, to Goshen, and presented himself unto him; - literally, he (i.e. Joseph) appeared (the niph. form of the verb, which is commonly used of the appearance of God or his angels, being here employed to indicate the glory in which Joseph came to meet his father: Keil) unto him, vie., Jacob - and he fell on his neck, - i.e. Joseph fell upon Jacob s neck (LXX., Vulgate, Calvin, Dathe, Keil, and commentators generally), though Maimonides regards Jacob as the subject of the verb fell - and wept on his neck a good while - in undoubted transports of joy, feeling his soul by those delicious moments abundantly recompensed for all the tears he had shed since he parted from his father in Hebron, upwards of twenty years before.

Verse 30. - And Israel (realizing something of the same holy satisfaction as he trembled in his son's embrace) said unto Joseph, Now let me die, since I have seen thy face, because thou art still alive - literally, I will die this time, after I have seen thy face, that (Keil, Kalisch), or since, thou art still alive; the meaning of the patriarch being that, since with his own eyes he was now assured of Joseph's happiness, he had nothing more to live for, the last earthly longing of his heart having been completely satisfied, and was perfectly prepared for the last scene of all - ready, whenever God willed, to be gathered to his fathers.

Verses 31, 32. - And Joseph said unto his brethren, and unto his father's house, I will go up (employed in ver. 29 to describe a journey from the interior of the country to the desert, or Canaan, the verb עָלַה is here used in a courtly sense to signify a visit to a sovereign or superior), and show Pharaoh (literally, relate, or tell, to Pharaoh), and say unto him, My brethren, and my father's house, which were in the land of Canaan, are come unto me; and the men are shepherds (literally, keepers of flocks), for their trade hath been to feed cattle (literally, they are men of cattle); and they have brought their flocks, and their herds, and all that they have.

Verses 33, 34. - And it shall come to pass, when Pharaoh shall call you, and shall say, What is your occupation? Pharaoh's inquiry was characteristically Egyptian, being rendered necessary by the strict distinction of castes that then prevailed. According to a law promulgated by Amasis, a monarch of the 26th dynasty, every Egyptian was obliged to give a yearly account to the monarch or State governor of how he lived, with the certification that if he failed to show that he possessed an honorable calling (δικαίην ζόην) he should be put to death (Herod., 2:177). That ye shall say, Thy servants' trade hath been about cattle (literally, men of cattle arc thy servants) from our youth even until now, both we, and also our fathers: that ye may dwell in the land of Goshen. Joseph probably desired his brethren to settle in Goshen for three reasons.

(1) It was suitable for their flocks and herds;

(2) it would secure their isolation from the Egyptians; and

(3) it was contiguous to Canaan, and would be easier vacated when the time arrived for their return. For every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians. These are obviously the words not of Joseph, but of the historian, and their accuracy is strikingly corroborated by Herodotus (2. 47, 164), who affirms that the swine-herds, one of the seven castes, classes, or guilds into which the Egyptians were divided, were regarded with such abhorrence that they were not allowed to enter a temple or contract marriage with any others of their countrymen; and by existing monuments, which show that though the statement of Josephus ('Ant.,' 2:07, 5) is incorrect that "the Egyptians were prohibited from meddling with the keeping of sheep,' yet those, who tended cattle were greatly despised, Egyptian artists evincing the contempt in which they were held by frequently representing them as either lame or deformed, dirty and unshaven, and sometimes of a most ludicrous appearance (vide Wilkinson, 'Ancient Egyptians,' vol. 2. p. 444, ed. 1878). It has been thought that the disrepute in which the shepherd guild was held by the Egyptians was attributable partly to the nature of their occupation, and partly to the feeling excited against them by the domination of the shepherd kings (Wilkinson, Wordsworth, Murphy, and others); but

(1) while this might account for their dislike to foreign shepherds, it would not explain their antipathy to native shepherds;

(2) if, as some think, Joseph's Pharaoh was one of the shepherd kings, it is not likely that this rooted prejudice against shepherds would then be publicly expressed, however violently it might afterwards explode;

(3) there is good reason for believing that the descent into Egypt occurred at a period much earlier than the shepherd kings. Hence the explanation of this singular antipathy to shepherds or wandering nomads has been sought in the fact that the Egyptians were essentially an agricultural people, who associated ideas of rudeness and barbarism with the very name of a shepherd (Hengstenberg, Keil, Kurtz), perhaps because from a very early period they had been exposed on their Eastern boundary to incursions from such nomadic shepherds (Rosenmüller), and perhaps also because from their occupation shepherds were accustomed to kill the animals held sacred by the other classes of the community (Kalisch).

Verse 1. - Then Joseph came - literally, and Joseph went, up to the royal presence, as he had proposed (Genesis 46:31) - and told Pharaoh, and said, My father and my brethren, and their flocks, and their herds, and all that they have, are come cut of the land of Canaan; - as thou didst desire (Genesis 45:17, 18) - and, behold, they are in the land of Goshen (vide Genesis 45:10).

Verse 2. - And he took some of his brethren, even five men, - literally, from the end, or extremity, of his brethren; not from the weakest, lest the king should select them for courtiers or soldiers (the Rabbis, Oleaster, Pererius, and others); or the strongest and most handsome, that the Egyptian monarch and his nobles might behold the dignity of Joseph s kindred (Lyre, Thostatus, and others); or the youngest and oldest, that the ages of the rest might be therefrom inferred (Calvin); but from the whole body of his brethren (Gesenius, Rosenmüller, Keil, Kalisch, et alii) he took five teen - and presented them unto Pharaoh (cf. Acts 7:13).