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I will nourish you; expect not only a free pardon from me, but all the kindness of a loving brother.

1625 No text from Poole on this verse.

Of the third generation, reckoning from and after Ephraim, i.e., Ephraim’s grandchildren’s children. So early did Ephraim’s privilege above Manasseh appear, and Jacob’s blessing { Genesis 48:19} take place.

The children of Machir, Heb. sons. For though he had but one son, viz. Gilead, by his first wife, yet he married a second wife, and by her had two other sons, 1 Chronicles 7:16, which Joseph lived long enough to see. Or under the name of children his grandchildren also might be comprehended. So there is no need of that enallage of sons for one son which we meet with in other places.

Were brought up upon Joseph’s knees; laid upon Joseph’s lap or knees, where parents use ofttimes to take up and repose their infants, to express their love to them, and delight in them. And some observe, that it was an ancient custom in divers nations, that the infant, as soon as it was born, was laid upon the grandfather’s knees. So it is an ellipsis, whereby one word is put for two, or under one verb. See more of this phrase on Genesis 30:3 48:12.

God will surely visit you, i.e. deliver you out of this place, where I foresee you will be hardly used after my decease; or, fulfil his promised kindness to you, as that word is used, Genesis 21:1 Exodus 4:31. There is a double visitation oft mentioned in Scripture; the one of grace and mercy, which is here meant; the other of justice and anger, as elsewhere.

Joseph took an oath, for the same reason which moved Jacob to require an oath from him, Genesis 47:30,31,

of the children of Israel: he saith not, of his brethren, but of Israel’s children; under which his grandchildren are comprehended, and seem principally intended here; either because his brethren were most of them dead, or rather because he knew that they were not to go out of Egypt in his brethren’s time, but in their second or third generation.

My bones, i.e. my dead body: but he mentions only his bones, because part of his body was corrupted, and the other part, though preserved from corruption by the embalming, yet was so changed and adulterated with the spices, and other materials which they used, that it looked like another thing: only his bones remained entire and unchanged.

Quest. Why did he not desire to be presently carried thither, and buried there, as his father did?

Answ. 1. Lest he should disoblige the Egyptians, and provoke them against his brethren and children. The removal of his father thither was necessary, and forced from him by an oath, but the order for the removal of himself would have been voluntary and designed, and therefore could not have escaped the censure of an ungrateful contempt of the land of Egypt, which as it was thought good enough for him and his to live in, should have been judged so too for his burial.

2. That by these his remains his memory might be the longer and better preserved, both with the Egyptians, who for his sake might show kindness to his near relations; and with the Israelites, to whom this was a visible pledge of their deliverance, and a help to their faith, and all obligation to them to persist in the true religion.

So for about thirteen years of affliction he enjoyed eighty years of honour, and as much happiness as earth could afford him.