Have you ever noticed that when you are away from home for a long time you eventually feel a bit cabin-fever-ish? I remember going on holidays with my family for a month once, and towards the last week, I just could not wait to get home. While the trip itself was fantastic, there’s a deep human longing in our hearts to know where we belong. To have and to be home. That’s what this passage is all about.
Genesis 47:27–31 (ESV)
Thus Israel settled in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen. And they gained possessions in it, and were fruitful and multiplied greatly.
Now notice the contrast from the passage we looked at yesterday. The Egyptians, whose land this was, have just lost everything. They gave up their money, their livestock, even their land and freedom to Pharaoh so that they could survive. But Israel had settled in Goshen, and there they grow and multiply. Of course this is not some random luck that they had. This was God’s covenant playing out. He had promised Abraham that his descendants would become a great nation, and here in Egypt of all places that promise begins to take visible shape. In the land of foreign gods, in the middle of a severe famine, God’s people flourish.
And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years. So the days of Jacob, the years of his life, were 147 years.
Seventeen years. That’s how long Jacob gets to live under Joseph’s care in Egypt. Do you remember how old Joseph was when he was torn away from Jacob when his brothers sold him into slavery? Seventeen. Now in God’s goodness, he gives Jacob those years back. Often God in his goodness restores to us what we have lost. Sometimes it happens in this life, but always it happens in eternity when we are fully restored in Christ.
And when the time drew near that Israel must die, he called his son Joseph and said to him, “If now I have found favor in your sight, put your hand under my thigh and promise to deal kindly and truly with me. Do not bury me in Egypt, but let me lie with my fathers. Carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their burying place.” He answered, “I will do as you have said.” And he said, “Swear to me”; and he swore to him. Then Israel bowed himself upon the head of his bed.
Here Jacob looks death in the face. He knows his time is near. But what matters to him most is not the wealth of Egypt, not the comforts he now enjoys, but the covenant promise of God. He says, “Don’t bury me here. Take me back to the land God promised.” I think this is a beautiful picture of a man who had a difficult life, clinging in faith to the covenant promises of God. He knows Egypt is not the final home of God’s people.
That is faith playing out. Even in his dying breath, Jacob rests on the promises of God. Hebrews 11 tells us that Jacob and the patriarchs all “died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar.” That’s what we see here. A man who had lived a hard life. Remember he described his years as “few and evil”. But this is a man who dies in hope, trusting that God would keep His word, even after he died.
This is the type of faith we should strive to have. Jacob’s faith was in God’s promise, which in his eyes looked like the land of Canaan. But we don’t just look to a piece of land in Canaan. We look to a better country, a heavenly one. Jesus has gone ahead of us to prepare that place. And just like Jacob wanted his bones laid in the land of promise, so we set our hope not in this world but in the resurrection to come. We know our true home is with Christ.
Prayer
Father, we thank You that Your promises are sure, even when our days are few and our years are hard. Like Jacob, we confess that this world is not our home. Help us die in faith, trusting not in the riches of Egypt but in the covenant promises You have kept in Christ. Fix our eyes on our true home, the better country You have prepared for us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.