Asked by Pharaoh as to his age, Jacob told him he was one hundred and thirty years old. This seems a great age to us but Jacob recognised that it was just a short “pilgrimage” relative to the eternal life which he, like his father and grandfather, looked forward to enjoying in the Promised Land. His days had been relatively few and they had been evil, but he knew that when he inherited the land he would enjoy the fruit of righteousness, even everlasting joy and peace.
Through the subsequent five years of famine, Joseph continued to administer successfully the food in storehouses with the result that Pharaoh became the owner of all the land of Egypt and obtained the right to a fifth of all the produce of the land. Israel also greatly prospered in those and subsequent years so that they “had possessions in the land of Goshen, and grew, and multiplied exceedingly”. After seventeen years in Egypt, Jacob died at the age of one hundred and forty seven. To the very end of his life Jacob maintained his faith in God’s promises and knew that he would be raised from the dead when he would live again, and for ever, in the land of promise. Therefore, in an outward show of his faith, he gave Joseph commandment that his body should be buried, not in that foreign land of Egypt, but with his fathers in the land of promise.
Verse 6
Waiting for response for Genesis 47:6As Joseph had anticipated, Pharaoh effusively welcomed a fellow Semite shepherd into his land and gave him Goshen, at the north eastern delta of the Nile, for his family. He also sought Jacob’s help in keeping his own flocks, a problem for him because of the Egyptians’ hatred of sheep, so there was a high degree of empathy with Jacob and his family.