Jacob was showing awareness of Yahweh’s dealings with his family and he offered sacrifices to God there. Yahweh appeared to him in a vision to tell him it was all right to go to Egypt. In fact, it was part of His promise to grow Abraham’s family into a great nation. Yahweh was demonstrating that He was God not just over Canaan, but over all the earth.

Why Egypt? The first reason was obvious: God had arranged it such that through Joseph, Egypt had food for them. Second, and more importantly, being in Egypt at this point in their family life would keep them away from the evil influence of Canaan. We have already seen the troubles that Abraham’s family got themselves into when mingling with the Canaanites. Egypt was a discriminatory society and the Egyptians would not want to mingle with foreigners. This would keep Jacob’s family focused on Yahweh.

So God gave Jacob the assurance that his family would grow great in number and he would die in the presence of his beloved son, Joseph. Jacob must have realised that God was at work in his family and so he went to Egypt.

Jacob also showed his trust in his 4th son Judah by asking him to guide the family to Joseph. This suggested that the brothers had made peace with their father regarding what happened to Joseph and their relationships was now restored.

Joseph met his family in the land of Goshen, the northeast part of the Nile delta, an area that was very fertile and excellent for grazing cattle. There was an emotional reunion between Jacob and his favourite son. In this way, Joseph’s visions from years ago were now fulfilled.

In introducing his family to Pharaoh, Joseph carefully selected five of his brothers to present to Pharaoh. He advised his brothers to emphasise talking about their herds of cattle and not the sheep for the Egyptians despised shepherds. Joseph’s wise counsel resulted in a good meeting with Pharaoh and Pharaoh even requested that Joseph’s brothers take care of his cattle. This was quite an honour for the sons of Jacob.

When Jacob met with Pharaoh, he did not hesitate to bless Pharaoh in the name of Yahweh though he knew Pharaoh was not a Yahweh worshipper. In doing this, Jacob was a good example of how a believer can relate to those outside the family of God. Similarly, we can offer to pray for others, or take care of others, letting them know we are doing so because we are followers of the God of the Bible.

The Bible lists the family members of Jacob in great detail. We are reminded that these were real people, with real relationships and real issues. But God was overseeing this family and had brought them into safety in Egypt, where as He had promised Abraham, He would grow them into a nation!