Genesis 46-47
Jacob in a wagon, like his mother Rebekah on a camel, went a long way through the desert; and we are traveling through a desert too, but we each are made glad on the road by the Holy Spirit telling us (not just of heaven) but of the glories of our Loved One we are about to meet.
For the last time Jacob came to Beer-sheba where his father and his grandfather had lived and dug a well. Here Jacob had deceived his father and stolen his brother’s blessing. But now he offered sacrifices unto the God of his father Isaac. Now he knew God’s only way to deal with sin; though he had learned also, “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Gal. 6:77Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. (Galatians 6:7)). Jacob remembered very well that morning, over fifty years ago, when he had fled from his brother to save his life. In Haran he had worked for twenty years. He remembered his cheating there, and all his sins after coming back to Canaan, his faults and his sorrows, but he remembered still more deeply at Beer-sheba that through a sacrifice God could be merciful, righteous and kind. He knew God’s grace; and that the God who was for him in the past, would be for him in the future.
And the blood of that sacrifice was a picture of the precious blood of the Saviour, the Lord Jesus, which can cleanse and take away immediately the sins of all your life.
“All that we were—our sins and guilt,
Our death—was all our own:
All that we are we owe to Thee,
Thou God of grace, alone.
Thy mercy found us in our sins,
And gave us to believe;
Then, in believing, peace we found;
And in Thy Christ we live.
All that we are as saints on earth,
All that we hope to be
When Jesus comes and glory dawns,
We owe it all to Thee.”
God spoke to Jacob in a dream. “Jacob, Jacob!” He replied, “Here am I.” God said, “I am God, the God of thy father, fear not to go down into Egypt, for I will there make of thee a great nation, I will go with thee into Egypt, and I will also surely bring thee up again.”
What a good promise! Beer-sheba means “the well of the oath.” God is faithful. Fifty years before God gave Jacob a good promise the first night when he ran from home. You remember the stone for a pillow and the ladder that reached to heaven. (Gen. 28). Did he then believe God’s promise? Then he said, “If God will be with me.” Now, Jacob knew his own helplessness and his sins, and yet he had learned how faithful God was! And now that he was going to Egypt he knew that God was with him. (See Gen. 46:44I will go down with thee into Egypt; and I will also surely bring thee up again: and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes. (Genesis 46:4).) He believed God’s promise now. Joseph drove his chariot to Goshen to meet his father, and then what a welcome! what kisses, and tears of joy!
Joseph brought his father and five of his brothers to Pharaoh. As Jacob and his sons kept cattle and sheep, Pharaoh sent them to Goshen in the best part of Egypt. Pharaoh asked Jacob how old he was; he said that he was one hundred and thirty years old; then Jacob blessed Pharaoh. Pharaoh was the greatest ruler of the world, but Jacob was greater because he was God’s servant, so Jacob blessed the great ruler (Heb. 7:77And without all contradiction the less is blessed of the better. (Hebrews 7:7)).