After their safe passage to Egypt, the people of God continued to live as sojourners in this world. As Waltke observes, the clan was an “embryonic nation united under Jacob’s patriarchy and Joseph’s administration of Egypt.”[1] With the approval of Pharaoh, Jacob’s family was granted land in the fertile region of Goshen. The blessed state of the covenant family during the final years of famine is contrasted with the increasingly desperate state of the Egyptians who willingly traded their freedom for food. But no matter how abundant were their blessings in Goshen, Jacob the Patriarch remained whole-heartedly committed to the Land of Promise, insisting that he be buried there.

Jacob was a fighter from the womb. The account of his life, which takes up half the book of Genesis, is one of struggle and conflict. Jacob “has seen the family through moments of trust and betrayal, sterility and fertility, feast and famine, separation and reunion, all within the promise and providence of God.”[2] In contrast to his father Isaac who began well and ended poorly, Jacob began poorly but ended well.

[1] Bruce Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001) p. 579

[2] E.F. Roop quoted in Waltke, p. 580