Genesis 46: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Israel travels to Beersheba and offers sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac, and God speaks to him in visions at night, telling him not to be afraid to go down to Egypt, promising to make a great nation of him there, to go down with him, to bring him back up, and that Joseph will put his hand on his eyes. Jacob and his whole family travel to Egypt in the wagons Pharaoh sent, and the chapter lists by name the descendants who came, sixty-six of his direct descendants and seventy counted as the whole household. Joseph drives to Goshen to meet his father, and then tells his brothers what to say when Pharaoh asks about their work, so that they may live in Goshen.

Claim by Claim

1. 46:1
   • Israel set out with all that he had.
   • Israel came to Beersheba.
   • Israel offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac.
2. 46:2
   • God spoke to Israel in visions of the night.
   • God called out, "Jacob, Jacob."
   • Jacob answered, "Here I am."
3. 46:3
   • God said, "I am God, the God of your father."
   • God told Jacob not to be afraid to go down to Egypt.
   • God said he would make Jacob into a great nation there.
4. 46:4
   • God said he would go down with Jacob to Egypt.
   • God said he would surely bring Jacob up again.
   • God said Joseph would put his hand on Jacob's eyes.
5. 46:5
   • Jacob rose up from Beersheba.
   • The sons of Israel carried their father Jacob.
   • The sons of Israel carried their little ones and their wives.
   • They traveled in the wagons Pharaoh had sent to carry Jacob.
6. 46:6
   • They took their livestock.
   • They took the goods they had acquired in the land of Canaan.
   • Jacob and all his offspring with him came into Egypt.
7. 46:7
   • Jacob brought his sons and his sons' sons with him.
   • Jacob brought his daughters and his sons' daughters.
   • Jacob brought all his offspring with him into Egypt.
8. 46:8
   • These are the names of the sons of Israel who came into Egypt.
   • Those coming were Jacob and his sons.
   • Reuben was Jacob's firstborn.
9. 46:9
   • The sons of Reuben were Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi.
10. 46:10
    • The sons of Simeon were Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jachin, and Zohar.
    • Shaul was also a son of Simeon.
    • Shaul was the son of a Canaanite woman.
11. 46:11
    • The sons of Levi were Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.
12. 46:12
    • The sons of Judah were Er, Onan, Shelah, Perez, and Zerah.
    • Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan.
    • The sons of Perez were Hezron and Hamul.
13. 46:13
    • The sons of Issachar were Tola, Puvah, Job, and Shimron.
14. 46:14
    • The sons of Zebulun were Sered, Elon, and Jahleel.
15. 46:15
    • These were the sons Leah bore to Jacob in Paddan-aram.
    • Leah also bore his daughter Dinah.
    • The total of his sons and daughters was thirty-three persons.
16. 46:16
    • The sons of Gad were Ziphion, Haggi, Shuni, Ezbon, Eri, Arodi, and Areli.
17. 46:17
    • The sons of Asher were Imnah, Ishvah, Ishvi, and Beriah.
    • Serah was their sister.
    • The sons of Beriah were Heber and Malchiel.
18. 46:18
    • These were the sons of Zilpah.
    • Laban gave Zilpah to his daughter Leah.
    • Zilpah bore these to Jacob.
    • They were sixteen persons.
19. 46:19
    • Rachel was Jacob's wife.
    • The sons of Rachel were Joseph and Benjamin.
20. 46:20
    • Manasseh and Ephraim were born to Joseph in the land of Egypt.
    • Asenath bore them to Joseph.
    • Asenath was the daughter of Potiphera.
    • Potiphera was priest of On.
21. 46:21
    • The sons of Benjamin were Bela, Becher, Ashbel, Gera, Naaman, Ehi, Rosh, Muppim, Huppim, and Ard.
22. 46:22
    • These were the sons of Rachel who were born to Jacob.
    • They were fourteen persons in all.
23. 46:23
    • The sons of Dan: Hushim.
24. 46:24
    • The sons of Naphtali were Jahzeel, Guni, Jezer, and Shillem.
25. 46:25
    • These were the sons of Bilhah.
    • Laban gave Bilhah to his daughter Rachel.
    • Bilhah bore these to Jacob.
    • They were seven persons in all.
26. 46:26
    • All the persons who came with Jacob into Egypt were his own direct descendants.
    • The count excluded the wives of Jacob's sons.
    • The total was sixty-six persons.
27. 46:27
    • The sons born to Joseph in Egypt were two persons.
    • All the persons of the house of Jacob who came into Egypt were seventy.
28. 46:28
    • Jacob sent Judah ahead of him to Joseph.
    • Judah was sent to point the way before him to Goshen.
    • They came into the land of Goshen.
29. 46:29
    • Joseph harnessed his chariot.
    • Joseph went up to Goshen to meet his father Israel.
    • Joseph presented himself to his father.
    • Joseph fell on his father's neck.
    • Joseph wept on his neck a long while.
30. 46:30
    • Israel said to Joseph that he could now die.
    • Israel said this was because he had seen Joseph's face.
    • Israel said Joseph was still alive.
31. 46:31
    • Joseph spoke to his brothers and to his father's household.
    • Joseph said he would go up and tell Pharaoh.
    • Joseph said he would tell Pharaoh that his brothers and his father's household, who were in the land of Canaan, had come to him.
32. 46:32
    • Joseph said the men were shepherds of flocks.
    • Joseph said they had been keepers of livestock.
    • Joseph said they had brought their flocks, their herds, and all that they had.
33. 46:33
    • Joseph said Pharaoh would summon them.
    • Joseph said Pharaoh would ask what their occupation was.
34. 46:34
    • Joseph told them to say that his servants had been keepers of livestock from their youth until now.
    • They were to say this was true of both themselves and their fathers.
    • The purpose was that they might dwell in the land of Goshen.
    • Every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

46:1

Beersheba lay at the southern edge of Canaan, the last settled place before the desert road down to Egypt. Abraham and Isaac had both worshiped there, so Jacob is pausing at the family's own boundary marker before leaving the land.

46:2

"Visions of the night" means a dream carrying a message, treated in the ancient world as a normal way for a god to speak to someone, not as an ordinary dream. "Here am I" is the standard reply to a summons: not information about his location but a way of saying he is listening and ready.

46:3

"Go down" and "come up" are the standard idioms for travel between Canaan and Egypt: Canaan is hill country, Egypt is the flat river delta, so one always goes down to Egypt and up from it, whatever the compass direction.

46:4

Closing the eyes of someone who has just died was the duty of the nearest son. The promise means Joseph will outlive Jacob and be at his side when he dies, not something Jacob could assume, since he had believed Joseph dead for years.

46:5

Wheeled wagons were an Egyptian resource, uncommon in the Canaanite hill country. Pharaoh's sending them was both a practical favor and visible proof that Joseph's invitation was genuine.

46:6

The King James "seed" means offspring or descendants throughout the Old Testament. It is a farming image used for a family line: one man's descendants spreading out like a sown crop.

46:8

What follows is a formal register of the household that entered Egypt, listing each son of Jacob with his sons. Lists like this fix a family's legal shape at a turning point; these names later become the ancestral divisions of the tribes. "Firstborn" is a rank, not just a birth order: the eldest son normally held authority over his brothers and a double share of the inheritance.

46:9

The King James spells many of these names differently from other Bibles. Phallu is spelled Pallu elsewhere, and Pharez is spelled Perez. They are the same people.

46:10

The text notes the mother's nationality because Jacob's family generally married within their own kin group rather than taking wives from the local Canaanite population. Shaul is flagged as the exception.

46:12

Er and Onan were Judah's sons by a Canaanite wife and died childless before the move (the story is in chapter 38). Their two nephews, Hezron and Hamul, Judah's grandsons through Pharez, are listed here in their place, which is why this line reaches a generation further down than the others.

46:13

This Job is a different person from the Job of the book that bears that name; the two names are spelled differently in Hebrew.

46:15

Padanaram was the district in upper Mesopotamia, around Haran, where Laban lived and where Jacob spent his twenty years of service. The figure thirty-three does not match a simple count of the names just given (thirty-two once Er and Onan are subtracted); ancient readers made up the difference in different ways, some including Jacob himself, others counting differently.

46:17

Serah is one of very few women named in a list like this. Genealogies normally record sons only, since inheritance and clan membership passed through them, so a daughter appearing by name usually means her line or her memory mattered for some reason the text does not explain here.

46:18

Zilpah was a servant given to Leah as part of her marriage settlement. Under the custom of the time a wife could have her servant bear children on her behalf, and those children counted as the household's legitimate sons, which is why Zilpah's sons appear in this register as Jacob's own.

46:19

Rachel is called "Jacob's wife" even though Leah was his wife too. Rachel was the one he had wanted to marry from the start, and she had died years before this journey.

46:20

On is the city the Greeks called Heliopolis, just north of modern Cairo and the center of the sun-god's worship. Its priesthood was a wealthy, high-ranking office, so this was a prestigious Egyptian marriage. Potipherah is a different man from Potiphar, Joseph's former master.

46:21

Ten names is a large family for Benjamin, who is still young in the story. In other lists elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible some of these are Benjamin's grandsons rather than his sons, so the register may be gathering the whole Benjamin line rather than one generation.

46:23

The Hebrew uses the plural heading "the sons of" for every name in the list, even where, as here, only one is given. It is a fixed formula, not a sign that names have dropped out.

46:25

Bilhah, like Zilpah in verse 18, was a servant given to a daughter at her marriage, and her sons by Jacob counted as full members of the household.

46:26

"Threescore" is sixty; a score is twenty, so threescore and six is sixty-six. "Which came out of his loins" means descended from him physically, as opposed to people who joined the household by marriage, which is exactly the distinction the verse then makes about the wives.

46:27

The two totals fit together: sixty-six direct descendants who traveled, plus Jacob himself, plus Joseph and his two sons already in Egypt, makes seventy. Seventy is also a round number for a complete household. The ancient Greek translation of Genesis gives seventy-five here instead, counting further descendants of Joseph, and that is the figure quoted in the New Testament book of Acts.

46:28

Goshen was a district in the eastern Nile delta: well-watered grazing land on the edge of Egypt rather than in its heartland, which suited herders and kept the family somewhat apart from Egyptian society.

46:29

A chariot was a light, fast, horse-drawn vehicle and a mark of high state office in Egypt, Joseph arrives with the trappings of his rank.

46:30

An idiom of complete contentment, roughly "I could die happy now." Jacob is not asking to die; he is saying that the one thing he still wanted has been given him.

46:31

"I will go up" describes traveling to the royal court, which was spoken of as going up regardless of the actual direction, the way people still speak of going up to a capital. "My father's house" means the whole household: family, servants, dependents, everyone under Jacob's authority.

46:32

"Cattle" in the King James means livestock of any kind, mostly sheep and goats here, not cows specifically. "Their trade" means their occupation or line of work, not buying and selling.

46:34

"Your servants" is the ordinary polite way of speaking to a superior, like saying "sir", it does not mean they are slaves. Egyptians of the settled farming class looked down on nomadic herders, partly as foreigners and partly because of religious scruples about their animals; Joseph is turning that contempt to the family's advantage, since a despised occupation is the surest way to be granted land on the margin, in Goshen, rather than being absorbed into Egypt proper.