January 18, 2026 - Genesis 46-47

Just an amazing story!  Jacob eventually brings his entire family down to Egypt and is told, “The land of Egypt is before you.  Settle your father and your brothers in the best of the land. Let them settle in the land of Goshen” (47:6), which contained rich pasture lands for their flocks.  And there, we know, they flourished.  This was “the best of the land, in the land of Rameses” (47:11).  As for the people of Egypt, when famine came, they sold their lands to Joseph and all of Egypt came under the possession of Pharaoh and of the people, “he made servants of them from one end of Egypt to the other” (47:1).  But for Israel, she “settled in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen.  And they gained possessions in it, and were fruitful and multiplied greatly” (47:27).  So many travails but is God faithful to his promises or what?  And so for us,

For now we stand on Jordan’s strand;

Our friends are passing over;

And just before the shining shore

We may almost discover.

We’ll gird our loins, my brethren dear,

Our heav’nly home discerning;

Our absent Lord has left us word,

Let ev’ry lamp be burning.

. . . Our King says “Come!: and there’s our home,

Forever, and forever.   --David Nelson (1835)