For some time now, we have been studying the account of Jacob and Joseph in the book of Genesis. There is a common tendency among people to become bored when reading books, but the Bible is not like other books. It is not like other writings of this world where we can read them two or three times and then find nothing further to learn from them. It is not like a rerun on TV where we know the outcome, so it is boring to watch. The Bible is different, because the more we look at it, the more we can learn and the more we can come to greater and greater truth.
There are some significant verses in 2 Peter 1 that are very helpful for us as we study the Bible. In verses 12-13, it says:
Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth…
Peter, writing under the inspiration of God, is saying that even if someone already knows something, he will not be negligent to put them always in remembrance of it. At EBible, we will talk about election, though you might already know about election. We will talk about Hell, though you might already know what the Bible teaches about Hell. We will also talk about other doctrines that you might be familiar with, because that is the role of anyone who is going to declare the Word of God—to put people in remembrance of many things that they already know. Look at the emphasis on this as the passage continues:
…though ye know them, and be established in the present truth. Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance;
Then look at verse 15, which says:
Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance.
Again and again, the emphasis is on bringing the Word of God always to a remembrance. That is why it is a good teaching tactic for the teacher to go over something again and again. In this manner, things are put in remembrance, and then they can be learned.
Who is it that likes to hear some new thing? Do we read in the Bible that the child of God is the one who always likes to hear something new? No; when the Apostle Paul went to Mars’ hill in Greece, we read that the people always wanted to hear some new thing. They had an ear for anything new (Acts 17:21). That is how the world is. Give the world some interesting idea, some new religion, some new doctrine. Give the people of the world something strange and new, and they will listen to you, because the world has an interest in anything new.
We, by God’s grace, are going to learn some new truths as we go along. But a lot of times, these truths will come slowly, and in order to get to them, we have to go over many things that we already know. That is what we are currently doing.
Now in Genesis 45:9, Joseph says:
Haste ye, and go up to my father, and say unto him, Thus saith thy son Joseph, God hath made me lord of all Egypt: come down unto me, tarry not:
We have seen that Joseph is a picture of Christ, who is now revealing Himself in the midst, or the dividing point, of the Great Tribulation. Suddenly, there is a sense of urgency.
Joseph had been concealing his identity from his brethren. He had them return to Canaan to bring their brother Benjamin back into Egypt with them, without telling them who he was. At that point, there was no sense of urgency; there was no haste to bring his father and the whole family back to Egypt. Yet now, all of a sudden, Joseph reveals himself and getting his family out of Canaan has become the top priority. Everything has to be done as quickly as possible. The verse reads:
Haste ye, and go up to my father, and say unto him, Thus saith thy son Joseph, God hath made me lord of all Egypt: come down unto me, tarry not:
It is an urgent matter that they come into Egypt. We have seen that according to Daniel 12:4, this has to do with God’s unveiling of His Word, the Scriptures, that have been sealed up.
Take the example of Revelation 18. Revelation 18 has been in the Bible for nearly two thousand years, and in referring to Babylon, commands, “Come out of her, My people.” Yet the people of God did not understand this during the Church Age. We did not understand it during the first part of the Great Tribulation. Therefore, there was no haste; there was no sense of urgency. But once God opened the Scriptures and revealed truth to us, then “Come out of her, My people” became an urgent command. Suddenly, the whole situation had changed. Now, it is a command that must be obeyed today.
Of course, people can take the time to check this out and to study this matter, but since it is the truth of God’s Word and God requires obedience to His commandments, it is to be obeyed today. If people do not yet understand it, then yes, they can study it; but that does not change the fact that it needs to be obeyed today. If it is God’s will, then they will study it and see the truth, and they will come out.
That is why it is suddenly so important that they quickly return to Canaan, that they quickly get their father and all the clan and come down into Egypt. Notice that it says, “come down unto me.”
We have seen that this has to do with humility. Historically, Egypt is in the south and they would have to “go down” from Judah into Egypt; but this is really referring to humbling ourselves under the mighty hand of God and doing His will. We are lowered in humility beneath the Word of God. We obey, and we come down unto Christ. That is, we leave the churches and congregations and go out into the world. “Come down unto me, tarry not.”
Then verse 10 of Genesis 45 says:
And thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be near unto me, thou, and thy children, and thy children's children, and thy flocks, and thy herds, and all that thou hast:
“Thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen.” Goshen is very interesting. We are familiar with it mostly from the account in Exodus when God rained the plagues upon Egypt. Where were the Israelites? They were in the land of Goshen, and the plagues did not touch them there. They had no impact on them; the Israelites were protected from all of the plagues that were falling upon Egypt.
Goshen is a very interesting place, and Joseph says to them, “Thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen.” We wonder, “What does Goshen represent? What is the land of Goshen pointing to?” Unfortunately, as we check it out and do a study looking at the word itself, we see that it is probably of Egyptian origin. Some words in the Bible are of foreign origin—they could be Egyptian or of some other nation that was around at that time—and that makes it more difficult for us to understand what those words mean when we cannot check them out against the Hebrew.
We do know that Goshen is said to be the best of the land. Later on, Pharaoh states in Genesis 47:6:
The land of Egypt is before thee; in the best of the land make thy father and brethren to dwell; in the land of Goshen let them dwell: and if thou knowest any men of activity among them, then make them rulers over my cattle.
The land of Goshen was a place of good pasture where they could raise their cattle. It was called the “best of the land.” It is also known as the land of Rameses in verses 11-12 of this chapter, which reads:
And Joseph placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded. And Joseph nourished his father, and his brethren, and all his father's household, with bread, according to their families.
Goshen was the prime area in Egypt. It was the place to raise cattle, which meant that there would have been good areas of grass for cattle to eat. It was the best of the land. Joseph was picking out a good spot for his family; he would talk to Pharaoh, and Pharaoh would say, “Yes, bring them into the best of the land.”
Remember that Pharaoh loved Joseph. Joseph had saved the nation of Egypt through the revealing of Pharaoh’s dream (which God gave him the ability to interpret). He had made the nation of Egypt the mightiest nation in the entire world in a few short years by making preparation for this famine. Every other land was weakened, and Egypt was strengthened incredibly as the surrounding nations had to come to them to find corn. Therefore, there was a strong and close relationship between Joseph and this Pharaoh. He wanted to really show Joseph how much he appreciated his work and his leadership. He wanted to give his family the best of everything, so he gave him the best of the land. “Thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen.”
Now Goshen in the Strong’s Concordance is number 1657. It is made up of three Hebrew letters, and vowel points are added to make it sound the way in which we read it. There are other words in the Bible that are close to it in spelling: the word “Gasham,” which is number 1652, and the word “Geshem,” which is number 1653. Both have to do with rain; they are words related to the rain that fell in the days of Elijah, a very hard rain. Then there is another word that is “Goshem,” Strong’s number 1656, which means “rained upon.”
We can see that these words that are close in spelling to Goshen are dealing with the subject of rain. Goshen is the best of the land, and normally when we think about an area that would be considered the best, especially for raising cattle, it would be an area that received a lot of rain. It would be a land where the rain fell and the crops grew and where there would be plenty of grass.
We have this word “Goshem” that is close but not the same as Goshen. There is a rule that I think those who understand the original languages have developed, and that is that when studying Hebrew words in the Bible, they can be compared to related words in the Hebrew if they are composed of the same first three letters. In that situation, you can say that one word is derived from the other. The problem with Goshem compared to Goshen is that in the Hebrew, they are both three-letter words, and the last letter of each word is a different letter. Goshen ends with the English equivalent of an “n,” and Goshem with an “m.” The first two letters are identical, but the third letter is different.
This means that following that grammatical rule (and I am not sure who developed it), you could not say that these words are related. The conclusion is that they would have to be different words. However, we have to keep in mind that we can not always trust those who develop grammatical rules.
How do we then come to truth when we are looking at a grammatical-type problem in the Bible? Let us take an example and look at Galatians 2:16, which says:
Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ…
“The faith of Jesus Christ”—in the Greek, this is a genitive, “of Christ.” Therefore, we would say that this is the faith that belongs to Christ. But some scholars come to this verse and see that it does not agree with the doctrine of believing in Christ. So, they have developed another way of looking at this. They say that it is an “instrumental genitive,” so that it acts more like a dative, and they would translate it as “faith in Jesus Christ.” These are Bible scholars; these are people who know the Greek language, who understand the underlying Greek. So, how do we come to a conclusion? We know that we can compare Scripture with Scripture (1 Corinthians 2:13). However, in this situation, when people start telling us about a grammatical rule, how are we supposed to respond to them? What we do, I think, is the exact same thing that we do when trying to understand anything in the Bible: we continue to compare Scripture with Scripture. This is much more difficult, but it can be done.
In this situation, we will look in the Greek for the same type of sentence construction as we find in Galatians 2:16. In Galatians 1:6 we see a word in the genitive case—the word “grace” is an example of this. We have the same construction as in Galatians 2:16, but if we translate it as these scholars would have us translate it, it would be as though we were showing grace in Christ, as though sinners could show grace in Christ. We can use that example. We can say, “Here is a very similar—if not exact—Greek sentence with the genitive, yet there is no way it is instrumental as you say it is.” This gives us the Biblical validation for understanding it exactly as it is written. It is the faith of Jesus Christ.
Another example is the word “Sabbath.” Some people who know the Greek say that the word “Sabbath” should be translated as “week,” like in Matthew 28:1. You can show them that it is a plural word that always means “Sabbaths,” but they will still insist on translating it as “week.”
There are rules that have been developed; but when we are dealing with people who understand grammar and have developed these rules, they are not always completely accurate. They do have a lot of knowledge and can be correct in many instances, but that does not mean that every time, we should go by their rules. What we should do is to continue to search the Bible.
We are looking at two three-letter words, “Goshen” and “Goshem,” which in both cases end with a different letter. Is there any other example in the Hebrew of a similar situation with three-letter words? There is; if we go back to Genesis 38:4, we read:
And she conceived again, and bare a son; and she called his name Onan.
Onan is a three-letter Hebrew word (the vowel is added). There is also another three-letter word, Onam, with the last letter being an “m” instead of the “n” that we have with Onan the son of Judah. This is very similar to Goshen and Goshem.
Onan and Onam are names of individuals, and they are both derived from a word that means “strength.” Even though the words have a different third letter, they both mean the same thing—strength.
That is one example, and I am still searching. This is not as easy as going to a Concordance because you have to go through and look at the spelling of all of the words in the Hebrew for a comparison. This is more difficult. I went through this just to show that it is possible that Goshen is related to Goshem, which is a word that means “rained upon.” This would explain why it was the best of the land, why it was a good place in which to raise cattle.
Now what would it mean if “Goshen” in the land of Egypt is a word related to being “rained upon”? Joseph is revealing himself to his brethren. He is calling them out of Canaan—“Come into the land of Egypt. Come to Goshen, to the land that is rained upon.” We can see what it means historically, but what would the spiritual meaning be?
The Lord Jesus Christ, in the dividing point of the Great Tribulation, opens up the truth. He reveals Himself. He reveals that it is time to come out of the churches and congregations and to go into Egypt. It is time to go into the world where the latter rain is falling, where the rain of the Gospel is going forth and coming down upon all the inhabitants of the world, and where God will bless His Word to all of His elect. This would be the significance if Goshen is related to Goshem—if it is a word that means rained upon.
As I have stated, there is some evidence that points to this fact, but I would not say that it was a definite or absolute conclusion. I think it is something that we can study further to see if we can find any more examples. I do, however, think that this is the approach that we must take in understanding any kind of grammatical problem such as this. When it comes to grammar, yes, we can get some ideas from scholars. We can ask them, “What you think? What is your understanding?” But, truly, the real answer is to go to the Bible itself. The Bible is its own grammar book. God can teach us grammar as well as anything else.
It says in Genesis 45:10:
And thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be near unto me…
If we go over to Deuteronomy 4:7, we read:
For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for?
This is the call; this is the command. “Come to Goshen. Be near unto Me.” The Lord our God will be near unto us.
Is God near unto those that remain in the churches? If they are a true believer, then, yes, of course. God never stops indwelling a true believer. But this is a different situation, however. As the true believers become obedient to Him and come out of the church, the Lord will be near unto them. He will bless and encourage His people as they come out of the congregations.
Genesis 45:10 continues:
…thou, and thy children, and thy children's children, and thy flocks, and thy herds, and all that thou hast:
He is speaking to these men who were heads of their own households and saying, “Bring your wives and your children. Bring them all. Even though your children do not understand, get them out of the church. Bring your wife, if possible; get her out of the church. Bring everything that you have out of the churches and congregations, and come to Egypt.”
Then verse 11 says:
And there will I nourish thee…
The word “nourish” is a word that means “to feed.” It is found a few times in 1 Kings 17. In verse 4 of that chapter, we read, in reference to Elijah:
And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there.
Then in verse 9, it says:
Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there: behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.
The words “feed” and “sustain” are the same word “nourish.” This word is also translated as “fed” in 1 Kings 18:4, which says:
For it was so, when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the LORD, that Obadiah took an hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water.)
In each case, this word has to do with feeding those who would otherwise die. If the ravens had not fed Elijah, he would have died. If the widow woman had not sustained Elijah during that famine, he would have died. If Obadiah had not fed the hundred prophets, they probably would have died.
This, therefore, is a word that has to do with sustaining life, with keeping someone alive. As we obey and come out of the churches and congregations, we will be nourished in the land of Goshen with bread and with water. This always points to the Gospel, as Christ is typified by the bread and the water.
God has called His people out, and He says He will nourish and feed us. I think that has been the case with His people. As we are learning from the Bible, God is feeding us. He is sustaining our lives; He is keeping us alive in time of famine. He is spiritually giving us bread, just as He says in Ezekiel 34. In that chapter, after God indicates that He will cause the shepherds to cease from feeding the flock, He says in verses 13-15:
And I will bring them out from the people, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them to their own land, and feed them upon the mountains of Israel by the rivers, and in all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them in a good pasture, and upon the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be: there shall they lie in a good fold, and in a fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains of Israel. I will feed my flock, and I will cause them to lie down, saith the Lord GOD.
God will feed His flock in a fat pasture. “Come into the land of Goshen, the best of the land. It is a fat pasture. It is a place where Joseph will nourish and feed his people.” God is going to give us more than we need spiritually. He is going to give us more spiritual nourishment than we will be able to take. I think we have been seeing that.
Genesis 45:11 continues:
…for yet there are five years of famine…
Joseph is again reiterating what he said back in verse 6: that there have been two years already, and that there are five more years to go. Once again, what could this mean but that he is telling them exactly how long the famine will last.
Historically, in 1872 B.C., the famine would come to an end, and they could know that. Spiritually, God is telling us that He will reveal to His people the time duration of the Great Tribulation. He is going to let His people know how long the Great Tribulation will last, as He says, “For yet there are five years of famine.”
Of course, it is not going to be an actual period of five years. The Great Tribulation is not seven years long, as this historical time of famine was. It is a longer period of time than that. The point is that God is going to reveal exactly how long the Great Tribulation will last. We will know when it began, and we will know when it will end. And if we know that, then we will also know when the end of the world will be. The Great Tribulation is the last stage of God’s salvation plan, and what comes after it is the end of time.
“For yet there are five years of famine”—also in saying that, I believe God is emphasizing the number five, which has to do with grace and judgment. For five more years, the judgment on the churches and congregations will continue and it will last until the end of the Great Tribulation. Yet there will be grace shown to the elect of God, to those who are out in the world, that great multitude. Five more—the remaining time of the second half of the Great Tribulation will be a time of grace and judgment as God’s Word continues to save those in the world and judge those in the congregations.
Then it goes on in verse 11 to say:
…lest thou, and thy household, and all that thou hast, come to poverty.
“Come to poverty”—let us read Proverbs 20:13, which says:
Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty; open thine eyes, and thou shalt be satisfied with bread.
This is interesting because it is related to the Genesis passage. Joseph is telling them, “Come into the land and I will nourish you. I will sustain you; I will give you bread. But if you do not come into the land, you will come to poverty, which means that you will have no bread.”
Therefore, we wonder, “How does this Proverb relate to what is going on? Love not sleep, and if you do, you will come to poverty. What does it mean to love not sleep? Does it mean that we do not sleep it all?” No, everyone has to sleep, and we all do sleep.
There is a proper length of time to sleep, and then there is a proper time to wake up. But if you love sleep, you sleep beyond that time. You ought to be up for work or school and be going about your chores, yet you continue to sleep. Someone who loves sleep ought to get up at 8:00 A.M., but they stay in bed until 10:00 or 11:00, or even noon.
That is the moral teaching of this Proverb: “Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty.” You cannot do this in the work world. If you need to be there at 9:00 A.M. and you roll in at 10:30 or 11:00, that will not happen too many times before you will be out of a job. Yet, what is the spiritual meaning?
God teaches that concerning His Word, we have all been asleep. In Isaiah 29, God relates these ideas and ties them together. In verses 10-11, we read:
For the LORD hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered. And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed:
Therefore, to be asleep means that the words of the book are sealed. We were all sleeping together. That is what the parable in Matthew 25 says of the ten virgins—“They all slumbered and slept.” But then came the cry, “Behold, the bridegroom cometh.” We will not look at this particular parable in any depth at this point, but it is pointing to the same thing: concerning the Words that have been sealed up, we have been asleep. When you are asleep, your eyes are closed; and when your eyes are closed, you cannot see. You cannot understand or comprehend.
The words of the book are sealed up because we are in a deep sleep. However, we know that God has a plan to wake us up and reveal truth to us. Now it is time to awake out of the sleep. It is time to get out of bed. It is time to go about your business. Love not sleep; if you do, you will continue in bed. Your eyes will remain closed for a longer period of time.
When it comes to spiritual things, this is very dangerous because you will not understand the truth of what God is saying. We could say that as God is commanding His people to come out of the churches and congregations, the true believers who have heard and are obeying that command have awakened. They are seeing the truth of what God has sealed up. Yet, for the many remaining, they are still asleep. They are continuing to have their eyes closed. They are not seeing the truth of the Word of God. “Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty; open thine eyes, and thou shalt be satisfied with bread.”
Back in Genesis 45:11, we read:
And there will I nourish thee; for yet there are five years of famine; lest thou, and thy household, and all that thou hast, come to poverty.
You will come to poverty. In other words, return to Canaan. Get my father, get all of your families, and bring everyone back into Egypt. In Egypt you will be fed with bread. However, if you leave Egypt and go back, and if you forget what I have said and do not obey my words but decide to stay in Canaan, you will come to poverty.
It is just as those who love to sleep. They are not awaking; they are not coming to the knowledge of the truth. They are continuing to insist that God has not opened up His Scriptures, that He has not revealed the truth of His Word any further. This will bring them to the poverty of the judgment of God.
Then Genesis 45:12 says:
And, behold, your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin…
This fits right into the context. Your eyes see. Your eyes are not closed; you are not asleep. It continues:
…your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that it is my mouth that speaketh unto you.
Words, we know, come out of the mouth. “It is my word; your eyes see that it is my word.” Joseph represents, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is saying, “You have spiritual eyes to see the Word of God. You see what is in the Word of God, and that His Word is insisting that it is time to come out of the churches.” God is letting us know that the believers will be given spiritual eyes to see and understand.
However, for those who remain in the churches, their eyes will be closed. We read in Acts 28:26-27:
Saying, Go unto this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive: For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.
Joseph is saying to his brethren, “Now you see. Your eyes see my mouth. That is, my mouth that speaks unto you is the Word of God. This is not coming from a dream or a vision or a tongue. It is not coming from any supernatural source. This is my word that is revealing these things.” That is what this spiritually points to.
Now let us read Genesis 45:13-14, which says:
And ye shall tell my father of all my glory in Egypt, and of all that ye have seen; and ye shall haste and bring down my father hither. And he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck, and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck.
We will look at verse 14 a little bit for now. It says that Joseph fell upon Benjamin’s neck and wept, and Benjamin wept upon Joseph’s neck. Does that remind us of anything? Is there any other place in the Bible that we read of someone falling on someone else’s neck, and there is weeping? Yes, in the parable of the prodigal son. It is interesting that a famine is also involved in this parable. In Luke 15:14-21, we read:
And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.
The Father runs to the son and gives him a big hug. He falls on his neck. This really is a demonstration of the mercy of God, of the compassion of the Father toward the lost son.
That is also the same picture that we see in Genesis as Joseph falls on Benjamin’s neck. Benjamin has been typifying the elect of God. He had been in the land of Canaan. There had been that separation in a sense, and now he is right here with Joseph. Joseph, who is a picture of Christ, falls upon his neck and weeps, and then kisses his brethren.
God is indicating that when He reveals Himself, it is a time of great mercy and great compassion. Throughout this chapter, we have been seeing this. We read, “God did send me before you to preserve life.” There is all kinds of language indicating that God will use these final days of the Great Tribulation as a time for saving a great many souls, and we are seeing that language throughout this chapter.
Lord willing, we will pick up verses 13 and 14, and then move on as we continue through Genesis 45 in our next study.