H. P. Mansfield Bible notes — checked and arranged in verse-by-verse Expositor style

Source: HPB 02-Gen42-Lev11.pdf, principally Genesis 47 photographed pages 9–10

CHAPTER OVERVIEW

Genesis 47 brings the covenant family into formal relationship with Pharaoh. Jacob and selected sons appear before the king, Goshen is confirmed as their place of settlement, and Joseph sustains the household through famine. The chapter then widens to Joseph’s administration of Egypt, where money, livestock, land and service progressively come under Pharaoh’s authority in exchange for food and seed.

The final verses return attention to Jacob. Egypt has become a place of protection and remarkable prosperity, but not the inheritance. Jacob insists on burial in Canaan, thereby confessing that his hope remains attached to the land promised to Abraham, Isaac and himself.

JACOB AND FIVE BRETHREN BEFORE PHARAOH — GENESIS 47:1–10

Genesis 47:1–2 — five brothers selected

Joseph informs Pharaoh that his father, brothers, flocks, herds and possessions have arrived from Canaan and are in Goshen. He then takes five men from among his brothers and presents them to Pharaoh. The unusual expression translated “some of his brethren” contains the idea of an end/extremity, but it does not securely prove Mansfield’s suggestion that Joseph deliberately chose the weakest-looking five.

Mansfield also treats five as a fixed “number of grace.” That numerical symbolism may be devotional, but Genesis itself supplies no explanation for why five were chosen.

Genesis 47:3–4 — shepherds and sojourners

Pharaoh asks their occupation, and they answer as Joseph prepared them: they are shepherds, as were their fathers. They describe themselves as having come “to sojourn” because famine has removed pasture in Canaan. The Hebrew gur means reside temporarily as a protected alien/sojourner. Their own language therefore refuses to treat Egypt as the permanent covenant inheritance.

The sojourning language recalls Genesis 15:13 and the wider patriarchal identity later summarised in Hebrews 11:9–16. Immediate necessity has brought them to Egypt, but the promise remains elsewhere.

Genesis 47:5–6 — Goshen and “men of ability”

Pharaoh authorises Joseph to settle the family in the best of the land, in Goshen. If Joseph knows “men of activity” among them, they may be appointed over Pharaoh’s livestock. The Hebrew chayil has a broad range including strength, ability, efficiency, valour and competence. “Capable men” is therefore a better modern sense than a specialised physical-strength gloss.

Genesis 47:7 — Jacob blesses Pharaoh

Joseph presents Jacob to Pharaoh and Jacob blesses the king. The scene reverses ordinary expectations of status: Pharaoh possesses political power, yet the old pilgrim who bears the covenant blessing pronounces blessing upon him. Hebrews 7:7 later states the general principle that “the less is blessed of the better,” although Genesis does not use that verse as a direct commentary on Jacob and Pharaoh.

Genesis 47:8–9 — 130 years of pilgrimage

Asked his age, Jacob answers that “the days of the years of my pilgrimage” are 130. Magurim describes sojournings or temporary residences. Jacob interprets his whole life as pilgrimage rather than settled possession. His days have been “few and evil” — not morally evil in themselves, but marked by adversity, grief and trouble — and fewer than the years of Abraham and Isaac.

Abraham died at 175 and Isaac at 180. Jacob will die at 147. Mansfield’s wider reconstruction that Jacob married at exactly fifty-seven, and age calculations derived from that scheme, remain uncertain and are not needed for the verse.

Genesis 47:10 — blessing on departure

Jacob blesses Pharaoh again and leaves. The verb barak can involve blessing and, in other contexts, kneeling; it should not be reduced here to mere courtly bowing. The repeated action frames Jacob’s audience with the king as an encounter in which the covenant pilgrim speaks blessing.

ISRAEL ESTABLISHED IN GOSHEN — GENESIS 47:11–12

Genesis 47:11 — Goshen / “land of Rameses”

Joseph settles his father and brothers in the best of the land, called here “the land of Rameses.” This is naturally identified with the Goshen region. The name Rameses may reflect the later name by which the region was known to the narrator/readers, just as older places can be described by later familiar names. It should not by itself be used to identify Joseph’s Pharaoh with a Ramesside ruler.

Genesis 47:12 — Joseph nourishes the household

Joseph sustains his father, brothers and the whole household with food “according to their families.” The rejected brother has become the provider of the covenant family during famine, one of the clearest broad Joseph/Christ patterns in the narrative.

JOSEPH’S FAMINE ADMINISTRATION — GENESIS 47:13–26

Genesis 47:13–14 — money for grain

The famine becomes extremely severe, and Egypt and Canaan “faint” or become exhausted. Joseph gathers the silver paid for grain and brings it into Pharaoh’s house. Hebrew kesef means silver and commonly functions as money. Mansfield’s later redemption symbolism from silver is typological; the immediate process is an emergency grain economy under royal administration.

Genesis 47:15–17 — livestock for bread

When money is exhausted, the Egyptians ask why they should die in Joseph’s presence. Joseph accepts livestock in exchange for food: horses, flocks, cattle and donkeys. The transfer also permits centralised feeding and preservation of animals that starving owners might otherwise be unable to sustain.

Verse 17 says Joseph “fed” them for that year. The verb nahal can denote leading or sustaining, often with pastoral overtones. Mansfield’s shepherd application is appropriate devotionally, but the narrative describes practical support through the famine.

Genesis 47:18–20 — people and land offered for survival

In the following year the population says that money and livestock are gone and offers both land and personal service in exchange for bread and seed: “buy us and our land ... and we and our land will be servants unto Pharaoh.” The initiative is explicitly voiced by the famine-stricken people. Joseph buys the land for Pharaoh as owners sell under the pressure of famine.

This does not make every feature of the system a timeless economic model. Genesis records how a severe ancient famine centralised Egyptian property and taxation under Pharaoh while repeatedly emphasising survival.

Genesis 47:21 — a real textual and administrative difficulty

The Masoretic Text underlying the KJV reads that Joseph “removed” or transferred the people “to cities” from one end of Egypt to the other. One practical explanation is relocation or administrative concentration near stored grain. However, an important ancient textual tradition reads instead that he made the people servants/slaves to Pharaoh. Because the chapter has just stated that they offered themselves as servants, both readings fit the surrounding context. The exact administrative procedure should therefore remain cautious rather than being reconstructed in detail.

Genesis 47:22 — priestly land exempt

Priestly land is exempt because the priests receive a fixed allowance from Pharaoh and therefore do not need to sell their holdings for food. The verse itself establishes privileged royal support for the priestly class. More detailed claims about the exact economic independence or political structure of Egyptian temples vary by period and should remain historical background, not the meaning of the verse.

Genesis 47:23–24 — seed and the fifth

Joseph gives seed for renewed cultivation. At harvest one fifth is to go to Pharaoh, while four fifths remain for seed, food and support of households. The twenty-percent arrangement resembles Joseph’s earlier proposal to collect a fifth during the years of abundance (Genesis 41:34), but here it becomes the continuing rent/tax attached to Pharaoh’s ownership of the land.

Genesis 47:25–26 — “Thou hast saved our lives”

The Egyptians answer, “Thou hast saved our lives,” and accept service under Pharaoh. Whatever modern judgment is made about the resulting concentration of royal power, the narrator records the people themselves acknowledging that Joseph’s policy has preserved them alive. The one-fifth rule becomes a statute, with priestly land exempt.

ISRAEL MULTIPLIES — GENESIS 47:27–28

Genesis 47:27 — possession and multiplication in Goshen

Israel settles in Goshen, acquires possessions, is fruitful and multiplies exceedingly. The promise of Genesis 46:3 — “I will there make of thee a great nation” — has begun to take visible form. The same Egypt that centralises its native population becomes the protected environment in which Israel grows.

Genesis 47:28 — seventeen final years

Jacob lives seventeen years in Egypt and reaches 147. Mansfield notes a striking symmetry: Joseph was seventeen when separated from Jacob (Genesis 37:2), and Jacob now enjoys seventeen years with Joseph after reunion. The symmetry is arithmetically sound, though Genesis itself does not explicitly interpret it symbolically.

JACOB’S BURIAL OATH — GENESIS 47:29–31

Genesis 47:29 — hand under the thigh

As death approaches, Israel asks Joseph to place his hand under Jacob’s thigh and swear not to bury him in Egypt. The same oath gesture appears in Genesis 24:2. Its exact symbolic origin is debated; it clearly functions as a solemn patriarchal covenant/oath ceremony and should not be over-explained.

Genesis 47:30 — “bury me in their burying place”

Jacob asks to lie with his fathers and be buried in their burial place. The request is a confession of hope: Egypt may provide security, wealth and family restoration, but the promised land remains the place with which Jacob identifies his future. Genesis 49:29–32 later names Machpelah explicitly, and Genesis 50 records the burial there.

Mansfield rightly connects the request with resurrection hope in the wider patriarchal promise, but burial in Canaan is also a direct covenant and family statement without requiring the verse itself to describe the mechanics of resurrection.

Genesis 47:31 — bed or staff?

Joseph swears, and Israel worships/bows. Here the Hebrew textual tradition and the Greek tradition differ in vocalisation/interpretation. The Masoretic Text reads “upon the head of the bed” (mittah). The Septuagint reads “upon the top of his staff” (matteh), and Hebrews 11:21 follows that Greek wording when recalling Jacob’s faith. The underlying consonantal forms are extremely close and, without later vowel pointing, permit the ancient divergence.

It is therefore too strong to say that Hebrews “proves” the Masoretic reading wrong. Both are ancient textual traditions: Genesis in the Masoretic Text gives the bed reading, while the inspired New Testament explicitly uses the staff wording in its Greek citation. Mansfield’s devotional picture of the pilgrim leaning on his staff is appropriate to Hebrews 11:21, but the Genesis textual variant should be preserved honestly.

PRINCIPAL THEMES

• Israel enters Egypt as a sojourning covenant family, not as a people abandoning the promised land.

• The aged pilgrim blesses Pharaoh despite Pharaoh’s greater political rank.

• Goshen becomes both a place of provision and a protected environment for national growth.

• Joseph’s famine policy progressively centralises resources while preserving life.

• The people explicitly acknowledge Joseph as the one who saved their lives.

• Israel multiplies in Egypt in fulfilment of the promise given at Beersheba.

• Jacob’s burial command keeps Canaan, not Egypt, at the centre of covenant hope.

• Genesis 47:31 preserves an important bed/staff textual tradition reflected in Hebrews 11:21.

EDITORIAL VERIFICATION AND RECOVERED READINGS

RESIDUAL UNCERTAINTIES

Genesis does not explain why Joseph selected five brothers, the exact ancient extent of Goshen, or the precise procedure behind the population statement in verse 21. Detailed claims concerning Egyptian priestly economics vary by dynasty. The symbolism of the oath gesture is uncertain. Genesis 47:31 must retain the ancient “bed” versus “staff” textual distinction rather than claiming that either tradition can simply be dismissed.