Genesis 45-47

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

45 Then Joseph could not restrain himself [any longer] before all those who stood by him, and he called out, Cause every man to go out from me! So no one stood there with Joseph while he made himself known to his brothers.

² And he wept and sobbed aloud, and the Egyptians [who had just left him] heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard about it.

³ And Joseph said to his brothers, I am Joseph! Is my father still alive? And his brothers could not reply, for they were distressingly disturbed and dismayed at [the startling realization that they were in] his presence.

⁴ And Joseph said to his brothers, Come near to me, I pray you. And they did so. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold into Egypt!

⁵ But now, do not be distressed and disheartened or vexed and angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me ahead of you to preserve life.

⁶ For these two years the famine has been in the land, and there are still five years more in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest.

⁷ God sent me before you to preserve for you a posterity and to continue a remnant on the earth, to save your lives by a great escape and save for you many survivors.

⁸ So now it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt.

⁹ Hurry and go up to my father and tell him, Your son Joseph says this to you: God has put me in charge of all Egypt. Come down to me; do not delay.

¹⁰ You will live in the land of Goshen, and you will be close to me—you and your children and your grandchildren, your flocks, your herds, and all you have.

¹¹ And there I will sustain and provide for you, so that you and your household and all that are yours may not come to poverty and want, for there are yet five [more] years of [the scarcity, hunger, and starvation of] famine.

¹² Now notice! Your own eyes and the eyes of my brother Benjamin can see that I am talking to you personally [in your language and not through an interpreter].

¹³ And you shall tell my father of all my glory in Egypt and of all that you have seen; and you shall hurry and bring my father down here.

¹⁴ And he fell on his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, and Benjamin wept on his neck.

¹⁵ Moreover, he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers conversed with him.

¹⁶ When the report was heard in Pharaoh’s house that Joseph’s brothers had come, it pleased Pharaoh and his servants well.

¹⁷ And Pharaoh said to Joseph, Tell your brothers this: Load your animals and return to the land of Canaan,

¹⁸ And get your father and your households and come to me. And I will give you the best in the land of Egypt and you will live on the fat of the land.

¹⁹ You therefore command them, saying, You do this: take wagons from the land of Egypt for your little ones and for your wives, and bring your father and come.

²⁰ Also do not look with regret or concern upon your goods, for the best of all the land of Egypt is yours.

²¹ And the sons of Israel did so; and Joseph gave them wagons, as the order of Pharaoh permitted, and gave them provisions for the journey.

²² To each of them he gave changes of raiment, but to Benjamin he gave 300 pieces of silver and five changes of raiment.

²³ And to his father he sent as follows: ten donkeys loaded with the good things of Egypt, and ten she-donkeys laden with grain, bread, and nourishing food and provision for his father [to supply all who were with him] on the way.

²⁴ So he sent his brothers away, and they departed, and he said to them, See that you do not disagree (get excited, quarrel) along the road.

²⁵ So they went up out of Egypt and came into the land of Canaan to Jacob their father,

²⁶ And they said to him, Joseph is still alive! And he is governor over all the land of Egypt! And Jacob’s heart began to stop beating and [he almost] fainted, for he did not believe them.

²⁷ But when they told him all the words of Joseph which he had said to them, and when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived [and warmth and life returned].

²⁸ And Israel said, It is enough! Joseph my son is still alive. I will go and see him before I die.

46 So Israel made his journey with all that he had and came to Beersheba [a place hallowed by sacred memories] and offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac.^(A)

² And God spoke to Israel in visions of the night, and said, Jacob! Jacob! And he said, Here am I.

³ And He said, I am God, the God of your father; do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will there make of you a great nation.

⁴ I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also surely bring you [your people Israel] up again; and Joseph will put his hand upon your eyes [when they are about to close in death].

⁵ So Jacob arose and set out from Beersheba, and Israel’s sons conveyed their father, their little ones, and their wives in the wagons that Pharaoh had sent to carry him.

⁶ And they took their cattle and the gains which they had acquired in the land of Canaan and came into Egypt, Jacob and all his offspring with him:

⁷ His sons and his sons’ sons with him, his daughters and his sons’ daughters—all his offspring he brought with him into Egypt.

⁸ And these are the names of the descendants of Israel who came into Egypt, Jacob and his sons: Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn.

⁹ And the sons of Reuben: Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi.

¹⁰ The sons of Simeon: Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jachin, Zohar, and Shaul the son of a Canaanite woman.

¹¹ The sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.

¹² The sons of Judah: Er, Onan, Shelah, Perez, and Zerah; but Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan. And the sons of Perez were Hezron and Hamul.

¹³ The sons of Issachar: Tola, Puvah, Iob, and Shimron.

¹⁴ The sons of Zebulun: Sered, Elon, and Jahleel.

¹⁵ These are the sons of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob in Padan-aram, together with his daughter Dinah. All of his sons and his daughters numbered thirty-three.

¹⁶ The sons of Gad: Ziphion, Haggi, Shuni, Ezbon, Eri, Arodi, and Areli.

¹⁷ The sons of Asher: Imnah, Ishvah, Ishvi, Beriah, and Serah their sister. And the sons of Beriah: Heber and Malchiel.

¹⁸ These are the sons of Zilpah, [the maid] whom Laban gave to Leah his daughter. And these she bore to Jacob—sixteen persons all told.

¹⁹ The sons of Rachel, Jacob’s wife: Joseph and Benjamin.

²⁰ And to Joseph in the land of Egypt were born Manasseh and Ephraim, whom Asenath daughter of Potiphera, priest of On, bore to him.

²¹ And the sons of ^[a]Benjamin: Bela, Becher, Ashbel, Gera, Naaman, Ehi, Rosh, Muppim, Huppim, and Ard.

²² These are the sons of Rachel, who were born to Jacob—fourteen persons in all.

²³ The son of Dan: Hushim.

²⁴ The sons of Naphtali: Jahzeel, Guni, Jezer, and Shillem.

²⁵ These are the sons of Bilhah, [the maid] whom Laban gave to Rachel his daughter. And she bore these to Jacob—seven persons in all.

²⁶ All the persons who came with Jacob into Egypt—who were his own offspring, not counting the wives of Jacob’s sons—were sixty-six persons all told.

²⁷ And the sons of Joseph, who were born to him in Egypt, were two persons. All the persons of the house of Jacob [including Joseph and Jacob himself], who came into Egypt, were seventy.

²⁸ And he sent Judah before him to Joseph, to direct him to Goshen and meet him there; and they came into the land of Goshen.

²⁹ Then Joseph made ready his chariot and went up to meet Israel his father in Goshen; and he presented himself and gave distinct evidence of himself to him [that he was Joseph], and [each] fell on the [other’s] neck and wept on his neck a good while.

³⁰ And Israel said to Joseph, Now let me die, since I have seen your face [and know] that you are still alive.

³¹ Joseph said to his brothers and to his father’s household, I will go up and tell Pharaoh and say to him, My brothers and my father’s household, who were in the land of Canaan, have come to me.

³² And the men are shepherds, for their occupation has been keeping livestock, and they have brought their flocks and their herds and all that they have.

³³ When Pharaoh calls you and says, What is your occupation?

³⁴ You shall say, Your servants’ occupation has been as keepers of livestock from our youth until now, both we and our fathers before us—in order that you may live in the land of Goshen, for every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians.

47 Then Joseph came and told Pharaoh, My father and my brothers, with their flocks and their herds and all that they own, have come from the land of Canaan, and they are in the land of Goshen.

² And from among his brothers he took five men and presented them to Pharaoh.

³ And Pharaoh said to his brothers, What is your occupation? And they said to Pharaoh, Your servants are shepherds, both we and our fathers before us.

⁴ Moreover, they said to Pharaoh, We have come to sojourn in the land, for your servants have no pasture for our flocks, for the famine is very severe in Canaan. So now, we pray you, let your servants dwell in the land of Goshen.

⁵ And Pharaoh spoke to Joseph, saying, Your father and your brothers have come to you.

⁶ The land of Egypt is before you; make your father and your brothers dwell in the best of the land. Let them live in the land of Goshen. And if you know of any men of ability among them, put them in charge of my cattle.

⁷ Then Joseph brought in Jacob his father and presented him before Pharaoh; and Jacob blessed Pharaoh.

⁸ And Pharaoh asked Jacob, How old are you?

⁹ Jacob said to Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are 130 years; few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and they have ^[b]not attained to those of the life of my fathers in their pilgrimage.

¹⁰ And Jacob blessed Pharaoh and went out from his presence.

¹¹ Joseph settled his father and brethren and gave them a possession in Egypt in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses (Goshen), as Pharaoh commanded.

¹² And Joseph supplied his father and his brethren and all his father’s household with food, according to [the needs of] their families.

¹³ [In the course of time] there was no food in all the land, for the famine was distressingly severe, so that the land of Egypt and all the land of Canaan hung in doubt and wavered by reason of the hunger (destitution, starvation) of the famine.

¹⁴ And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan [in payment] for the grain which they bought, and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh’s house.

¹⁵ And when the money was exhausted in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, Give us food! Why should we die before your very eyes? For we have no money left.

¹⁶ Joseph said, Give up your livestock, and I will give you food in exchange for [them] if your money is gone.

¹⁷ So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and [he] gave them food in exchange for the horses, flocks, cattle of the herds, and the donkeys; and he supplied them with food in exchange for all their livestock that year.

¹⁸ When that year was ended, they came to [Joseph] the second year and said to him, We will not hide from my lord [the fact] that our money is spent; my lord also has our herds of livestock; there is nothing left in the sight of my lord but our bodies and our lands.

¹⁹ Why should we perish before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land in exchange for food, and we and our land will be servants to Pharaoh. And give us seed [to plant], that we may live and not die, and that the land may not be desolate.

²⁰ And Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh; for the Egyptians sold every man his field because of the overwhelming severity of the famine upon them. The land became Pharaoh’s,

²¹ And as for the people, he removed them to cities and practically made slaves of them [at their own request], from one end of the borders of Egypt to the other.

²² Only the priests’ land he did not buy, for the priests had a fixed pension from Pharaoh and lived on the amount Pharaoh gave them. So they did not sell their land.

²³ Then Joseph said to the people, Behold, I have today bought you and your land for Pharaoh. Now here is seed for you, and you shall sow the land.

²⁴ At [harvest time when you reap] the increase, you shall give one-fifth of it to Pharaoh, and four-fifths shall be your own to use for seed for the field and as food for you and those of your households and for your little ones.

²⁵ And they said, You have saved our lives! Let us find favor in the sight of my lord; and we will be Pharaoh’s servants.

²⁶ And Joseph made it a law over the land of Egypt—to this day—that Pharaoh should have the fifth part [of the crops]; it was the priests’ land only which did not become Pharaoh’s.

²⁷ And Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt, in the country of Goshen; and they gained possessions there and grew and multiplied exceedingly.

²⁸ And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years; so Jacob reached the age of 147 years.

²⁹ When the time drew near that Israel must die, he called his son Joseph and said to him, If now I have found favor in your sight, ^[c]put your hand under my thigh and [promise to] deal loyally and faithfully with me. Do not bury me, I beg of you, in Egypt,

³⁰ But let me lie with my fathers; you shall carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their burying place. And [Joseph] said, I will do as you have directed.

³¹ Then Jacob said, Swear to me [that you will do it]. And he swore to him. And Israel bowed himself upon the head of the bed.