Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Genesis 45:10

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:

10. the land of Goshen ] Goshen mentioned only in J, Gen 46:28-29; Gen 46:34; Gen 47:1; Gen 47:4; Gen 47:6; Gen 47:27; Gen 50:8; Exo 8:22; Exo 9:26. By this term seems to be understood a district corresponding to the present Wady-el-Tumilat, a stretch of low ground extending from the eastern arm of the Delta to the Valley of Suez and the Salt Lakes. To the north and south of this district the country was barren and desert. Its identification with “Goshen” was the result of the researches carried out by M. Naville. The region has become more familiar in modern times as the country of the brief campaign terminated by the battle of Tel el-Kebir (1882). LXX here and Gen 46:34 translates Goshen, = “Gesem of Arabia.” “Arabia” was one of the 23 “nomes” into which the Delta was divided; and the capital of the “nome” Arabia, called Phakussa, has been conjecturally identified with the ancient locality, Kes, with the article pa prefixed.

near unto me ] If Joseph lived at On (Gen 41:45) or at Memphis, Goshen would be near at hand.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Verse 10. Thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen] Probably this district had been allotted to Joseph by the king of Egypt, else we can scarcely think he could have promised it so positively, without first obtaining Pharaoh’s consent. Goshen was the most easterly province of Lower Egypt, not far from the Arabian Gulf, lying next to Canaan, (for Jacob went directly thither when he came into Egypt,) from whence it is supposed to have been about fourscore miles distant, though Hebron was distant from the Egyptian capital about three hundred miles. At Goshen Jacob stayed till Joseph visited him, Ge 46:28. It is also called the land of Rameses, Ge 47:11, from a city of that name, which was the metropolis of the country. Josephus, Antiq., 1. ii., c. 4, makes Heliopolis, the city of Joseph’s father-in-law, the place of the Israelites’ residence. As geshem signifies rain in Hebrew, St. Jerome and some others have supposed that Goshen comes from the same root, and that the land in question was called thus because it had rain, which was not the case with Egypt in general; and as it was on the confines of the Arabian Gulf, it is very probable that it was watered from heaven, and it might be owing to this circumstance that it was peculiarly fertile, for it is stated to be the best of the land of Egypt. See Ge 47:6; Ge 47:11. See also Calmet and Dodd.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Goshen, a part of Egypt bordering upon Canaan, well watered and fit for cattle, and therefore most proper for the Israelites, not only for present use, and to keep them at some distance from the inward parts of Egypt, and from the court, but also that they might have Canaan always in their eye and mind, and in Gods time might with least disadvantage march thither. Joseph promiseth this place, either because it was least inhabited, being in the borders of the land, or because he justly presumed upon the kings favour, and knew that the growing famine would give him opportunity to dispose of the people as he pleased.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

And thou shall dwell in the land of Goshen,…. Called by Artapanus t Kaisan or Kessan; the Septuagint version Gesan of Arabia, as it was that part of Egypt which bordered on Arabia: it seems to be the same with the land of Rameses, see Ge 47:11; and the Heliopolitan home, which, Strabo u says, was reckoned to be in Arabia, and in which were both the city of Heliopolis and the city Heroopolis, according to Ptolemy w; for in the Septuagint version of Ge 46:28, instead of Goshen is Heroopolis, or the city of the Heroes in the land of Rameses, with which agrees Josephus x: wherefore Dr. Shaw y observes, the land of Rameses or Goshen could be no other than the Heliopolitan home, taking in that part of Arabia which lay bounded near Heliopolis by the Nile, and near Heroopolis by the correspondent part of the Red Sea. Now either before this time Joseph had got a grant of this country, of Pharaoh, to dispose of at pleasure, or he had so much power and authority of himself as to put his father into it: or it may be, it was the domains of his father in law the priest of On, since On or Onii, according to Ptolemy z, was the metropolis of the Heliopolitan home, and by some thought to be Heliopolis itself, and perhaps might be Joseph’s own country, which he had with the daughter of the priest of On: indeed if what the Jewish writers say a, that Pharaoh, king of Egypt in Abraham’s time, gave to Sarah the land of Goshen for an inheritance, and therefore the Israelites dwelt in it, because it was Sarah their “mother’s”; it would account for Joseph’s proposing to put them into the possession of it without the leave of Pharaoh; but Goshen seems to have been in the grant of Pharaoh, who agreed and confirmed what Joseph proposed, Ge 47:6;

and thou shalt be near unto me; as he would be in Goshen, if Memphis was the royal seat at this time, as some think b, and not Tanis or Zoan; or Heliopolis, or both, in their turn; and Artapanus c is express for it, that Memphis was the seat of that king of Egypt, in whose court Moses was brought up; and especially Heliopolis, nay be thought to be so, if Joseph dwelt at On or Heliopolis, where his father in law was priest or prince, which was near if not in Goshen itself: and according to Bunting d, On or Oni was the metropolis of Goshen; and Leo Africanus says e, that the sahidic province, in which was Fium, where the Israelites dwelt, see Ge 47:11, was the seat of the nobility of the ancient Egyptians:

thou and thy children, and thy children’s children: for Jacob’s sons had all of them children, even Benjamin the youngest, as appears from the following chapter:

and thy flocks, and thy herds, and all that thou hast; and Goshen, being a place of pasturage, was fit and suitable for them; and so Josephus says f, of Heliopolis, which he takes to be the place where Jacob was placed, that there the king’s shepherds had their pastures.

t Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. 23. p. 27. u Geograph. l. 17. p. 555. w Geograph. l. 4. c. 5. x Antiqu. l. 2. c. 7. sect. 5. y Travels, 305, 306. Ed. 2. z Ut supra. (w) a Pirke Eliezer, c. 26. b Dr. Shaw. ut supra, (y) p. 304, &c. Jablonski de Terra Goshen, Dissert. 4. sect. 3, 4, 5. & Sicardus in ib. Dissert. 5. sect. 1. c Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. 23, 27. d Travels, &c. p. 76. e Descriptio Africae, l. 8. p. 669. f Ut supra, (x) sect. 6.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

(10) The land of Goshen.This land, also called the laud of Rameses (Gen. 47:11), probably from the city Raamses, which the Israelites were compelled to build there (Exo. 1:11), was situated on the eastern bank of the Nile, and apparently commencing a little to the north of Memphis extended to the Mediterranean, and to the borders of the Philistines land (Exo. 13:17). In Psa. 78:12; Psa. 78:43, it is called the field of Zoan, or Tanis. It probably was an unsettled district, but rich in pastures, and belonged in a very loose way to Egypt. In the LXX. it is called Gesem of Arabia, to which country both Herodotus and Strabo reckoned all the district on the east of the Nile towards the Isthmus of Suez as belonging. And here the Israelites were constantly joined by large numbers of Semitic immigrants, who were enrolled in their tafs, and swelled the rapidly increasing number of their dependants. For, as we have seen before, not merely the lineal descendants of Abraham were circumcised, but all his household and his slaves; and being thus admitted into the covenant became members of the Jewish church and nation (Gen. 17:23).

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

10. Dwell in the land of Goshen “Joseph invites his father to come and settle in Goshen, apparently before consulting Pharaoh upon the matter, trusting to his influence with the king to secure this favour . Goshen was on the north-eastern frontier of Egypt, bordering upon the desert, the part of the country nearest to Canaan, east of the Pelusiac branch of the Nile . It was well adapted to a pastoral people, being fertilized by artificial irrigation through canals from the Nile, and by wells from which the water is raised by wheels . The surface being less elevated than the rest of the land, it is more easily irrigated. There are here at present more flocks and herds, and also more fishermen, than in any other part of Egypt, so that at the present day, as in the time of Joseph, it is reckoned as ‘the best of the land.’ (ROBINSON’S Biblical Researches, 1: 53).” Newhall.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments