Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Genesis 45:27

And they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said unto them: and when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived:

27. and when he saw the wagons ] He did not believe, until he had some ocular proof of the truth of the statement.

the spirit of Jacob revived ] “The spirit” ( rua) here, as in Isa 57:15, “to revive the spirit of the humble,” simply denotes the vital powers. Cf. 1Ki 10:5, “there was no more spirit in her,” i.e. the Queen of Sheba, on seeing the glory of Solomon.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Gen 45:27

When he saw the waggons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived

Probability an aid to faith

We see here how probabilities are the handmaids and the helpers of faith.

Slight tokens become the aliment, the very food, on which action feeds, strengthens, nurtures itself, and goes forth to fulfil the work marked out by Providence for the life.

I. Jacobs heart fainted; but old men, dying persons, often feel that some unrealized object detains them here. Jacob was like watchers who have gone to the point and taken lodgings, to be the first to hail the ship; and as pennon after pennon flutters in sight they hail it, but it is not the expected vessel, and the heart faints, until at last the well-known signal waves in the wind. Sense sees it, and faith revives.

II. The lesson of the patriarchs history is that faith may not realize all it desires, but it may realize what confirms, revives, assures. He saw the waggons: Faith cometh by hearing; it is a moral principle created in the mind, not so much by facts as probabilities. Faith is moved and swayed by antecedental considerations. So these waggons were, in all probability, an aid to faith, and his heart revived. Treasure up marks and tokens of another country; you will find they will not be wanting.

III. If you deal faithfully with the tremendous hints and probabilities sacred to your own nature, sacred to the Holy Word, sacred to the infinite manifestation of God in the flesh in the person of Jesus Christ, they will hold you fast in the power of awful convictions, and in the embrace of infinite consolations. The waggons assured Jacob that Joseph was yet alive, and there are innumerable conveyances of grace which assure us that Jesus is yet alive. (E. Paxton Hood.)

The joyful news told to Jacob

I. IT IS, AT FIRST, RECEIVED WITH INCREDULITY.

II. IT IS AFTERWARDS ACCEPTED UPON OUTWARD EVIDENCE.

III. IT ENABLED JACOB TO VINDICATE HIS OLD CHARACTER

1. His faith triumphs.

2. His dark destiny is about to be cleared up.

3. He anticipates his peaceful end. (T. H. Leale.)

Josephs waggons

1. No wonder certainly that Jacob could not believe his sons. You know from their history, and particularly from that part which is mingled with the earlier days of Joseph, how deceitfulness (inherited, too, from their parents and ancestry) had marked their conduct towards their father Jacob, whose life, I suspect, was often rendered very bitter by sad instances of their deceitfulness, and by the painful reflections upon his own conduct in his earlier days, which those instances would produce. Even Josephs messages were not believed by Jacob, not because Jacob doubted them, but because he could not believe the messengers.

II. And that Jacob believed at last, was convinced of the truthfulness of the messages, and going down to Egypt, he saw Joseph, often enjoyed his society, and finished his eventful pilgrimage there in peace, and with the full certainty of being buried in the promised land. A sight of Josephs waggons convinced him.

III. We have in this affecting narrative an illustration of two important ways by which truth may be received, and indeed through which it may be communicated. The difference betwixt the mode of teaching a truth by a simple revelation or message, and by the medium of the sight, is not, indeed, in the strictest sense of the term, that of an objective and a subjective truth; but it is very nearly this. For though indeed it may be said truly enough that teaching by means of any of the senses is objective, there is nearly all the difference between objective and subjective in teaching by means of the sight and by means of words; because whatever the eye learns is learned by a real object, or by an object which does not profess to be the thing itself, but a recognized representation thereof. Thus the message of Joseph delivered by his brethren to their father was really (in my view) a subjective truth; I mean it was truth which he was to receive. But then, though the ear was the medium of reception, faith or credibility in the veracity of his children was necessary ere he could profit by it. And this faith he had not in them. He could not believe them, and he only became agitated; but the sight of the waggons convinced him. The truth was exhibited by another means; but I think also it was truth in another form. It was the truth that Joseph was alive, objectively brought home to Jacob by visible tangible realities. They were not like Joseph; they were not pictures, carvings, imitations of him; but there was a reality, a matter of fact truthfulness about what he there saw before him, which, though not a convincing demonstration, was a thoroughly satisfying objective realization to the eye of what would not have happened but for the true loving tenderness of his long lost son. And this objective truth seen as an object by the eye gave reality to the subjective message, heard by the ear, indeed, but receivable only by the mind through faith, so that though it is said of that subjective truth Jacob believed not the messengers, it is immediately recorded of the objective truth that when he saw the waggons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived, and he said, It is enough; Joseph, my son, is yet alive: I will go, and see him before I die.

IV. The application of these observations to the Lords Supper, and indeed to either of the Sacraments, appears to me to be obvious and easy. Your only means of salvation is Christ Jesus, crucified for you and risen. God in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself; Christ, the Son of God, who, by His one oblation offered once for all, hath put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, forms, through the Holy Spirit, your great hope of acceptance with God. The messages sent to you from heaven are true, and abound in tenderness; they are like Josephs message, full of truth and love. From various causes men demur to receive them. We who bring the messages are often not believed, You to whom the messages are delivered are conscious of many things which you think incapacitate you from applying them to yourselves. The blessed truths of salvation thus presented for your faith to receive and to make personally your own subjectively, are too often not received. But then, amidst all this clatter of disputings, doubtings and arguing, what meaneth this service? What meaneth it that to-day, that every Sunday throughout Christendom, in thousands and thousands of churches, and by many thousands and even millions of Christians, a simple though significant act is celebrated, even as it has been since the last Passover, and will continue to be so till He come who at first appointed it? Why is it that Christians from time to time gather together to break this bread and to drink this cup? What mean ye by this service? It is objectively for you what the waggons proved to Jacob. It is a very simple, but objective act, which brings before you vividly the love of Christ, in giving His body and His blood upon the Cross for you. (G. Venables, S. C. L.)

The kings waggons

The Egyptian capital was the focus of the worlds wealth. In ships and barges there had been brought to it from India frankincense, and cinnamon, and ivory, and diamonds; from the north marble and iron; from Syria purple and silk; from Greece some of the finest horses of the world, and some of the most brilliant chariots; and from all the earth that which could best please the eye, and charm the ear, and gratify the taste. As you stand on the level beach of the sea, on a sunny day, you look either way and there are miles of breakers white with the ocean foam dashing shoreward, so it seemed as if the sea of the worlds pomp and wealth, in the Egyptian capital, for miles and miles flung itself up into white breakers of marble temple, mausoleum, and obelisk. This was the place where Joseph, the shepherd boy, was called to stand next to Pharoah in honour. What a contrast between this scene and his humble standing, and the pit into which his brothers threw him! Yet he was not forgetful of his early home–he was not ashamed of where he came from. The Bishop of Mentz, descended from a wheelwright, covered his house with spokes, and hammers, and wheels; and the King of Sicily, in honour of his father, who was a potter, refused to drink out of anything but earthen vessels. So Joseph was not afraid of his early surroundings, or of his old-time father, or of his brothers. When they came up from the famine-struck land to get corn from the kings corn-crib, Joseph, instead of chiding them for the way they had maltreated and abused him, sent them back with waggons, which Pharoah furnished, laden with corn; and old Jacob, the father, in the very same waggon, was brought back that Joseph, the son, might see him, and give him a home all the rest of his days. Well, I hear the waggons–the kings waggons–rumbling down in front of the palace. On the outside of the palace, to see the waggons go off, stands Pharaoh in royal robes, and beside him prime-minister Joseph, with a chain of gold around his neck, and on his hand a ring, given by Pharaoh to him, so that any time he wanted to stamp the royal seal upon a document he could do so. Waggon after waggon rolled down from the palace, laden with corn, and meat, and changes of raiment, and everything that could help a famine-struck people. One day I see aged Jacob seated in the front of his house; he is possibly thinking of his absent boys (sons, however old they get, are never anything more than boys), and while he is seated there he sees dust arising, and he hears waggons rumbling, and he wonders what is coming now, for the whole land had been smitten with famine and was in silence. But after awhile the waggons come near enough, and he sees his sons in the waggons, and before they come up they shout: Joseph is yet alive! The old man faints dead away. I do not wonder at it. The boys tell the story how that the boy, the long-lost Joseph, has got to be the first man in the Egyptian palace. While they unload the waggons the wan and wasted creatures come up and ask for a handful of corn, and they are satisfied. One day the waggons are brought up for Jacob; the old father is about to go to see Joseph in the Egyptian palace. You know it is not a very easy thing to transplant an old tree, and Jacob has hard work to get away from the place where he bad lived so long. He bids good-bye to the old place, and leaves his blessing with his neighbours; and then his sons steady him while he, determined to help himself, gets into the waggon, stiff, old, and decrepid. Yonder they go, Jacob and his sons, and their wives and their children, eighty-two in all, followed by herds and flocks, which the herdsmen drive along. They are going out from famine to luxuriance, they are going from a plain country home to the finest palace under the sun. My friends, we are in a world by sin famine-struck, but the King is in constant communication with us, His waggons coming and going perpetually; and in the rest of my discourse I will show what the waggons bring and what they take back.

1. In the first place, like those that came from the Egyptian palace, the Kings waggons now bring us corn and meat, and many changes of raiment. We are apt to think of the fields and the orchards as feeding us, but who makes the flax grow for the linen, and the wheat for the bread, and the wool on the sheeps back? None but a God could clothe and feed the world. None but a Kings corncrib could appease the worlds famine. None but a King could tell how many waggons to send, and how heavily to load them, and when they are to start. Oh! thank God for bread–for bread!

2. I remark, again, that, like those that came from the Egyptians palace, the Kings waggons bring us good news. Jacob had not heard from his boy for a great many years. He had never thought of him but with a heart-ache. There was in Jacobs heart a room where lay the corpse of his unburied Joseph; and when the waggons came–the kings waggons–and told him that Joseph was yet alive, he faints dead away. Good news for Jacob! Good news for us! The Kings waggons come down and tell us that our Joseph–Jesus–is yet alive; that He has forgiven us because we threw Him into the pit of suffering and the dungeon of shame. He has risen from thence to stand in a palace. The Bethlehem shepherds were awakened at midnight by the rattling of the waggons that brought the tidings. Our Joseph–Jesus–sends us a message of pardon, of life, of heaven; corn for our hunger, raiment for our nakedness. Joseph–Jesus–is yet alive 1 The Kings waggons will, after a while, unload, and they will turn round, and they will go back to the palace, and I really think that you and I will go with them. The King will not leave us in this famine-struck world. The King has ordered that we be lifted into the waggons, and that we go over into Goshen, where there shall be pasturage for our largest flock of joy; and then we will drive up to the palace where there are glories awaiting us which will melt all the snow of Egyptian marble into forgetfulness.

3. I think that the Kings waggons will take us up to see our lost friends. Jacobs chief anticipation was not of seeing the Nile, or of seeing the long colonnade of architectural beauty, or of seeing the throne-room. There was a focus to all his journeyings–to all his anticipations–and that was Joseph. Well, my friends, I do not think heaven would be worth much if our brother Jesus was not there. Oh! the joy of meeting our brother Joseph–Jesus! After we have talked about Him for ten, or fifty, or seventyyears, to talk with Him I and to clasp hands with the Hero of the ages, not crouching as underlings in His presence, but as Jacob and Joseph hug each other. The kings waggons took Jacob up to see his lost boy; and so I really think that the Kings waggons will take us up to see our lost kindred. How long is it since Joseph went out of your household? How many years is it, now, last Christmas, or the fourteenth of next month? It was a dark night when he died, and a stormy day it was at the burial; and the clouds wept with you, and the winds sighed for the dead. The bell at Greenwoods Gate rang only for a few moments, but your heart has been tolling, tolling, ever since. You have been under a delusion, like Jacob of old. You put his name first in the birth-record of the family Bible, and then you put it in the death-record of the family Bible, and you have been deceived. Joseph is yet alive l He is more alive than you are. Of all the sixteen thousand millions of children that statisticians say have gone into the future world, there is not one of them dead, and the Kings waggons will take you up to see them. In my boyhood, for some time, we lived three miles from church, and on stormy days the children stayed at home, but father and mother always went to church. That was a habit they had. On those stormy Sabbaths when we stayed at home, the absence of our parents seemed very much protracted, for the roads were very bad, and they could not get on very fast. So we would go to the window at twelve oclock to see if they were coming; and at a quarter to one; and then at one oclock. After awhile, Mary or Daniel, or De Witt would shout, The waggons coming! and then we would see it winding out of the woods, and over the brook, and through the lane, and up in the front of the old farmhouse; and then we would rush out, leaving the doors wide open, with many things to tell them, asking them many questions. Well, I think we:are many of us in the Kings waggons, and we are on the way home. The road is very bad, and we get on slowly; but after awhile we will come winding out of the woods, and through the brook of death, and up in front of the old heavenly homestead; and our departed kindred who have been waiting and watching for us will rush out through the doors, and over the lawn, crying: The waggons are coming! the Kings waggons are coming! Hark! the bell of the city hall strikes twelve. Twelve oclock on earth; and likewise it is high noon in heaven. (Dr. Talmage.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 27. When he saw the wagons – the spirit of Jacob – revived] The wagons were additional evidences of the truth of what he had heard from his sons; and the consequence was, that he was restored to fresh vigour, he seemed as if he had gained new life, vattechi, and he lived; revixit, says the Vulgate, he lived afresh. The Septuagint translate the original word by , which signifies the blowing and stirring up of almost extinguished embers that had been buried under the ashes, which word St. Paul uses, 2Ti 1:6, for stirring up the gift of God. The passage at once shows the debilitated state of the venerable patriarch, and the wonderful effect the news of Joseph’s preservation and glory had upon his mind.

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

And they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said unto them,…. Not concerning their selling of him, and his forgiveness of them, and reconciliation to them, which perhaps Jacob never heard of to his dying day, since he makes no mention of it, nor hints at it in his dying words to them; but of his great advancement in the court of Pharaoh, and how desirous he was to have his father and family with him, and provide for them, since there were five years of famine yet to come:

and when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him, and his sons wives and children, down to Egypt in; and which were so grand and magnificent, that he was easily persuaded could never have been provided by his sons, if what they had said concerning Joseph was not true: and then

the spirit of Jacob their father revived: not the Holy Spirit, or spirit of prophecy, as the Targums, which the Jews say departed from him, and had not been with him since the loss of Joseph, but now returned; but his own natural spirit, he became lively and cheerful, giving credit to the report of his sons.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

27. When he saw the wagons “As they went on with the details of the story the circumstances gradually convinced him, but the decisive thing mentioned is the sight of the wagons, the Egyptian carts, which never appeared in Canaan . ” Newhall .

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