Genesis 46

Jacob Goes Down to Egypt

At Beer-sheba the Lord tells Jacob not to fear going down to Egypt, where He will make of him a great nation. The chapter counts the seventy who went with him, and Joseph, meeting his father in Goshen, tells his brothers what to say to Pharaoh.

Genesis chaptersChapter 46 of 50

Jacob is 130 years old when he stands before Pharaoh (Gen. 47:9), soon after Joseph tells his brothers that two years of the famine have passed and five remain (Gen. 45:6). He lives seventeen more years in Egypt (Gen. 47:28). The text gives no calendar year. Read with footnotes in Gospel Library

Start reading

Background

Chapter 45 ended with Jacob’s spirit reviving: when he saw the wagons Joseph had sent, he said, “Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go and see him before I die” (Gen. 45:27–28).

Chapter 45 ended with Jacob’s spirit reviving: when he saw the wagons Joseph had sent, he said, “Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go and see him before I die” (Gen. 45:27–28). Joseph had told his brothers to bring their father and all that he had down to Goshen, where Joseph would feed them through the five years of famine still to come (Gen. 45:9–11). Chapter 46 is the journey, and the last stop in Canaan.

Later scripture comes back to this moment often. Exodus opens by repeating the names of those who “came into Egypt” (Ex. 1:1–5). Moses reminds Israel that “thy fathers went down into Egypt with threescore and ten persons” (Deut. 10:22), and a psalm says, “Israel also came into Egypt; and Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham” (Ps. 105:23). Stephen, retelling the story, counts seventy-five (Acts 7:14); the note at verse 26 says why the numbers differ. Nephi remembers Joseph as the one “preserved by the hand of the Lord, that he might preserve his father, Jacob, and all his household from perishing with famine” (1 Ne. 5:14).

The chapter has four parts: the Lord’s word to Jacob at Beer-sheba (verses 1–7), the list of those who went down (8–27), the meeting with Joseph in Goshen (28–30), and Joseph’s instructions for meeting Pharaoh (31–34). Because the list is most of the chapter, the notes go to what the list is for, not to each name.

The thread through the chapter

Genesis 46 is about leaving the land of promise without leaving the promise.

Genesis 46 is about leaving the land of promise without leaving the promise. Jacob is about to take the whole covenant family out of Canaan, and at Beer-sheba the Lord speaks to the fear that goes with that step: “fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation” (verse 3).

Two Hebrew verbs carry the answer. Jacob goes “down” (yarad), and the Lord says that He will “go down” with him and “bring thee up” (‘alah) again (verses 3–4). The book of Exodus uses the same pair when the time comes (Ex. 3:8). Between the promise and its keeping, the chapter does three things. It counts the seed of the great nation, seventy names (verses 8–27). It lets Jacob see Joseph, whose hand the Lord had said would close his eyes (verses 4, 28–30). And it records Joseph’s plan to settle the family in Goshen, apart from the Egyptians (verses 31–34).

Tap any highlighted phrase to open a note beneath its versein the margin.

Verses 1–7

The Lord’s word at Beer-sheba

In plain words

Israel set out with everything he had and came to Beer-sheba, where he offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. That night God spoke to him in a vision: “Jacob! Jacob!” “Here I am.” “I am God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you into a great nation. I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will surely bring you up again. And Joseph will close your eyes.”

Jacob left Beer-sheba. His sons carried him, their little ones, and their wives in the wagons Pharaoh had sent for him. They took their livestock and the goods they had gathered in Canaan, and Jacob came into Egypt with all his descendants: his sons and grandsons, his daughters and granddaughters.

1 And Israel took his journey with all that he had, and came to Beer-sheba, and offered sacrifices unto the God of his father Isaac.

Context #

Why Jacob stops at Beer-sheba

Beer-sheba is where Jacob’s father and grandfather had called on the Lord, and Jacob stops there to worship before he leaves Canaan.

Beer-sheba is where Jacob’s father and grandfather had called on the Lord, and Jacob stops there to worship before he leaves Canaan. Abraham “planted a grove in Beer-sheba, and called there on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God” (Gen. 21:33). Isaac, after the Lord appeared to him there, “builded an altar there, and called upon the name of the Lord” (Gen. 26:23–25). Beer-sheba was “the home of Abraham (Gen. 21:31), Isaac (26:23), and Jacob (28:10)” and “was regarded as the southern limit of Israel.” Jacob leaves the land of promise from its southern edge, and from the place where his fathers had worshiped.

The Lord answers him in the words He had used to Isaac in the same place. At Beer-sheba “the same night” the Lord told Isaac, “I am the God of Abraham thy father: fear not, for I am with thee” (Gen. 26:24). Now He says to Jacob, “I am God, the God of thy father: fear not” (verse 3). In Hebrew the two commands are the same words, ’al tira, “do not fear.” The text does not say that Jacob was afraid when he stopped; it says only that he sacrificed, and that God spoke to him in “visions of the night.”

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Beersheba”, Bible Dictionary. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub.

2 And God spake unto Israel in the visions of the night, and said, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, Here am I.

3 And he said, I am God, the God of thy father: fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation:

Related Scriptures #

Why Jacob might fear Egypt

Egypt had a mixed record for Jacob’s family, and the Lord’s “fear not” answers a real worry.

Egypt had a mixed record for Jacob’s family, and the Lord’s “fear not” answers a real worry. Abraham had gone down into Egypt in a famine (Gen. 12:10; Abr. 2:21). When famine came again in Isaac’s day, the Lord appeared to him and said, “Go not down into Egypt; dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of” (Gen. 26:1–2). And the Lord had told Abraham that his seed “shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years” (Gen. 15:13). Genesis does not say what Jacob feared; that he remembered the prophecy to Abraham and the command to Isaac is an inference from the earlier chapters.

Nor does Genesis say why Isaac was forbidden to go to Egypt and Jacob is told he may. What the Lord adds in verses 3–4 is a promise, not a command: the nation will be made there, He will go down with Jacob, and He will bring him up again. Jacob goes at the Lord’s word and not simply because Joseph and Pharaoh have invited him.

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers: Genesis, Read on Bible Hub.

Related Scriptures #

The great nation is made in Egypt

The Lord says that the nation promised to Abraham will take shape in Egypt.

The Lord says that the nation promised to Abraham will take shape in Egypt. The words are the ones He spoke to Abraham: “I will make of thee a great nation” (Gen. 12:2). In Hebrew both promises say goy gadol, “a great nation.” Moses describes how it was kept. He gives Israel these words to say before the Lord: “A Syrian ready to perish was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous” (Deut. 26:5). The Hebrew has goy gadol again, with “went down” (yarad) and “there” (sham), as in verse 3. Exodus says the same of the generations that followed: “the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them” (Ex. 1:7).

So on Moses’s account the word given at Beer-sheba was kept: in Egypt Jacob’s family became a great nation. The list in verses 8–27 is where that growth begins.

4 I will go down with thee into Egypt; and I will also surely bring thee up again: and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes.

Witness of Christ #

The Lord goes down with Israel

The Lord’s promise uses the same two verbs He will use at the burning bush.

The Lord’s promise uses the same two verbs He will use at the burning bush. In Hebrew, “I will go down (’ered) with thee into Egypt; and I will also surely bring thee up (’a‘alkha) again.” The second verb is reinforced by a repeated form, literally “and I, I will bring thee up, also bringing up.” When the time comes, the Lord tells Moses, “I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large” (Ex. 3:8), with the same pair of verbs, yarad and ‘alah.

The promise can be read of Jacob himself and of his family, and Genesis records both. For Jacob himself, his sons “carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah” (Gen. 50:13). For his family, Jacob says to Joseph, “God shall be with you, and bring you again unto the land of your fathers” (Gen. 48:21), and Joseph says to his brothers, “God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land unto the land which he sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob” (Gen. 50:24).

The speaker here is “God” (Hebrew Elohim), and Genesis 46 does not say which person of the Godhead is meant. President Oaks teaches that “the scriptural records of words spoken by ‘God’ or the ‘Lord’ are almost always the words of Jehovah, our risen Lord, Jesus Christ,” and Jehovah, usually printed “Lord” in the KJV, “is the premortal Jesus Christ.” On that teaching the voice here is most likely Jehovah’s, though the verse does not say so. The speaker of Exodus 3:8 is “the Lord” (Ex. 3:7), and the verbs join the two promises: the One who says “I am come down” in Exodus keeps the word, “I will go down with thee,” given to Jacob.

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Dallin H. Oaks, “The Teachings of Jesus Christ”, general conference, Apr. 2023. “Jehovah”, Bible Dictionary.

Context #

A promise that Jacob will not die mourning

The Lord promises that Joseph will be with Jacob when he dies, and Genesis shows the promise kept.

The Lord promises that Joseph will be with Jacob when he dies, and Genesis shows the promise kept. To “put his hand upon thine eyes” is to close the eyes of the dead: “In Hebrew custom, it was the responsibility of the closest and most beloved relative to close the eyes of a deceased person and give them a parting kiss.” When Jacob dies, “Joseph fell upon his father’s face, and wept upon him, and kissed him” (Gen. 50:1).

Jacob had expected a different death. When he was shown Joseph’s coat he refused comfort: “I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning” (Gen. 37:35). When he heard that Joseph lived, he said, “I will go and see him before I die” (Gen. 45:28). Now the Lord tells him that this son’s hand will close his eyes. So when Joseph appears in Goshen and Jacob says, “Now let me die, since I have seen thy face, because thou art yet alive” (verse 30), the words are not despair: his reason is that he has seen Joseph alive. He did not die then: he lived seventeen more years in Egypt (Gen. 47:28).

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Genesis 42–50, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025).

5 And Jacob rose up from Beer-sheba: and the sons of Israel carried Jacob their father, and their little ones, and their wives, in the wagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him.

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

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

Verses 8–27

The seventy

In plain words

These are the names of the Israelites who came to Egypt, Jacob and his sons. Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn, had four sons: Hanoch, Phallu, Hezron, and Carmi. Simeon had six: Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jachin, Zohar, and Shaul, the son of a Canaanite woman. Levi had three: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. Judah had five sons, Er, Onan, Shelah, Perez, and Zerah, but Er and Onan died in Canaan; Perez had two sons, Hezron and Hamul. Issachar had four: Tola, Phuvah, Job, and Shimron. Zebulun had three: Sered, Elon, and Jahleel. These were the sons Leah bore to Jacob in Padan-aram, with his daughter Dinah: thirty-three persons in all.

The sons of Gad were Ziphion, Haggi, Shuni, Ezbon, Eri, Arodi, and Areli. The sons of Asher were Jimnah, Ishuah, Isui, and Beriah, and their sister Serah; Beriah’s sons were Heber and Malchiel. These are the sons of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to his daughter Leah: sixteen persons.

The sons of Rachel, Jacob’s wife, were Joseph and Benjamin. In Egypt Joseph had Manasseh and Ephraim, borne to him by Asenath, the daughter of Poti-pherah, priest of On. Benjamin’s sons were Belah, Becher, Ashbel, Gera, Naaman, Ehi, Rosh, Muppim, Huppim, and Ard. These are the sons of Rachel: fourteen persons.

Dan’s son was Hushim. Naphtali’s sons were Jahzeel, Guni, Jezer, and Shillem. These are the sons of Bilhah, whom Laban gave to his daughter Rachel: seven persons.

All who came with Jacob into Egypt, his own descendants, not counting the wives of his sons, were sixty-six. Joseph’s two sons born in Egypt bring the whole household of Jacob that came to Egypt to seventy.

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

Context #

A list of the families Israel would become

The list seems to name more people than can have been alive when Jacob left Canaan, and that is the clue to what it is for.

The list seems to name more people than can have been alive when Jacob left Canaan, and that is the clue to what it is for. It is arranged by Jacob’s four wives, Leah’s children first, then those of Zilpah, Rachel, and Bilhah, with a total after each group (33, 16, 14, 7). But Perez, one of the twins born after Joseph was sold (Gen. 38:29), already has two sons, and Benjamin, still “the lad” a short time before (Gen. 44:22), has ten.

One reading is that the list includes grandsons and great-grandsons born later, in Egypt, who “came into Egypt in lumbis patrum,” in the loins of their fathers. The same way of speaking appears in the New Testament, where Levi “payed tithes in Abraham” because “he was yet in the loins of his father” (Heb. 7:9–10). The check on this reading is Numbers 26, the census of Israel’s families in the wilderness. Reuben’s sons here, Hanoch, Phallu (spelled Pallu there), Hezron, and Carmi, are there the heads of Reuben’s families (Num. 26:5–6); Perez’s sons are there too: “of Hezron, the family of the Hezronites: of Hamul, the family of the Hamulites” (Num. 26:21). On this reading, the chapter lists the men from whom Israel’s families descend, “the germs and roots of all the tribes and families of the whole nation.” Er and Onan, who “died in the land of Canaan,” are named but not counted in Leah’s thirty-three.

Exodus begins with the same heading, the names of Jacob’s sons, and the same total of seventy (Ex. 1:1–5), so the list joins the story of a family to the story of a nation.

Sources: Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

9 And the sons of Reuben; Hanoch, and Phallu, and Hezron, and Carmi.

10 And the sons of Simeon; Jemuel, and Jamin, and Ohad, and Jachin, and Zohar, and Shaul the son of a Canaanitish woman.

11 And the sons of Levi; Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.

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

Witness of Christ #

Perez, Hezron, and the line to Christ

Hezron, one of these two sons, is the next link in the line from Judah to the Messiah.

Hezron, one of these two sons, is the next link in the line from Judah to the Messiah. “Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan” refers to the story told in Gen. 38:7–10; Perez is the twin born to Judah and Tamar (Gen. 38:29; see the note there). The book of Ruth gives the generations of Perez: “Pharez begat Hezron, And Hezron begat Ram, and Ram begat Amminadab… and Jesse begat David” (Ruth 4:18–22). Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus runs through the same names: “Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar; and Phares begat Esrom; and Esrom begat Aram” (Matt. 1:3). Matthew’s Esrom and Aram stand where Ruth has Hezron and Ram.

A list of unfamiliar names is carrying the line of promise, and Genesis 46 records that this line went down into Egypt with the rest.

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

13 And the sons of Issachar; Tola, and Phuvah, and Job, and Shimron.

14 And the sons of Zebulun; Sered, and Elon, and Jahleel.

15 These be the sons of Leah, which she bare unto Jacob in Padan-aram, with his daughter Dinah: all the souls of his sons and his daughters were thirty and three.

16 And the sons of Gad; Ziphion, and Haggi, Shuni, and Ezbon, Eri, and Arodi, and Areli.

17 And the sons of Asher; Jimnah, and Ishuah, and Isui, and Beriah, and Serah their sister: and the sons of Beriah; Heber, and Malchiel.

18 These are the sons of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to Leah his daughter, and these she bare unto Jacob, even sixteen souls.

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

20 And unto Joseph in the land of Egypt were born Manasseh and Ephraim, which Asenath the daughter of Poti-pherah priest of On bare unto him.

21 And the sons of Benjamin were Belah, and Becher, and Ashbel, Gera, and Naaman, Ehi, and Rosh, Muppim, and Huppim, and Ard.

22 These are the sons of Rachel, which were born to Jacob: all the souls were fourteen.

23 And the sons of Dan; Hushim.

24 And the sons of Naphtali; Jahzeel, and Guni, and Jezer, and Shillem.

25 These are the sons of Bilhah, which Laban gave unto Rachel his daughter, and she bare these unto Jacob: all the souls were seven.

26 All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins, besides Jacob’s sons’ wives, all the souls were threescore and six;

Related Scriptures #

Sixty-six, seventy, or seventy-five

The chapter gives two totals, and the difference between them is who is counted.

The chapter gives two totals, and the difference between them is who is counted. The sums after each group (verses 15, 18, 22, 25) are 33, 16, 14, and 7, which make seventy. Verse 26 gives sixty-six: those “which came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins, besides Jacob’s sons’ wives.” The text does not name the four left out. The reckoning that fits its wording is Jacob himself, who is counted in Leah’s thirty-three, and Joseph with his two sons, who were already in Egypt. Verse 27 then counts the whole “house of Jacob” and gets “threescore and ten,” the number Moses gives later (Ex. 1:5; Deut. 10:22). The wives of Jacob’s sons are not counted in either.

Stephen says seventy-five (Acts 7:14), and that number is the Septuagint’s, not the Hebrew’s. Its text of verse 20 adds five names after Manasseh and Ephraim: “Machir. And Machir begot Galaad. And the sons of Ephraim, the brother of Manasses; Sutalaam, and Taam. And the sons of Sutalaam; Edom.” Its verse 27 then reads “seventy-five souls.” The Hebrew text, which the KJV follows, has seventy in Genesis and in both Exodus and Deuteronomy.

Sources: Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. The Septuagint (Rahlfs Greek text, with Brenton’s English translation), Elpenor Bilingual Septuagint. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

27 And the sons of Joseph, which were born him in Egypt, were two souls: all the souls of the house of Jacob, which came into Egypt, were threescore and ten.

Verses 28–30

Jacob and Joseph in Goshen

In plain words

Jacob sent Judah ahead to Joseph to show the way to Goshen, and they came into the land of Goshen. Joseph hitched up his chariot and went up to meet his father Israel in Goshen. When he appeared before him, he threw his arms around his neck and wept on his neck for a long time. Israel said to Joseph, “Now let me die, since I have seen your face and know that you are still alive.”

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

Context #

Why Judah goes ahead

Jacob sends Judah ahead to Joseph, and the verse does not say why Judah.

Jacob sends Judah ahead to Joseph, and the verse does not say why Judah. The Hebrew says that Jacob sent him “to direct” (lehorot) “before him” to Goshen. The Septuagint reads differently: Judah goes “to meet him to the city of Heroes, into the land of Ramesses,” and in verse 29 Joseph goes up to meet his father “at the city of Heroes.” The Hebrew text, which the KJV follows, names Goshen in both verses.

Genesis gives no reason, but Judah had taken the lead in the story that brought the family here. He was the brother who told Jacob, “I will be surety for him; of my hand shalt thou require him” (Gen. 43:9), and who pleaded with Joseph to take Benjamin’s place: “let thy servant abide instead of the lad a bondman to my lord” (Gen. 44:33). “He was a natural leader among the sons of Jacob,” and Jacob’s blessing says, “thy father’s children shall bow down before thee” (Gen. 49:8).

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. The Septuagint (Rahlfs Greek text, with Brenton’s English translation), Elpenor Bilingual Septuagint. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Judah”, Bible Dictionary.

Context #

Goshen, a place apart

Goshen is the district Joseph had named when he sent for his father: “thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be near unto me” (Gen. 45:10).

Goshen is the district Joseph had named when he sent for his father: “thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be near unto me” (Gen. 45:10). It was “the part of Egypt in which the Israelites dwelt,” with “pasture land,” “probably in the eastern part of the delta of the Nile,” and Genesis later calls it “the best of the land” and “the land of Rameses” (Gen. 47:6; Gen. 47:11).

A whole family of foreigners settled in one district is not out of place in Egypt. There are “examples, from roughly the period when the Hebrews would have been in Egypt, of the Pharaoh settling foreigners together as a group in the delta region of Egypt,” some of them “because of their profession.” These are parallels to what Genesis describes, not a record of this settlement. Pharaoh’s grant of the land comes in Gen. 47:1–6.

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Goshen”, Bible Dictionary. Scripture Central, “Why Were the Hebrews Allowed to Settle in Egypt?”, KnoWhy #844, Mar. 17, 2026.

29 And Joseph made ready his chariot, and went up to meet Israel his father, to Goshen, and presented himself unto him; and he fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while.

30 And Israel said unto Joseph, Now let me die, since I have seen thy face, because thou art yet alive.

Verses 31–34

What to tell Pharaoh

In plain words

Joseph said to his brothers and to his father’s household, “I will go up and tell Pharaoh, ‘My brothers and my father’s household, who were in Canaan, have come to me. The men are shepherds; they have been keepers of livestock, and they have brought their flocks and herds and everything they own.’ When Pharaoh summons you and asks, ‘What is your occupation?’ you are to say, ‘Your servants have kept livestock from our youth until now, we and our fathers.’ Then you may live in the land of Goshen, because every shepherd is detestable to the Egyptians.”

31 And Joseph said unto his brethren, and unto his father’s house, I will go up, and shew Pharaoh, and say unto him, My brethren, and my father’s house, which were in the land of Canaan, are come unto me;

32 And the men are shepherds, for their trade hath been to feed cattle; and they have brought their flocks, and their herds, and all that they have.

33 And it shall come to pass, when Pharaoh shall call you, and shall say, What is your occupation?

34 That ye shall say, Thy servants’ trade hath been about cattle from our youth even until now, both we, and also our fathers: that ye may dwell in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians.

Language #

Why shepherds, and why an abomination

Joseph has his family describe themselves truthfully in a way that will win them a place apart.

Joseph has his family describe themselves truthfully in a way that will win them a place apart. Verse 32 calls them “shepherds” (Hebrew ro‘e tson, “keepers of sheep”), and verse 34 has them say that they have been “men of livestock” (anshe miqneh, which the KJV renders “cattle”) from their youth. The aim is in verse 34: “that ye may dwell in the land of Goshen.” A family that the Egyptians avoided would be left to itself there, so that, in one reading, its national and religious independence would not be endangered by too close contact with the Egyptians.

Why would the Egyptians despise shepherds? The Hebrew word, to‘evah, “abomination,” is the one used when Joseph’s brothers dined with him and the Egyptians ate apart, “because the Egyptians might not eat bread with the Hebrews; for that is an abomination unto the Egyptians” (Gen. 43:32, where the aversion is taken up). The lexicon lists both verses under a “ritual sense” of the word, beside the line in Exodus where Moses says “we shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians to the Lord our God” (Ex. 8:26). The reason given for that separate table is religious: “Several Egyptian deities were represented by cattle,” and the Hebrews “were herdsmen who slaughtered and ate cattle.” A social reason may have gone with it: Egypt was a state built on farming, and in one reading its people associated “rudeness and barbarism” with “the very name of a shepherd.” Genesis itself gives no reason.

The plan works. When Pharaoh asks, the brothers answer, “Thy servants are shepherds, both we, and also our fathers,” and Pharaoh says, “in the land of Goshen let them dwell” (Gen. 47:3–6).

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Genesis 37–50: Joseph: The Power of Preparation, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003). Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.

Seeing Christ in Genesis 46

Two lines run from this chapter to Christ. The first is a descent. Among the seventy names are Judah, Perez, and Hezron, three generations of the line that Ruth carries down to David and Matthew to Jesus (Ruth 4:18–22; Matt. 1:3).

The second is a promise. The God who tells Jacob, “I will go down with thee,” speaks with the verbs the Lord uses to Moses: “I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land” (Ex. 3:8). The Lord of Exodus 3 is Jehovah, who “is the premortal Jesus Christ,” and President Oaks teaches that the words scripture records as spoken by “God” “are almost always the words of Jehovah.” On that teaching it is He who promises to go down with His people into Egypt and to bring them up again.

Worth exploring next

The words of the promise. Compare Gen. 26:1–5 and Gen. 28:13–15 with verses 1–4, and Gen. 50:24–26 and Ex. 3:7–10 with verse 4.
The family in Egypt. Ex. 1:1–14 opens with the names of Jacob’s sons and the count of seventy, describes the nation’s growth (Ex. 1:7), and brings in a king “which knew not Joseph” (Ex. 1:8).
The census. Compare the names here with Num. 26:1–65.
Joseph’s seed. Moroni, giving Ether’s words, calls this journey “a type” of a later one: “as Joseph brought his father down into the land of Egypt, even so he died there; wherefore, the Lord brought a remnant of the seed of Joseph out of the land of Jerusalem” (Ether 13:6–7).
Why a family could settle in Egypt. KnoWhy #844 (Scripture Central), “Why Were the Hebrews Allowed to Settle in Egypt?,” sets the story beside the evidence for people from Canaan living in Egypt.

Sources & further reading

The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub.
Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.
The Septuagint (Rahlfs Greek text, with Brenton’s English translation), Elpenor Bilingual Septuagint.
“Beersheba”, Bible Dictionary.
“Goshen”, Bible Dictionary.
“Judah”, Bible Dictionary.
“Jehovah”, Bible Dictionary.
Dallin H. Oaks, “The Teachings of Jesus Christ”, general conference, Apr. 2023.
Genesis 42–50, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025).
Genesis 37–50: Joseph: The Power of Preparation, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003).
Scripture Central, “Why Were the Hebrews Allowed to Settle in Egypt?”, KnoWhy #844, Mar. 17, 2026.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.
Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers: Genesis, Read on Bible Hub.

I’ve studied Genesis 46