Week 4 Genesis 47
Jacob emigrated to Egypt as an old man. When the Pharaoh asked him how old he was Jacob said he was 130. The king didn’t ask for a quality-of-life assessment but Jacob went on to say: few and unpleasant have been the years of my life (the note in the margin said that unpleasant literally meant evil).
I checked a couple of dozen other versions. Quite a few used the word evil. Others said things like hard. Difficult. Sad. Troubled. Bad.
I paged back to do a quick review of Jacob’s story:
• he ripped-off his brother Esau. Twice
• Esau wanted to murder him (so Jacob bugged-out)
• Jacob married the girl-of-his-dreams (after marrying the girl-of-his-nightmares)
• got a couple of excellent promises from the Lord
• worked like a dog & got rich
• eventually mended-fences with Esau
• his daughter was raped (so his sons killed the rapist)
• the love-of-his-life died
• his father died
• his favourite son was killed
• his favourite son wasn’t dead – he miraculously resurfaced in Egypt.
If I drew up a two-column table of Jacob’s life there’d be some bad & sad things in Column A. Column B would show some definite upsides & pluses to Jacob’s life. Column A Evils. Column B Goods.
There aren’t many bible characters bigger than Jacob. He was one of the great & famous patriarchs of the whole Jewish race. But getting near the end he figured that he’d lived a pretty dismal Column A life.
Note: quote from Genesis 47:9 (NASB)