Week 10: Joseph's Kindness to His Brothers

Genesis 47 is the worst year of the famine, and for Jacob's family it's the best year in a generation. The shepherds stand before Pharaoh and come away with the best land in Egypt. Then an old man with no crown and no country blesses the king twice, and tells him his hundred and thirty years have been few and hard. Joseph feeds his brothers' households by the number of their children, the same brothers who once sold him for silver. Meanwhile, the rest of Egypt trades its money, its herds, its fields, and finally itself to Pharaoh for bread, and thanks Joseph for it. Genesis sets those two scenes side by side and doesn't say what to make of them. Then, after seventeen good years in Goshen, Jacob calls Joseph to his bed and makes him swear one thing: Do not bury me in Egypt.