CHAPTER X.
JACOB IN THE PRESENCE OF PHARAOH.
We have seen that the son stood before kings, and the father is now to do the same. If we have beheld not a little in former scenes to commend Joseph to our love, we are here to see yet more. As soon as he met his father, he communicated his purpose to apply to Pharaoh to sanction the sojourn of the patriarch and his tribe in Egypt. This was easily arranged; and at the close of the proceedings, Joseph “brought in Jacob his father, and set him before Pharaoh: and Jacob blessed Pharaoh” (Gen. xlvii. 7). When this was accomplished, we can suppose that the highest wishes of one so affectionate as Joseph were gratified. For about seventeen years his parent lived to bless him with his company and his counsel; and though we have not many details of their intercourse during that period, we may easily imagine that the tenderness of those seventeen years largely compensated for the long and violent separation which had kept the father and the son so far apart, and even made them the citizens of different kingdoms.
But we may notice here, in passing, the question of Pharaoh, and the answer of Jacob, at their interview. “How old art thou?” was the monarch’s inquiry; and Jacob’s reply was a picture in words of the weary life of man: “The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers, in the days of their pilgrimage” (Gen. xlvii. 9). Few and evil! Behold the history of a life whose days were protracted even beyond the ordinary span! Few and evil, because man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. Few and evil, because it is written, “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” Few and evil, because, in this special case, there had been more than common grief endured, where those who should have been a solace or a stay were transformed by sin into causes of anguish, first to their aged parent, and at last also to themselves.
And how sad must the reply of Jacob have sounded in the ears of the king! It rarely happens that monarchs are permitted to hear unpleasant truths. Everything around them seems to proclaim or to whisper that to-morrow will be as to-day; or if different, only more joyous and more thoughtless still! For once, however, the hoary-headed patriarch tells the monarch the truth, and indirectly reminds him, Thou, too, must die. There was another king, the King of Terrors, mightier than Pharaoh, and slowly approaching to lay him in the dust.
And perhaps there is nothing in all the history or the life of man which shows more clearly the effects of sin, or the ruin of the fall, than his wilful ignorance, or at least his want of feeling, on the great subject of his mortality. Of no truth is it possible for man to be more convinced than this—I must die. It is not so absolutely certain that the sun will rise on any given day, as that man may die any moment or any breath. Yet who is moved by that conviction to prepare for dying? Who is stirred up by all the funerals which he sees, or all the open graves which he visits, to prepare for meeting God? Not one. It is not that kind of influence: it is the grace and the Spirit of God that make man wise to consider his latter end. For example, the plaintive sentiment, “Few and evil,” uttered by the patriarch, most probably passed through the monarch’s mind like water through a sieve. A sigh, or a wish, or a hope, perhaps, and all was over! The thought was dashed aside as an unwelcome intruder amid the gorgeous scenes of a palace. And if that was the case, Pharaoh was only a specimen of the universal race of man. The fleeting nature of life is forgotten amid its cares, its engrossments, and trifles. But happy they whom the Spirit of God makes wise in this and other respects! Happy they who cling, as Jacob did, to Him who is the life, and over whom death has no power for ever!
In the African desert there is a bird, known as the honey-guide, which often conducts the traveller to some hive, whose sweet stores form a staple article of food in those dreary parts. By a peculiar instinct, provision is thus made to supply the wayfarer’s wants; or, in some cases, to rescue him from death. Now God has yet more wisely and surely provided for our escape from the second death, if we listen to the warnings of his Word or the guidance of his Spirit; and happy are they who are thus guided! They are led to a portion sweeter far than honey from the honey-comb. The few and weary days of our earthly pilgrimage then conduct us to the house of the Lord—the city of the Great King—the abode to which the palace of Pharaoh was as a dungeon or a cell.