saluted the king with a blessing, and replied to his inquiry as to his age, “ The days of the years of my pilgrimage are 130 years; few and sorrowful are the days of my life's years, and have not reached (the perfect in the presentiment of his approaching end) the days of the life's years of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.” Jacob called his own life and that of his fathers a pilgrimage (מגוּרים), because they had not come into actual possession of the promised land, but had been obliged all their life long to wander about, unsettled and homeless, in the land promised to them for an inheritance, as in a strange land. This pilgrimage was at the same time a figurative representation of the inconstancy and weariness of the earthly life, in which man does not attain to that true rest of peace with God and blessedness in His fellowship, for which he was created, and for which therefore his soul is continually longing (cf. Psa 39:13; Psa 119:19, Psa 119:54; 1Ch 29:15). The apostle, therefore, could justly regard these words as a declaration of the longing of the patriarchs for the eternal rest of their heavenly fatherland (Heb 11:13-16). So also Jacob's life was little (מעט) and evil (i.e., full of toil and trouble) in comparison with the life of his fathers. For Abraham lived to be 175 years old, and Isaac 180; and neither of them had led a life so agitated, so full of distress and dangers, of tribulation and anguish, as Jacob had from his first flight to Haran up to the time of his removal to Egypt.
Verse 10
After this probably short interview, of which, however, only the leading incidents are given, Jacob left the king with a blessing.
verses 11-12
Joseph assigned to his father and his brethren, according to Pharaoh's command, a possession (אחזּה) for a dwelling-place in the best part of Egypt, the land of Raëmses, and provided them with bread, “ according to the mouth of the little ones,” i.e., according to the necessities of each family, answering to the larger or smaller number of their children. כּלכּל with a double accusative ( Ges. §139). The settlement of the Israelites is called the land of Raëmses (רעמסס, in pause רעמסס Exo 1:11), instead of Goshen, either because the province of Goshen (Γεσέμ, lxx) is indicated by the name of its former capital Raëmses (i.e., Heroopolis, on the site or in the immediate neighbourhood of the modern Abu Keisheib, in Wady Tumilat (vid., Exo 1:11), or because Israel settled in the vicinity of Raëmses. The district of Goshen is to be sought in the modern
