Latest / Reformed Thinking / In Egypt Yet Heir of Canaan: The Pilgrim Hope (Genesis 47:27-28)

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In Egypt Yet Heir of Canaan: The Pilgrim Hope (Genesis 47:27-28) · Reformed Thinking

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Imagine an economic collapse so severe that the citizens of the
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greatest empire on earth are literally selling their own
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bodies to the government just for a loaf of bread.
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Yeah, I mean, the banks have completely failed, the
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agriculture has dried up and people are just signing over
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everything. Right.
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They're giving up their ancestral lands, their
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livestock, their freedom, just to survive another week.
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It is an absolute nightmare scenario.
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But right in the middle of that horror, a group of immigrant
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shepherds, refugees essentially, is somehow getting wealthy,
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acquiring real estate and experiencing a massive
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population boom. It defies all logic.
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Welcome to Reform Thinking. I'm so glad you were joining us
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for this deep dive into the source material.
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Yeah, we have a really fascinating discussion lined up
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for you today. Our mission today is to unpack a
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short but absolutely monumental text.
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We are zeroing in on just two verses, Genesis chapter 47,
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verses 27 and 20. 8 right and we are looking at theological
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treatises regarding the specific path message to uncover the
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massive theological weight hiding in plain sight.
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So why don't you set the stage for us by reading the text?
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Gladly the author simply notes, and I'm quoting here, and Israel
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dwelt in the land of Egypt in the country of Goshen, and they
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had possessions therein and grew and multiplied exceedingly.
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And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt 17 years.
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So the whole age of Jacob was 140 and seven years.
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Wow. OK, so that is the text.
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Yeah. And right there we hit the
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central tension you will discover today.
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Which is how believers can flourish in a place of exile,
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right? Like right in the middle of a
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Pagan empire, like Egypt. Precisely flourishing there
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while still looking forward to a promised inheritance in Canaan.
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So as we walk through this together, we want you to treat
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this like a mirror. Yeah, if you are listening to
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this and looking at your own bank account right now, or
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watching the news and feeling a sense of dread, pay close
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attention. This discussion is going to
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challenge how you view worldly security.
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It will challenge how you understand suffering and how you
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see the quiet but absolute sovereignty of God orchestrating
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every single detail of history. I mean, let's start by building
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the physical world around these verses.
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What is the historical setup here?
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Right, because we are not just talking about a vague fairy tale
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setting. This is a concrete moment in
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human history. It is we need to place ourselves
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in the concrete history of the Middle Bronze Age.
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So we are looking at roughly what, 1876 BC?
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Yeah, 1876 BC. This is the era of the Middle
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Kingdom of Egypt, highly likely under the reign of Pharaoh
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Senisret the Third. And the geopolitical situation
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is just completely catastrophic. Total economic collapse due to a
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devastating 7 year famine. To grasp this, you really have
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to understand how Egypt functioned.
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The Nile River, right? That was their lifeblood.
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Absolutely. The Nile River was the
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undisputed agricultural machine of the ancient world.
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Egypt did not rely on rainfall like Canaan did.
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They relied on that annual flooding.
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Right, the inundation. It deposited rich silt onto the
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land, making it the absolute bread basket of the region.
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But for seven consecutive years, the Nile is failing to produce
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the necessary volume of water for irrigation.
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So the surrounding nations are starving to death.
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The ground is cracking, the air is thick with dust and
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desperation. And right in the middle of this
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widespread death, we find the patriarchal family migrating
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into the northeastern region of the fertile Nile Delta.
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A place called Goshen. Goshen So they're not moving
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into the cosmopolitan metropolitan centers like
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Memphis or Thebes. No, no, they are not setting up
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shop in the shadow of the palaces or the massive temples.
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They are on the absolute outskirts.
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OK, let's unpack this a bit. It feels like Goshen is
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functioning as an incubator. Think of a premature baby's
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incubator in a neonatal intensive care unit.
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Oh. That is a great analogy.
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Or a strict quarantine zone in a laboratory.
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Right. The surrounding environment is
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deadly, full of disease, or in this case, full of Pagan
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idolatry, and this family is placed in this hermetically
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sealed container. But.
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The big question is why? Yeah.
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Was God isolating them just for agricultural reasons to give
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them good grazing land with some leftover moisture?
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Or was something else happening beneath the surface?
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That is the big question we need to ask when looking at the text.
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It was absolutely about more than agriculture.
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OK, tell us why. Well, the Egyptians considered
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shepherds to be an abomination, culturally and religiously.
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The mainstream Egyptian elite viewed nomadic livestock herders
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with absolute disgust. So there was intense cultural
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prejudice. Massive prejudice.
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The Egyptians were a settled, highly structured agrarian
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society. They looked at nomadic tent
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dwellers as barbaric. Plus there's a religious element
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too, right? Oh.
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Definitely, the Egyptians worshipped various livestock,
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bulls, cows, Rams as representations of their
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deities. And the Israelites made their
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living breeding, slaughtering and eating those very animals.
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Exactly. I mean, absolutely.
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So God intentionally used this cultural prejudice.
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Goshen was a divinely ordered preservation chamber.
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So the isolation kept the Covenant family from
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assimilating into the Pagan pantheon of mainstream Egypt.
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Right. If they had moved into the heart
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of Egyptian society, intermarried and adopted their
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religious practices, the unique identity of the covenant seed
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would have dissolved completely. So God provided food, yes, but
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crucially, he preserved their distinct identity by using the
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the Egyptians own racism against them.
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That is heavy when you think about it.
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God is utilizing the cultural prejudice of a Pagan empire to
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build a wall of protection around his people.
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The Egyptians want nothing to do with them, and that very
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rejection is the mechanism God uses to keep his people pure.
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It is a stunning display of divine sovereignty over human
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sin. If we connect this to the bigger
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picture, this brings us straight back to Genesis chapter 15.
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Verse 13 doesn't. It it absolutely does, God told
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Abraham decades earlier that his descendants would be afflicted
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sojourners in a land that was not theirs.
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So this entire migration down into Egypt was not a climate
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crisis detour. Not at all.
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It was not an accident meteorology.
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It was the precise execution of a divine decree.
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Secular historians might look at this era and see a nomadic tribe
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migrating to survive a regional drought.
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But biblical theology recognizes this as God moving the massive
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geopolitical chess pieces of human history to fulfill his
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covenant promise. The famine, the prejudice, the
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geography, it is all acting as an instrument in the hand of
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God. Which brings us to a massive,
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shocking contrast in the text. Yeah, to truly grasp the quiet
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peace of verses 27 and 28, you have to look at the economic
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carnage in the verses right before it.
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Verses 13 through 26 read like an absolute nightmare of
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centralized governmental overreach and societal collapse.
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The economic collapse detailed in those preceding verses is
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staggering to read, even thousands of years later.
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You have the native Egyptian population, the citizens of the
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most advanced civilization on Earth, starving.
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Under Joseph's administrative system, the people first deplete
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all their money buying grain from the state storehouses.
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And once the silver runs out, the barter system kicks in.
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They bring their horses, their flocks, their herds and their
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donkeys. When the livestock is entirely
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gone, they're left with nothing but dirt and flesh.
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So they surrender their ancestral lands and finally, to
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avoid starvation, they sell their physical bodies into
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perpetual state servitude to Pharaoh for bread.
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They are literally saying buy us and our land for bread and we
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and our land will be servants to Pharaoh.
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Is a flat 20% income tax paid to a human king on all future
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agricultural yield? The entire nation is reduced to
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a massive system of sharecropping.
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The middle class is completely wiped out.
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Here is where it gets incredibly fascinating.
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While the native population becomes enslaved sharecroppers
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on their own soil, the household of Israel is doing the complete
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opposite. Please let me just reason
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through this premise for a second.
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The native born citizens are losing everything and the
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immigrant shepherds are acquiring real estate.
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Yeah, it is wild. How does that even work legally
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in an ancient, highly centralized state?
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You have foreign refugees showing up with nothing but
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their flocks, right? And while the citizens are
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literally signing over their ancestral deeds to the
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government, the refugees are obtaining land titles.
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It seems like a massive contradiction in the historical
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record, right? It really does.
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It defies all legal logic of the ancient Near East.
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Foreigners did not have the civil rights to purchase
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permanent real estate in Egypt. Especially during the state of
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emergency where the government was nationalizing all private
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property. To understand how radical this
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is, we need to look closely at the specific language used in
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the Hebrew text. Let's do it.
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The verb used for acquiring possessions in verse 27 is quite
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unique. It is a Nephal imperfect.
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OK, what does that mean for us? Well, in its active form the
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root word means to grasp, to seize, or to lay hold of
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something. But in the specific grammatical
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form used here, it carries A passive, reflexive sense.
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It means to be caught, to take possession, to hold fast, or
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even to be settled. So Moses is deliberately
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choosing a word that denotes a secure permanent like physical
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foothold. Yes, it implies they are putting
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down deep roots that cannot easily be pulled up.
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God's unseen hand overruled the legal, cultural and economic
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barriers of the Egyptian empire to give his elect a secure
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place. While the native Egyptians were
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legally stripped of their land titles, the foreign shepherds
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were securing an unbreakable drip on the fertile soil of
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Goshen. So the entire system is rigged
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against them legally, culturally and economically.
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Yet they are acquiring property. It is almost.
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Absurd. It really is.
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I mean, if I am Egyptian farmer, I am watching my family farm get
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swallowed up by the state and I am looking over at the Delta
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region and seeing these foreign shepherds expanding their
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territory. The resentment must have been
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intense. But it highlights the absolute
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sovereignty of God over human governments.
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Pharaoh might be the most formidable monarch on the
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planet, claiming to be a literal living deity, but he is
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unwittingly acting as a landlord for God's chosen people.
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That is a brilliant way to frame it.
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Pharaoh thinks he is consolidating his own empire,
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but the true king of the universe is using him to provide
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a safe haven for 70 people. Which brings up the next major
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point of the text. The acquisition of property is
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paired directly with a massive population explosion.
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Right, let's shift focus to that population boom, because land is
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useless if you do not have the people to work it or the heirs
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to inherit it. We go from a family of 70 souls
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descending into Egypt and suddenly they're shifting into
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an embryonic nation. How does a single extended
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family multiply so aggressively under these conditions?
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We see a specific phrase here in the text.
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And they were fruitful, and they multiplied exceedingly.
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Those specific verbs carry massive covenantal weight.
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It is the Hebrew verbs para and raba.
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Right. This is the exact verbal pattern
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used in the Garden of Eden in Genesis chapter one, verse 28,
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when God gave the creation mandate to Adam and Eve.
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It is the same phrase repeated to Noah after the flood, and the
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same promise given to Abraham when God told him his
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descendants would be like the stars in the sky.
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So Moses is signaling to the reader that the covenant promise
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is moving from an abstract future hope into concrete
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demographic reality. What was spoken in Eden is
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happening in Goshen. The mandate from Eden is echoing
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in the pastures of Goshen. It proves that God's Word does
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not return void. But from a purely biological and
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sociological standpoint, the conditions for this kind of
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growth are terrible. And we must recognize the
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theological mechanism behind this growth.
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This expansion is supernatural. It is an act of monarchism.
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Can you unpack that term for this listener?
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Monarchism. Sure, Monarchism is a
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theological concept asserting that God alone is the one
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working to produce this outcome. He is the single acting agent
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bringing about the promised result.
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So it is not a cooperative effort between Israel's
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fertility practices and God's distant blessing.
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No, it defies the biological and economic limitations of a
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fallen, starving world. The Egyptians are dying.
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They're birth rates are surely plummeting due to malnutrition,
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but the covenant seed is multiplying exceedingly.
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The language implies an almost unnatural explosive swarming of
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people. It makes me think of an
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unstoppable seed. Have you ever walked down the
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city sidewalk and seen a weed that has somehow broken through
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solid concrete? Oh, absolutely.
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Against all odds, without any visible water source, under the
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oppressive weight of a paved Rd., this green chute just
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violently pushes its way into the sunlight, cracking the
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pavement. It is startling because the
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environment is completely hostile to plant life.
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That is what Israel is doing in Goshen.
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Kingdom growth does not ask for secular permission.
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It does not need ideal economic conditions either it.
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Pushes through the concrete of human history because the seed
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itself has divine vitality. That analogy captures the
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reality perfectly. The concrete of the Egyptian
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Empire could not hold back the seed of Abraham.
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And the growth of Dodd's people here provides a direct
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confrontation to modern, pragmatic systems of thought.
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Yeah, in the sources we are looking at today, the authors
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use this historical reality to launch a sharp critique of
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modern, pragmatic church models. Often, church growth experts
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argue that you need to adopt the marketing strategies, the
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corporate structures and the cultural language of the world
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to be successful. They argue that to reach the
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culture, you must mimic the culture.
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Yes, the idea that we need to look, sound and act like the
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surrounding environment to gain influence, to drop the
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distinction. So we planned in, right?
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The authors point out that Israel did not grow by
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assimilating into Egyptian culture.
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They did not adopt Egyptian agricultural strategies or
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marketing techniques. They grew through the unilateral
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blessing of God while remaining culturally isolated in Goshen.
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True fruitfulness comes under God's promise and according to
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God's means. You do not need to mimic the
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Empire to survive in the Empire. In fact, if Israel had tried to
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mimic Egypt, they would have been absorbed and destroyed.
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Their distinctiveness combined with God's sovereign blessing
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was the key to their survival and multiplication.
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So if you are listening to this, apply that to your own context.
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True growth, whether it is in your own sanctification or the
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growth of your local congregation, comes from
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fidelity to God's established means.
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Not from adopting the latest corporate strategy.
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So moving forward, the camera suddenly shifts.
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Verse 28 gives us complete whiplash.
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It does. We go from a wide angle
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panoramic shot of a booming corporate nation, Israel,
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multiplying exceedingly to a tight, intimate close up of a
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dying old man. That transition is deliberate
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and striking. Notice the shift in names.
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In verse 27, Moses uses the corporate title Israel
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representing the collective nation taking root.
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But in verse 28, he shifts back to the personal name Jacob, he
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writes. And Jacob lived in the land of
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Egypt 17 years. This shift shows continuity
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under mortality. Fathers die, but God's covenant
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does not die with them. The covenant line is not
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suspended upon Jacob's continued earthly life.
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God is advancing his Kingdom even as his chosen historical
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instruments finish their course and fade away.
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Jacob is about to pass off the scene, but the nation of Israel
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is just getting started. There is also a fascinating
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mathematical symmetry here that I find incredibly moving.
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Right. Jacob lives precisely 17 years
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in Egypt before his death. If you read back into Genesis
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chapter 37, you realize that Jacob lost Joseph when Joseph
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was 17 years old. That was the age Joseph was when
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the brothers sold him into slavery and brought back the
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blood stained coat to their father.
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Jacob mourned for decades, convinced his favorite son was
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ripped to pieces by a wild animal.
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He lived with a gaping hole in his heart.
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Yes, the mathematics of Providence.
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God restored the exact number of years to the aging patriarch
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that he had lost to grief. Scripture does not explicitly
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build a giant doctrinal system on this specific number, but it
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displays the tender, meticulous care of God.
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God can restore years in ways that do not erase past sorrow
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but display a wise, measured kindness.
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He gives Jacob 17 years of peace, looking at the face of
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his son, balancing the scales of his long, difficult life.
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It brings a sense of awe to the text.
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And then we get the final tally of his life, 147 years.
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The text states it's so plainly so the whole age of Jacob was
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140 and seven years. The sum of his days.
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The text treats this number with solemn completion.
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Here we must apply the biblical doctrine of Providence.
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This is the understanding that God upholds, directs, disposes,
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and governs all creatures, actions and things.
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From the greatest to the least, yeah.
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Jacob's days were metered out by divine decree.
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Think about his life. He did not die prematurely in
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the famine back in Canaan, even though starvation was a very
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real threat. He did not perish on the
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hazardous journey down to Egypt when he was over 100 years old
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either. He survived until his historical
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and typological task was finished.
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Every year, month and 2nd of his earthly pilgrimage was
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sovereignly calculated by the Creator.
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Let me push back on that, or at least press into it for the
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listener, because I know this raises questions.
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Sure, if our days are calibrated this precisely, if the master
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clock maker has already determined the exact final tick
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of the clock for my life and your life, how should that
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change the way we face mortality today?
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That is a great. Question Why even try to stay
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healthy? Why go to the doctor?
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Does this doctrine just lead to fatalism, where we sit on the
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couch and wait for the clock to run out?
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That is a common misunderstanding, but the
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biblical framework leads to the absolute opposite of fatalism.
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It leads to sober wisdom and active faith.
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Fatalism says my choices do not matter because the end is fixed.
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Right. But Providence says my choices
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matter deeply because God has ordained both the ends and the
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means to achieve those ends. Knowing your days are numbered
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by a wise Creator should push believers to repent, to live
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with a loosened grip on the things of this world.
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You realize your plans are temporary and your body is
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mortal, but it frees you from the frantic panic of trying to
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control the universe. You trust the sovereign
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calibration of your days, you confess sins quickly, you
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forgive others readily, and you bear witness to the truth.
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Knowing your life will conclude precisely when your work is
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complete, you take your medicine.
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You look both ways before crossing the street.
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Because those are the means of preservation.
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Yes, but you do not live in paralyzing fear of the future.
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That is incredibly helpful. It is a massive comfort.
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It removes the anxiety of the unknown without removing human
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responsibility. Now let's step back and look at
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the original audience. We are trying to imagine hearing
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this text for the very first time.
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We are reading it thousands of years later, sitting in
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comfortable chairs with the whole Canon of scripture in
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front of us. But who is Moses writing this to
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initially, and why did they need to hear the specific detail
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about Goshen so desperately? We have to place the original
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audience geographically and psychologically.
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Moses is writing this primarily to the wilderness generation on
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the plains of Moab. They have been delivered from
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Egypt, they have wandered in the desert for 40 years, and now
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they are staring across the Jordan River at the fortified
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Canaanite nations. They are terrified.
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The people they're about to fight are giants.
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Their cities have massive walls that reach to the sky.
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And in their fear, this generation is constantly tempted
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to look back at Egypt. With a distorted longing, they
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keep romanticizing their time in captivity.
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It's like someone remembering the great food they had in a
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high security prison, but completely forgetting the iron
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bars, the concrete floor, and the complete loss of freedom.
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They remember the leeks and the garlic and the pots of meat, but
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they completely block out the memory of the whips, the forest
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labor and the brick quotas. The human mind has a strange way
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of sanitizing the past when it is afraid of the future.
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That is such a true statement. Moses wrote these specific
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verses to shatter that illusion. He wanted to destroy the
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romanticized nostalgia for Egypt once and for all.
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By showing them that their ancestors initial prosperity in
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Goshen was a direct result of Yahweh's unilateral blessing,
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Moses is making a huge theological point.
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He is saying Egypt did not save you, God saved you in Egypt.
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Their survival was not due to the benevolence of Pharaoh.
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It was not due to the economic stability of the Egyptian
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agricultural system. It was pure covenantal
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protection. When they multiplied, it was
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God's doing, not Egypt's environment.
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So Moses is essentially building military confidence by reading
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them their own family history. Right, he is saying, look at
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what God did back then and apply it to what you are facing right
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now. He is laying out a highly
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logical argument to build theological confidence for the
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impending military Congress. His premise is this, if God
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could supernaturally multiply your father's inside a hostile,
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starving foreign empire without a single sword drawn.
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If he could make you explode in population while the greatest
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superpower on earth was collapsing financially and
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legally. He could certainly drive out the
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Canadite tribes before you. It was designed to produce
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corporate confidence for the impending holy war.
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God's promises are irresistible. He does not need ideal
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circumstances to win the battle. All of this history, all of
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these genealogical records and movements of nomadic tribes
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across the ancient Near East, it is a road leading to a specific
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destination. It is not just random historical
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trivia. And that destination is Jesus
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Christ. How do these two verses in
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Genesis connect to the New Testament?
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How do we draw a line from Goshen to the Gospel?
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To see the Christological fulfillment, we have to look at
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the messianic line. In Genesis chapter 49, just two
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chapters after our text, Jacob prophecies over his sons.
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When he gets to Judah, he says that the scepter shall not
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depart from Judah. The ruling authority, the
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Messianic King, will come from Judah's line.
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Now think about the famine from a macro perspective.
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If the family stays in Canaan and starves to death, the
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genealogical line of Judah is permanently extinguished.
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God is preserving Goshen, orchestrating this massive
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geopolitical shift, moving an entire family to a foreign
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incubator so the Messiah can eventually be born according to
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the flesh. Centuries later, the.
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Physical preservation of Israel in Goshen is the historical
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container protecting the ultimate seed, Jesus Christ.
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God is managing the global economy to protect a single
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bloodline. That is a staggering reality to
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consider. A global famine is leveraged to
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protect the great great grandfather of Jesus.
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That brings Joseph into focus as well.
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The parallels between Joseph and Jesus are striking.
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Can we spend some time unpacking how Joseph operates as a type
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here? Absolutely.
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Joseph is an imminent type of Christ in the Old Testament.
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Look at the overarching pattern of his life.
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He is rejected by his own brothers, stripped of his
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identifying robe, sold for the price of a slave and thrown into
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a pit of humiliation. He is falsely accused by
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Potiphar's wife and cast into a dungeon alongside criminals.
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Yet through the sovereign intervention of God, He is
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exalted to the right hand of the supreme authority in the land.
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He is given a new name, a royal signet ring and all authority to
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distribute life saving bread to a starving world.
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Christ experiences the ultimate humiliation rejected by his
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brethren, falsely accused by religious leaders, crucified
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alongside criminals and buried in the pit of the grave.
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Yet He is exalted to the right hand of the Father, given a name
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above every name, reigning over all creation to distribute the
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bread of Life to spiritually starving sinners.
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The brothers who rejected Joseph eventually had to bow the knee
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to him to live. The world that rejected Christ
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will eventually bow the knee to. Him from the pit to the palace.
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The parallels are unavoidable. And it goes even deeper.
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When you look at the geography of the New Testament, there is a
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literal recapitulation of Israel's history playing out in
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the life of Jesus. It is as if Jesus is walking in
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the exact footprints of the nation, but doing it perfectly.
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Yes, in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 2, verse 15, the writer
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quotes the prophet Hosea out of Egypt.
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Have I called my son? Just as the corporate son, the
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nation of Israel was brought down into Egypt to be preserved
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from physical destruction during a severe famine.
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The unique eternal Son of God, Jesus, physically went down to
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Egypt as an infant to escape the murderous decree of King Herod.
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God used Egypt as an incubator for the infant nation and later
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used Egypt as a hiding place for the infant Messiah.
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Christ acts as the true, obedient Israel.
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Think about the contrast. Right.
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The nation of Israel went into Egypt, came out through the the
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Red Sea and went into the wilderness only to glumble,
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complain and disobey God. Christ goes down into Egypt,
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comes out through the waters of baptism, and goes into the
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wilderness. Where he perfectly obeys the
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Father and defeats Satan's temptations, he succeeds.
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In every place where the nation failed.
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He is the true Israel. It is a massive, unified
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narrative. The Bible is not a collection of
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disconnected moral fables. It is one cohesive story of
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redemption. Now we need to bring the
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theological weight of this text into our contemporary era.
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Because reading ancient history is fascinating, but if it does
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not challenge our current thinking, we have missed the
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point. How do these two ancient verses
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confront the modern errors we see in the church today?
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The sources outline a few major theological confrontations.
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First, this text aggressively refutes the modern prosperity
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gospel. The prosperity gospel teaches
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that God's favor always equates to immediate worldly wealth,
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perfect physical health, and comfort as your goal.
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If you have enough faith, you will be rich and comfortable
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right now. But look at Genesis 47.
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Yes, Israel acquired possessions in Goshen.
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God gave them temporal blessings, but they were still
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exiled strangers living in a Pagan land that despise them.
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Goshen was a motel. It was not a permanent estate.
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The text shows believers having temporal goods, but they are not
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defined by those goods. Look at Jacob's dying wish.
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He makes Joseph swear to carry his bones out of Egypt and bury
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him in Canaan. He refuses to make Egypt his
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final resting place, despite all the wealth his family just
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acquired there. He knows that his true
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inheritance is not found in the Egyptian economy.
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Receive the temporal mercies. A good job, a nice home, a
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stable income, physical health with immense gratitude.
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But do not turn them into objects of worship.
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Do not worship Goshen because Goshen is just a waiting room.
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Precisely. If you worship Goshen, you will
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be completely crushed when Goshen eventually turns into a
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plight of slavery, which it absolutely does in the Book of
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Exodus. The second modern error this
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text confronts is the ongoing debate between human cooperative
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effort and monarchistic grace. Some theological systems argue
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that human free will and divine grace cooperate equally to
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achieve salvation and preservation.
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But Israel's survival in this narrative was not based on their
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superior agricultural intellect. It was not based on their human
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free will somehow cooperating perfectly with Pharaoh's tax
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policies. It rested entirely 100% on the
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unconditional covenant of God. God decreed their survival, God
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moved the nations to secure their location, and God
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unilaterally caused their population to explode.
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It is a picture of salvation by grace alone.
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So the Pilgrim hope is to hold everything loosely.
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You are a holy stranger in a strange land.
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You stand distinct from the world, recognizing that your
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citizenship is in heaven even while you occupy space on earth.
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You use the resources God gives you, but you do not put your
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trust in them. That is the final comfort for
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the pastoral heart of this text. Even when the kingdoms of this
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world shake, collapse and fall into total bankruptcy, the
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Church will be preserved. The global economy of Egypt
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completely failed. The citizens lost everything.
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The political structure became a totalitarian nightmare.
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But the seed of Abraham flourished under the protective
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hand of God. We can look at the economic,
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political and spiritual shaking of our own times, the
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instability, the cultural hostility, and know that the
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same immutable, sovereign God who isolated and protected his
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ancient people holds his church in the hollow of his hand today.
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The surrounding world may be starving spiritually, but the
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covenant community will be fed I.
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Want to leave you with a final thought to ponder as we wrap up
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this discussion. We have talked extensively about
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Goshen as this divine waiting room, an incubator that
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preserved life. But if you read ahead to the
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book of Exodus, you know that this very same comfortable
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refuge eventually turned into the sight of bitter, brutal
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enslavement under under a new Pharaoh who did not know Joseph.
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The place of blessing became the place of bondage.
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So how do we identify the Goshens in our own lives today?
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What comfortable temporary refuges have you settled into?
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Maybe a lucrative career? A specific social circle?
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A massive financial safety net that might slowly be enslaving
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you if you linger in them longer than God intended.
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Are you confusing a temporary shelter with your eternal
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destiny? Hey, thank you for joining us
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for this deep dive into the source material.
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Until next time, keep your eyes on the horizon.