Genesis 47: 7-10

 In the passage below, I enjoyed the analogy that a human is but a wayfarer, a sojourner with but a few years to live on earth. It is a sobering reality, how fast life passes. If one does wish to maverize, one has no time to dillydally.

Here is that passage from The New American Bible: "The Joseph brought his father Jacob and presented him to Pharaoh. After Jacob had paid his respects to Pharaoh, Pharaoh asked him, 'How many years have you lived?' Jacob replied: 'The years I have lived as a wayfarer amount to a hundred and thirty. Few and hard have been those years of my life, and they do not compare with the years that my ancestors lived as wayfarers.' Then Jacob bade Pharaoh farewell and withdrew from his presence."

I have three reactions to this fascinating passage. First, I love these old nouns, wayfarers and sojourner, nomadic wanderers of foot, not often heard today. Second, Jacob made light of his long life, and referred to his ancient relatives living for hundreds of years, suggesting all were but mere wayfarers living for a few short years. In comparison to eternity and immortal Yahweh, that description is sobering but apt. Third, I love the line that Jacob came to pay his respects to Pharaoh, for paying one's respect towards someone in power or authority is another famous phrase in English, though it may not have derived from the book of Genesis.

Here is the same quote from the Holy Bible: "And Joseph brought in Jacob his father and set him before Pharaoh: and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said unto Jacob, How old art thou? And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, the days of the years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty years; few and evil have the days 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. And Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from before Pharaoh."

The word have different meanings here. Jacob blesses Pharaoh rather than paying his respects to Pharaoh and that is a huge distinction. Jacob thus comes across as a holy and devout man that blessed Pharaoh. Jacob refers to himself as a sojourner living out his pilgrimage here on earth, and this may indicate that his real permanent home and reward is in heaven or positive Sheol.

Jacob seems to regard life in this temporal home as a life of suffering and encountering evil, a journey at the end of which eternal life with Yahweh in some sort of Hebraic heaven may have been the ideal outcome.