Following his father Isaac’s death, it appears Jacob remained in the vicinity of Hebron and that we can assume his sons’ movements radiated out from that center.
Jacob’s son Joseph takes the focus in the narrative. We meet him as a boy, a dreamer, favored by his father, reviled by his brothers. Jacob sends this favored son to check on his brothers near Shechem, presumably at the land Jacob had purchased. When Joseph arrives, they are not there. A man near Shechem advises him they have gone to Dothan.
These details may suggest intensifying motives for Joseph’s brothers’ betrayal – why are they in another Canaanite town? They had destroyed Shechem, looted it, and enslaved its people. Is it still a ruin? Are they looking for entertainment and companionship in another town? Are they capitalizing on their reputation as successful warriors to oppress others? What does their father suspect is going on that moved him to send Joseph to check on them?
At Dothan, Joseph finds them, but we have no record of a conversation with them. They take and imprison him in a cistern in the wilderness. After some debate that included the option of killing him, they determine to sell him as a slave to passing traders. The traders are called Ishmaelites, so they are cousins, all descendants of Abraham. We learned in Genesis 25 that Ishmael’s descendants settled across a broad band of territory from Shur near the border of Egypt, all the way to Asshur near the Tigris far to the northeast, however Ishmael himself stayed in the wilderness of Paran not far northwest of Midian. That the traders are also called Midianites is not explained in the text. Commentators have suggested various explanations to resolve the apparent conflict. Given their proximity, it seems reasonable that descendants of Ishmael migrated from Paran to Midian, intermarried, and settled there. The author’s use of both terms may be part of a narrative strategy in Joseph’s story – the number two is present throughout.
The traders take Joseph to Egypt and sell him to Potiphar, a captain of Pharaoh’s guard. Presumably, Joseph lives in the capitol city. The story gives us few details about Egypt or the Egyptians, but we have some ideas from modern archaeology and scholarship where he might have been.
The author abruptly abandons Joseph and returns to the vicinity of Hebron to consider Judah, who departs to live with a Canaanite friend and marry a Canaanite woman in the town of Kezib. After a series of tragedies resulting in the loss of his wife and sons, leaving only his youngest and Tamar, the widow of his older sons, Judah travels to Timnah. On the way, he encounters an apparent prostitute who later is revealed to be Tamar. She bears Judah’s twin sons Perez and Zerah.
What does geography tell us about Judah’s story? He left his father’s house, is a day’s walk away. He has his sheep sheared by specialists at a remote location, so he is likely wealthy at this point. He has no obvious heir to continue his family line and receive his accumulating wealth. It is a story in some ways reminiscent of Abraham’s, but in Judah’s case, it was sin that denied him an heir. Tamar, who was exiled to her father’s house – a bit of geography, though we don’t know where her father’s house was – meets Judah near Timnah and tempts him to impregnate her. In the end, Judah is convicted by her actions and gains heirs through her because of her bold decisions.
We jump immediately back into Joseph’s story. He is now likely in the Egyptian capitol living in the house of a captain of Pharaoh’s guard. His geography hints at a pattern – in his father’s house, he was elevated, not working but checking on his brothers, then they threw him in a pit. With Potiphar, he was elevated, given charge over the house, then Potiphar threw him in prison, apparently also a pit. Finally, pharaoh elevates him, putting him charge of all Egypt, supervising the work of gathering food in preparation for a famine. Considering the size of ancient Egypt gives us an idea of Joseph’s assigned responsibility – there were roughly 500 miles of Nile River in ancient Egypt with farmland on either side. In the north, the Nile fans out into a massive delta of fertile farmland. The pharaoh put Joseph in charge of it all, to gather food, to store it, to distribute it, to buy up the people’s resources and land, and ultimately to buy the people themselves for the pharaoh, 500 miles of farmland and workers all acquired for the government of Egypt at Joseph’s direction.
When, in Genesis 42, Joseph’s brothers travel down to Egypt to buy grain, they have a roughly 200 mile, 10 day journey across a desert waste. They make the journey three times, the final one with their father and his entire household, a permanent move into the land of Egypt. Abraham had traveled there and been expelled by the pharaoh. God forbade Isaac from traveling there. God had also, in Genesis 15, forewarned Abraham that his descendants would be enslaved in a foreign land for four hundred years. Undoubtedly these events would be foremost in Jacob’s mind as he traveled toward Egypt. On the way, in Beersheba, God spoke to him in a night vision and assured him that he would remain with Jacob going down to Egypt, that he would be reunited with Joseph, and that he would return.
After arriving in Egypt, Joseph arranges for his father to meet the pharaoh, who honors Jacob and gives his family the land of Goshen to live and raise flocks in. Goshen appears to be a territory rather than a city, perhaps stretching from ~15 miles short of the sea down to the Wadi Tumilat in the vicinity of the city of Avaris where archaeologists have uncovered a structure that some commentators allege has striking correlations with Joseph’s story.
As Joseph’s power grows and he welcomes his family, geography helps us to understand his significance, the promises God has made, and Jacob’s blessing and inheritance for his children:
“So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh. Each of the Egyptians sold his field, for the famine was severe. So the land became Pharaoh’s. Joseph made all the people slaves from one end of Egypt’s border to the other end of it. But he did not purchase the land of the priests because the priests had an allotment from Pharaoh and they ate from their allotment that Pharaoh gave them.” (Genesis 47:20-22, NET)
“Israel settled in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen, and they owned land there. They were fruitful and increased rapidly in number. “ (Genesis 47:27, NET)
“Jacob said to Joseph, ‘The Sovereign God appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me. He said to me, “I am going to make you fruitful and will multiply you. I will make you into a group of nations, and I will give this land to your descendants as an everlasting possession.”’
‘Now, as for your two sons, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, they will be mine. Ephraim and Manasseh will be mine just as Reuben and Simeon are. Any children that you father after them will be yours; they will be listed under the names of their brothers in their inheritance. But as for me, when I was returning from Paddan, Rachel died—to my sorrow—in the land of Canaan. It happened along the way, some distance from Ephrath. So I buried her there on the way to Ephrath’ (that is, Bethlehem).” (Genesis 48:3-7, NET)
“Then Israel said to Joseph, ‘I am about to die, but God will be with you and will bring you back to the land of your fathers. As one who is above your brothers, I give to you the mountain slope, which I took from the Amorites with my sword and my bow.’” (Genesis 48:21-22 , NET)
When Jacob gives Joseph this piece of land, we learn for the first time that Jacob “took [it] from the Amorites with [his] sword and…bow.” The land is apparently in the vicinity of Shechem because Joseph is later buried there, and Shechem lies between mountain slopes. There is no mention earlier in the narrative of a conflict with the Amorites or that the Amorites are in that area. These details are puzzling and don’t seem to fit well in the narrative. In my experience, it is exactly this kind of detail that is worth meditating on and praying over – perhaps God will reveal a truth we haven’t perceived before. Regarding this passage, it hasn’t happened for me yet.
“…[Jacob] instructed them, “I am about to go to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave in the field of Ephron the Hittite. It is the cave in the field of Machpelah, near Mamre in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought for a burial plot from Ephron the Hittite. There they buried Abraham and his wife Sarah; there they buried Isaac and his wife Rebekah; and there I buried Leah. The field and the cave in it were acquired from the sons of Heth.” (Genesis 49:29-32, NET)
“So Joseph went up to bury his father; all Pharaoh’s officials went with him—the senior courtiers of his household, all the senior officials of the land of Egypt, all Joseph’s household, his brothers, and his father’s household. But they left their little children and their flocks and herds in the land of Goshen. Chariots and horsemen also went up with him, so it was a very large entourage.
When they came to the threshing floor of Atad on the other side of the Jordan, they mourned there with very great and bitter sorrow. There Joseph observed a seven-day period of mourning for his father. When the Canaanites who lived in the land saw them mourning at the threshing floor of Atad, they said, “This is a very sad occasion for the Egyptians.” That is why its name was called Abel Mizraim, which is beyond the Jordan.
So the sons of Jacob did for him just as he had instructed them. His sons carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, near Mamre. This is the field Abraham purchased as a burial plot from Ephron the Hittite. After he buried his father, Joseph returned to Egypt, along with his brothers and all who had accompanied him to bury his father.” (Genesis 50:7-14, NET)
The details in this account are also strange. The funeral party is somehow on the other side of the Jordan River. A direct path from Egypt to Hebron, where Abraham’s tomb is, is nowhere near the Jordan. In order to arrive at the location described, it appears the funeral party must travel as much as 250 miles off of a direct ~200 mile route to Hebron, roughly doubling the distance. Why would they do this? It seems the most likely explanation is to reenact Jacob’s entry into the land from the east where he met angels and wrestled with God.
“Joseph lived in Egypt, along with his father’s family. Joseph lived 110 years. Joseph saw the descendants of Ephraim to the third generation. He also saw the children of Makir the son of Manasseh; they were given special inheritance rights by Joseph.
Then Joseph said to his brothers, ‘I am about to die. But God will surely come to you and lead you up from this land to the land he swore on oath to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’ Joseph made the sons of Israel swear an oath. He said, ‘God will surely come to you. Then you must carry my bones up from this place.’ So Joseph died at the age of 110. After they embalmed him, his body was placed in a coffin in Egypt.” (Genesis 50:22-26, NET)