Smoodock's Blog

Almost from the beginning of my study of the Book of Genesis, I’ve been referring to a number of records that were kept by faithful men of God. It was Moses who had taken these records and compiled them together to form the Book of Genesis. It is a history of man’s relationship with his Creator, not revelation, as is represented in much of the other books of the Law. In other words, God didn’t appear to any of the Patriarchs and reveal, what we find in the Book of Genesis. It is, rather, the labor of men who recorded, what occurred as a result of their interaction with the Lord God who created them.

There are eleven of these records, and we have come to the final one. It is referred to in the text as “The Generations of Jacob” vis-à-vis his descendants (Genesis 37:2). It is mostly a record of Joseph in Egypt, but it embraces the mention of his eleven brothers and their families, and how he brought them and Jacob, his father, to Egypt, where 400 years later, the Lord would take them out, spoiling their oppressors, and bring them into the Land of Promise, which is Canaan, and make it the Land of Israel.

Jacob dwelt in Mamre in the Land of Canaan, where Isaac dwelt as a stranger (Genesis 37:1), but how should we understand the time-frame? It seems evident that the events of chapter 37 occurred prior to the events that occurred in Genesis 34 and 35. What proof is there of this? If Joseph was 17 years old when he was sold by his brothers into Egypt (Genesis 37:2, 36), this would put Jacob’s age at 108 years.[1] Jacob was 60 years younger than his father, Isaac (Genesis 25:26), and Isaac died, when he was 180 years old, when Jacob was 120 (Genesis 35:28). Therefore, Joseph was sent to Egypt before the death of Isaac, and the events of Genesis 34 and 35, which represent the end of the eighth record of the Book of Genesis, occurred after the events of Genesis 37, which are the beginning events of the eleventh record of the Book of Genesis. How did this occur? The writers of each record begin their testimony at a point they choose, and they end their record either with the end of the genealogies in question or with the death of the person or persons that move the events of the record. So, the final events surrounding the death of Isaac postdate the beginning of the events surrounding the record of the generations of Jacob (Genesis 37:1).[2]

Therefore, Joseph’s brothers must have either sent for Jacob at Hebron (Mamre) to bring him to Shechem to identify Joseph’s coat (Genesis 37:32), or they sent the coat, and he came to Shechem for an explanation, and/or search for his son. It was while he was in Shechem that Dinah was defiled (Genesis 34), which was the reason for his quick return to Mamre (Genesis 35:3, 5, 16, 27).

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[1] Joseph was 17 years of age, when he went to Egypt, but he was 30 years old when he appeared before Pharaoh (Genesis 41:46). Nine years later he brought his entire family to Egypt, his father, Jacob, and his brothers and their families. They came down after the 7 years of good harvests and 2 years into the famine (9 years). The famine was to last 7 years (Genesis 45:6, 11). At his point Joseph would have been 39. Jacob was 130 years old when he stood before Pharaoh (Genesis 47:9), making him 108 years old when Joseph was sold into Egypt (130 – 22 = 108). Joseph was in Egypt 22 years before bringing his father and his brethren there to live (39 – 17 = 22).

[2] Lucian of Samosata (cir. 120 AD to 180 AD) wrote with respect to combining two or more records of history: “For, though all parts must be independently perfected, when the first is complete the second will be brought into essential connection with it, and attached like one link of a chain to another; there must be no possibility of separating them; no mere bundle of parallel threads; the first is not simply to be next to the second, but part of it, their extremities intermingling.” [The Way to Write History 55; (emphasis mine)].