Genesis 46:7 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Bible Comments

All his seed It is probable they continued to live together in common with their father, and therefore when he went, they all went; which, perhaps, they were the more willing to do, because, though they had heard that the land of Canaan was promised them, yet, to this day, they had none of it in possession. We have here a particular account of the names of Jacob's family; his sons' sons, most of whom are afterward mentioned as heads of houses in the several tribes. See Numbers 26:5, &c, The daughters mentioned seem to have been daughters-in-law. The whole number that went down into Egypt were sixty-six, to which add Joseph and his two sons, who were there before, and Jacob himself, the head of the family, and you have the number of seventy. It was now two hundred and fifteen years since God had promised Abraham to make of him a great nation, Genesis 41:2; and yet that branch of his seed, on which the promise was entailed, was as yet increased but to seventy, of which this particular account is kept, that the power of God in multiplying these seventy to so vast a multitude, even in Egypt, may be more illustrious. When he pleases, a little one shall become a thousand.

Genesis 46:7

7 His sons, and his sons' sons with him, his daughters, and his sons' daughters, and all his seed brought he with him into Egypt.