CRITICAL NOTES.—
Genesis 46:8-28. And these are the names of the children of Israel, etc.] “Catalogue of Jacob’s sons, grandchildren, and great-grand children who went down into Egypt. The children are ranged according to their mothers. In Genesis 46:27, the LXX make the whole number who went down to Egypt to be 75. This reckoning is followed by Stephen (Acts 7:14), who as a Hellenistic Jew naturally goes by the LXX. The list is probably neither complete nor accurate, and must be regarded rather as a formal than as an historical document.” (Alford).—“If Stephen here quoted the LXX, he was accountable only for the correctness of his quotation, and not for the error which had crept into his authority. This was immaterial to his present purpose, and it was not the manner of the sacred speakers to turn aside from their grand task to the pedantry of criticism.” (Murphy).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Genesis 46:8-27
THE CATALOGUE OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL
This catalogue of “the names of the children of Israel” is instructive from several points of view.
I. It marks the commencement and gives the outlines of the nation’s history. We have here the first draft of those lines of history along which this nation of Israel was to move. The list here given shows the separation of the tribes, and gives us a clear view of the people’s increase. We have here the promise of a great nation.
II. It marks the tribe of the Messiah. Our Lord was to spring from the tribe of Judah. This notes God’s redemptive purpose in this history, how God designed thereby to bring His First Begotten into the world.
III. The names are significant. Thus the names of Reuben’s sons signify—teacher, distinguished, beautiful one, noble one. These express a sanguine hope. Also the names of Levi’s sons signify—expulsion of the profane, congregation of the consecrated, practiser of discipline. These are the leading principles and proper characteristics of priestly rule. We hasten rapidly over biblical names, but much instruction may be gathered from them.
IV. The facts connected with some of the names are suggestive. Thus Dinah, though condemned to a single life, is yet reckoned among the founders of the house of Israel in Egypt. This points to the elevation of woman, and to the idea of female inheritance. Again, Judah was the father’s minister to Joseph. By his faithfulness, strength, and wisdom he rises in the opinion of his father. His distinguished place in the annals of the nation comes out, at length, in the grandeur of that prophetic word which declares God’s loving purpose in this great history. (Genesis 49:10).
V. The number of the names is also suggestive. “It is remarkable that it is the product of seven, the number of holiness; and ten, the number of completeness. It is still more remarkable that it is the number of the names of those who were the heads of the primitive nations. The Church is the counterpart of the world, and is to be the instrument by which the kingdom of the world is to become the kingdom of Christ. When the Most High bestowed the inheritance on the nations, ‘when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the sons of Israel.’ (Deuteronomy 32:8). This curious sentence may have an immediate reference to the providential distribution of the human family over the habitable parts of the earth, according to the number of His church, and of His dispensation of grace; but at all events it conveys the great and obvious principle, that all things whatsoever, in the affairs of men, are antecedently adapted with the most perfect exactitude to the benign reign of grace already realised in the children of God, and yet to be extended to all the sons and daughters of Adam.”—(Murphy).
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Genesis 46:8-27. Compared with the families of Abraham and Isaac, these names appear to be numerous, and afford a prospect of a great nation; yet compared with those of Ishmael and Esau, they are but few. Three and twenty years ago there was “a company of Ishmaelites,” who bought Joseph; and as to Esau, he seems to have become a nation in a little time. We see from hence that the most valuable blessings are often the longest ere they reach us. The just shall live by faith.—(Fuller).
The full people of Israel consisted of twelve sons, and seventy souls; and the Christian Church consisted of twelve apostles, and seventy disciples.—(Ross).