The land of Goshen may be designated as the Netherlands of Egypt. When the first settlers rested there, it was in the immediate neighbourhood of the court. The Israelitish life there must have been a life of villages. The Egyptian government, fearful of this people even scattered abroad, would never have permitted them to consolidate their strength in large towns. It was a region of coarse plenty, a rich pastoral country; it was also a frontier land and an exposed province. It formed the Delta of the Nile, and was well called "the best of the land."
I. The villages of Goshen illustrate the mysterious path of divine purposes. Without that residence in Goshen we cannot see how Israel could have inherited its holy land; for Israel was not to be like Ishmael, a mere horde of bandit warriors, or a wandering race of unsettled Bedouins. The race was to exist for a purpose on the earth, and from the years of the discipline of despotism a spirit would infiltrate itself into the vast multitude; a mind, a Hebrew mind, would be born, fostered, and transmitted.
II. It is to the villages of Goshen that believers may turn to find how, when circumstances look most hopeless and men are most helpless, they are not forgotten or forsaken of God; how in the night-time of a nation's distress the lamp of truth may somewhere be burning brightly.
III. There was safety in Goshen. There came a time when God in a very fearful manner arose for the deliverance of His Church. The firstborn throughout the land of Egypt died, and there was a great cry throughout the land; but Israel was safe.
E. Paxton Hood, The Preacher's Lantern,vol. iii., p. 405.
References: Genesis 47:8. D. King, Memoir and Sermons,p. 265; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons,p. 280. Genesis 47:8; Genesis 47:9. M. Nicholson. Redeeming the Time,p. 108.