And he said, Behold, I have heard that there is corn in Egypt: get you down thither, and buy for us from thence; that we may live, and not die.
Ver. 2. Get you down thither,] Here the divine decree of Israel's sojourning and suffering in Egypt begins to be fulfilled, by a wonderful providence. The ruinous of Joseph's barns invites Jacob, first to send, and then to go thither himself for relief. Shall not the fulness that is in Christ Joh 1:16 incite and entice us to come to him; as bees to a meadow full of flowers; as merchants to the Indies full of spices and othex riches; as the Queen of Sheba to Solomon full of wisdom; as Jacob's sons to Egypt full of corn, in that extreme famine; that we may return full fraught with treasures of truth and grace? "It pleased God, that in him should all fulness dwell." Col 1:19 And his fulnees is not only repletive, but diffusive; a fuiness of plenty and abundance, but of bounty also and redundance. He was "anointed with the oil of gladness," not only "above," but for "his fellows." Heb 1:9
That we may live, and not die.] Saints have their share in common calamities. Jacob tasted of the famine, as well as his neighbonrs the Canaanites; so had Abraham and Isaac done before him. Both the good figs and bad figs were carried captive; Jer 24:5 the corn as well as the weeds is cut down at harvest, &c.