And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage [are] an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.
Ver. 9. The days of the years of my pilgrimage.] All saints here are sojourners, all good people "pilgrims and strangers." 1Pe 2:11 Heb 11:13-14 Far they are from home, and meet with hard measure; as Israel did in Egypt; as those three worthies in Babylon. Dan 3:23 Their manners are of another manner: hence the world owns them not. Joh 15:19 But God both owns and honours them; he knows their whole way; Psa 1:6 "leads them in his hand"; Isa 63:13 "guides them with his eye"; Psa 32:8 "bears them in his bosom," Isa 40:11 when ways are rough and rugged; provides "mansions" Joh 14:2-3 for them, where they shall "rest in their beds," Isa 57:2 feast "with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," Mat 8:11 walk arm in arm with angels, Zec 3:7 be "gathered to their people," Gen 25:8 Heb 12:23 to their God, to their Christ," &c. - Provided that, in the meanwhile, they "set their faces towards Sion, inquiring the way"; Jer 50:4-5 that they walk therein "from strength to strength"; Psa 84:7 that they take in good part any kindness, as Ruth did; Rth 2:10 that they put up any unkindness, as Paul did; Gal 4:12 that they make much of any company; Psa 119:63 send home by any hand; Neh 2:5 "abstain from fleshly lusts"; 1Pe 2:11 and have "their conversation in heaven"; Php 3:20 eating, drinking, and sleeping eternal life; so wishing to be at home, yet waiting the Father's call; sighing out, when moved to be merry, - as the French king did, when prisoner here in England, in the days of King Edward III, - "How can we sing songs in a strange land?" Psa 137:4