And these are the names of the children of Israel, which came into Egypt, Jacob and his sons: Reuben, Jacob's firstborn.
These, are the names of the children of Israel which came into Egypt. The natural impression conveyed by these words is, that the genealogy which follows contains a list of all the members of Jacob's family, of whatever age, whether arrived at manhood or carried in their mother's arms, who, having been born in Canaan, actually removed along with him to Egypt; and the carefulness with which, at the close of the catalogue, the amount of persons comprised in it is summed up, tends to confirm the idea that the apparent is the real and just view of the genealogy. A closer examination, however, will show sufficient grounds for concluding that the genealogy was constructed on a very different principle-not that of naming only those members of Jacob's family who were natives of Canaan, but of enumerating those who at the time of the immigration into Egypt, and during the patriarch's life-time, were the recognized heads of families, in Israel, though some of them, born after the departure from Canaan, could be said to have "come into Egypt" only in the persons of their fathers.