Vera. 28-31.-Jacob's appreliension. I. WHAT IT WAS. 1. It was not anxiety about temporal support, for that had been generously made sure to him by his son Joseph. 2. It was not concern about thefuturefortunes of liisfarnil11, for these had been graciously taken under God's protection. 3. It was not uncertainty as to his own personal acceptance with Jehovah, for of that he had long ago been assured. 4. It was scarcely even/ear of liis apJ?_roacliing death, for besides being a thought with which Jacob had long been familiar, to a weary pilgrim like him the event itself would not be altogether unwelcome. 5. It wus dread lest his lifeless body should be interred in Egypt, far from the graves of his ancestors in the holy land. II. WHENCE IT AROSE. 1. Fromthedeeply-seatedinstinctinhumannature, which makes men wish, if possible, to sleep beside their fathers and friends. Though religion teaches us to believe that every spot on earth is in a manner holy ground, yet it does not induce a spirit of indifference as to the last resting-place where wo shall lie. 2. From afirmfaith in tlie Divine promise that his descendants should yet return to Canaan. Even if Jacob did not anticipate that this would immediately occnr, if, as is probable, he had already dark forebodings that the period of exile and servitude spoken of by Jehovah to Abraham was about to commence, he wns yet able to detect n silver lining in the cloud, to see the happy time beyond, when bis children, in accordance with the promise "I will surely bring thee up again," should return home to their presently abandoned inheritance. III. How rr WAS REllOVED. 1. By Joseph's promise. Requested by his aged parent to convey his body back to Canaan, when the life hnd departed, Joseph solemnly engages to carry out that parent's wishes to the letter. "I will do as thon hast said.'' 2. By Joseph's oatli. As if to remove every possible ground of apprehension, the old man further binds his son by an nppenl to heaven. "And he said, Swear unto me; and ho (Joseph) swnre unto him." The venerable patriarch's anxieties were 1tt an encl. "And Israel bowed himself upon the bed's Lend."- \V.
EXPOSITION. notl!1g perhaps a· special messenger (Tayler CIIAP'l'ill. XLVIII. Lewis) - Behold, thy father is sick. '!'he word in the originnl conveys tho idea ot' Vor. 1.-And it came to pass after these being worn down or becoming infirm through things (i. c. tho events recorcle,1 in the pre- nge or cliscnso, nnd may suggest the notion ceding chapter, and in particular nfter the that Jncob wns now regarded ns rnpidly nrran emeuts which had been made for Jacobs 7 f~nernl), that one told Joseph,-t.hc approncbing dissolution. And he took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim verb "\~Wl is hero used impersonnlly, or pns- -who nt this time must hnvo been nbout sivcly; 0for II ODO tolu," or II it WBll told," to eighteen or twenty ycnrs of ago (Keil), nnd Joscph(LXX. ,ti,,.,yy,X7J; Vulgate, mtnd.atmn who appear to have accompanied their fothcr est; Rosenmtilfor, Keil, Knlisch, Murphy, from respectful n!fection to their n"ed rela- et alii); or probnlily emp! tatically, by way of tive (lllurphy), or to have been tak~n in the '1:llling nttention to tho circumstance-de- hope thnt II the ,Yor,ls of their blcsscu grand• 518 TilE DOOK OF GENESIS. [en. XLVIII, 1-22.