Lit., guided (as a shepherd).

To put the hand under the thigh means to swear. In Gen. 32:25 God touched Jacob’s thigh (see note 2 there). After that experience, Jacob could still walk, albeit with a limp (Gen. 32:31). However, as he was departing this life, Jacob could no longer do anything for himself; he could only lie on his bed. His natural strength having been fully terminated, he could trust only in God’s grace, represented here by Joseph, a type of Christ. It was not by Jacob’s strength but by the hand of Joseph that Jacob was finally brought to the good land for his actual inheritance (Gen. 50:5-13). Likewise, it is not by our strength but by the grace of Christ that we inherit God’s promise (cf. 2 Cor. 12:9).

Jacob viewed his death as lying down to sleep, indicating that he believed in resurrection (1 Thes. 4:13-16). He charged Joseph not to bury him in Egypt (v. 29) but in the good land, in the cave of Machpelah, where his fathers had been buried (Gen. 49:29-32), indicating that he died in faith, believing that on the day of resurrection he would rise up to inherit the good land according to God’s promise (Gen. 28:13; 35:12).

The Septuagint translates this phrase on the top of his staff (cf. Heb. 11:21). See note Heb. 11:21¹.

Lit., gleaned. Because Joseph suffered and denied himself, he gained the riches of the life supply. In Egypt all the food was in the hand of Joseph. In order to receive food from Joseph, the people had to pay four kinds of prices: their money, their livestock, their land, and themselves (vv. 14-23). Money represents convenience, livestock signifies the means of living, and land represents resources. If we would receive the life supply from the Lord, we must give Him our convenience, our means of livelihood, and our resources. The more we give Him, the more life supply we will receive from Him. Ultimately, in order to receive the best portion from the Lord, including food for satisfaction and seed for reproduction (v. 23), we must hand ourselves, every part of our being, over to Him.

Eventually, there was only one landlord in Egypt, and all the people became enjoyers on the same level. This is a prefigure of the millennium, in which the earth and all its fullness will belong to Christ (Psa. 2:8; 24:1; Dan. 7:13-14) and all the nations on the earth will enjoy Christ’s riches.

Lit., the days of the years. So also in v. 9.

The strongest manifestation of Jacob’s maturity in life is the fact that Jacob blessed everyone, including Pharaoh (vv. 7, 10), Jacob’s two grandsons (Gen. 48), and his own twelve sons (Gen. 49:1-28). Jacob’s supplanting hands became blessing hands (Gen. 48:14-16). Maturity in life is a matter of being filled with God as life, and blessing is the overflow of life, the overflow of God through the maturity in life. To bless others is to bring them into the presence of God and to bring God into them as grace, love, and fellowship that they may enjoy the Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit (Gen. 14:18-19; Num. 6:23-27; 2 Cor. 13:14). That Jacob blessed Pharaoh indicates that he was greater than Pharaoh (Heb. 7:7).