אנכי ארד עמך מצרימה, ואנכי אעלך גם עלה, “I (G–d speaking) will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also go back up with you (for you to be buried in the land of Canaan).” The wording when examined closely, implies that whereas G–d personally will accompany him on the way down to Egypt, an agent of His will supervise the return to the land of Canaan of his body when the time came. Proof for this interpretation is the fact that although 70 of his descendants have been mentioned as coming to Egypt, only sixty nine names have been listed, i.e. G–d Himself is considered as making up the seventieth. (Compare Deuteronomy 10,22) When the Israelites eventually would leave Egypt there was also one missing to make up the number 600000, this ‘one’ being G–d.” [This is why no precise number was quoted in Exodus 12,37 for the number of males that left Egypt, although on several counts in the desert, each time a precise number of the adult males is given. Ed.] Another interpretation: the words: אנכי אעלך גם עלה, are a correction by G–d for what Yaakov had thought of as a “descent” to Egypt. G–d tells him that far from being a “descent,” it will be seen as an ascent, by the time his descendants will leave Egypt.

בנותיו ובנות בניו, “his daughters and the daughters of his sons;” Rashi explains this line as referring to Serach, daughter of Asher, and Yocheved, daughter of Levi. This sounds peculiar as it does not explain who Yaakov’s “daughters (pl)” were. We have been told only about one daughter Dinah, born for him by Leah. She was the only daughter listed as descending to Egypt. The twin daughters born to him had all died before that time. Leah’s descendants numbered 33 as stated explicitly. (verse 15) It is possible to include daughters-in-law, but those were not included in the count. My personal problem with this verse are the words (author writing) כל נפש בניו ובנותיו שלושים ושלש, “the total number of souls his sons and daughters were thirty three.” (verse 15) It is not possible to understand this number as including any daughters-in-law, as these were not counted, seeing that they are specifically excluded in verse 26 as not having been included in the count. Maybe that what Rashi had in mind was to teach us that granddaughters were considered like daughters.

הבאה מצרימה שבעים, “the ones who had arrived in Egypt numbered seventy.” The Torah, in this verse, meant to include Yaakov himself. The beginning of the subject proves that this is so, as in verse 8 we have been told: “the following are the names of the Children of Israel who came to Egypt, ‘Yaakov’ and his sons, his first born son being Reuven. The word “Yaakov” in this verse is superfluous unless it was meant to include him in the count. The reason why Yaakov was included in the count with Leah’s children was that only 32 names were mentioned and he was needed to make up the number 33 at the end of that paragraph. Not only that, it was certainly fitting that the founding father should be included in the first of the four groups of people counted. If you wanted to know the precise number of Yaakov’s family in Egypt i.e. seventy, counting Joseph and his family, [assuming Joseph’s wife was Dinah’s offspring Ed.] this is how it was composed. If you wish to accept my interpretation that G–d made up the missing umber, you do not have to include Yaakov himself in the number.

ויעל לקראת ישראל, “he (Joseph) went up to meet Israel.” The reason that the expression עלה is used here is to tell the reader that for Joseph it was tantamount to a spiritual ascent to go and greet his father and to pay him this honour. Alternately, the reason why he is described as ascending, is that the province of Goshen is situated on a higher plateau than the Nile delta in which most of the Egyptians dwelt. Goshen borders on the land of Israel which is a land of many hills and mountains. This is also clear from Joshua 15,49-51. Seeing that Yehudah had been sent ahead by his father to prepare his residence in Goshen, that region became part of the ancestral heritage of the tribe of Yehudah in due course. The Egyptians never challenged the Israelites having annexed that province.

אעלה ואגידה לפרעה, “I will go up and tell Pharaoh;” was Egypt then a hilly country that the Torah describes Joseph as “going up” to Pharaoh? Up until now, when Joseph had been speaking with his father, he had first descended from his chariot in order to do so. Now he is quoted as again mounting his chariot in order to tell Pharaoh about his father’s having come to Egypt.

כי תועבת מצרים כל רעה צאן, “for the Egyptians despised people whose vocation was the rising and tending of sheep. The reason they did so was because they hated sheep meat, i.e. mutton, just as they hated goats’ meat. This was something not unique to the Egyptians. This is also why they could not sit at the same table as the Hebrews when the latter were being served lamb. They harboured a deep aversion for anyone stemming from the Euphrates-Tigris region. They considered the Sumerians as a lower class of human beings. (Exodus 8,9) The Hebrews claimed that they would insult the Egyptians if they slaughtered their animals as service to their G–d inside the boundaries of the land of Egypt. They would risk being stoned by them. It is interesting that they did not refer to being just killed, but they spelled out by which method they would be killed, a method which in Jewish law is the most severe kind of death penalty. Our author states that he has also heard a different interpretation of our verse. The Egyptians considered anyone slaughtering sheep or goats and eating their meat as guilty of the kind of perversion that would stamp such a person as a subhuman species. We find the word רועה, which we normally translate as “tending,” i.e. shepherding, also used by the Targum for “providing food” (transitive) on Genesis 48,15 by Yaakov in his blessings for his children when on his deathbed.