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“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” (Genesis 47:9).
In our verse for today, we find that Jacob readily told Pharaoh how old he was, but added some further comments too. He remarked that his days had been few, and that he had not lived to be as old as his fathers. This was true, for his father Isaac lived to be 180 years old, and his grandfather Abraham lived to be 175. However, Jacob’s life was not over yet.
More than this, Jacob describes his days as being evil. Why was that? It was because he had been a schemer and a deceiver much of his life, thinking that he had to get God’s blessing by his own efforts. As a result, he had a bad conscience much of his life, and also, his own sons had deceived him when they sold Joseph into Egypt. They had learned from their father how to lie and cheat.
All this is very sad, for Jacob loved the Lord, and really valued God’s blessing. But it took him a long time to realize that God could bless him without any of his own efforts. Jacob did not need to scheme, lie, and cheat in order to get God’s blessing.
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