Jacob's family moves to Egypt
Genesis 46–47; Exodus 12:40–41; Acts 7:14–15
At God's word, Jacob, now 130, moved his family of seventy to Egypt, where Pharaoh gave them the land of Goshen.
He said, “I am God, the God of your father. Don’t be afraid to go down into Egypt, for there I will make of you a great nation.”
Genesis 46:3 (World English Bible)
At Beersheba God spoke to Jacob in a vision: don't be afraid to go down to Egypt; there I will make you a great nation, and I will bring you back. Jacob's household of seventy settled in Goshen, good pastureland in the eastern Nile Delta.
Jacob met Pharaoh and blessed him, describing his 130 years as few and hard. The family that went down as seventy would come out, 215 years later, as a nation.
Places
EgyptCanaanGoshenBeershebaRameses
Dating notes
Jacob was 130 (Genesis 47:9). Ussher counts 215 years in Egypt: the 430 years of Exodus 12:40 and Galatians 3:17 run from Abram's call in 1921 BC, so half were spent in Canaan and half in Egypt. Alternate: many conservative scholars read Exodus 12:40 as a full 430 years in Egypt, which pushes this move back to about 1876 BC on an Exodus date of 1446 BC.