Bible Commentaries

Jacob's Retrospect of Life

Genesis 47:7-9

I. Jacob had lived a long life as we should count it; one of half the length is as much as most men are able to look forward to. And he had lived a holy life; the one great sin of his youth had been punished by a long and hard discipline that had not been in vain. The father whom he had deceived had blessed him again without deceit; and the God of Bethel had been with him still ever since the hour of his first covenant with him. How could he complain of so long a life, so long a pilgrimage, that Genesis 47:9

The sense of the nothingness of life, impressed on us by the very fact that it comes to an end, is much deepened when we contrast it with the capabilities of us who live it. Had Jacob lived Methuselah's age he would have called it short. This is what we all feel, though at first sight it seems a contradiction, that even though the days as they go be slow, and be laden with many events, or with sorrows or dreariness, lengthening them out and making them tedious, yet the year passes quick though the hours tarry, and time bygone is as a dream, though we thought it would never go while it was going, and the reason seems to be this; that, when we contemplate human life in itself, in however small a portion of it, we see implied in it the presence of a soul, the energy of a spiritual existence, of an accountable being; consciousness tells us this concerning it every moment. But when we look back on it in memory we view it but externally, as a mere lapse of time, as a mere earthly history. And the longest duration of this external world is as dust and weighs nothing against one moment's life of the world within. Thus we are ever expecting great things from life, from our internal consciousness every moment of our having souls; and we are ever being disappointed on considering what we have gained from time past or can hope from time to come. And life is ever promising and never fulfilling; and hence, however long it be, our days are few and evil.

Men there are who, in a single moment of their lives, have shown a superhuman height and majesty of mind which it would take ages for them to employ on its proper objects, and, as it were, to exhaust; and who by such passing flashes, like rays of the sun, and the darting of lightning, give token of their immortality, give token to us that they are but angels in disguise, the elect of God sealed for eternal life, and destined to judge the world and to reign with Christ for ever. Yet they are suddenly taken away, and we have hardly recognized them when we lose them. Can we believe that they are not removed for higher things elsewhere?

Why should we rest in this world when it is the token and promise of another? Why should we be content with its surface instead of appropriating what is stored beneath it? To those who live by faith everything they see speaks of that future world; the very glories of nature, the sun, moon, and stars, and the richness and the beauty of the earth, are as types and figures witnessing and teaching the invisible things of God. All that we see is destined one day to burst forth into a heavenly bloom, and to be transfigured into immortal glory. Heaven at present is out of sight, but in due time, as snow melts and discovers what it lay upon, so will this visible creation fade away before those greater splendours which are behind it, and on which at present it depends. In that day shadows will retire, and the substance show itself.

—J. H. Newman.

References.—XLVII:9.—H. Woodcock, Sermon Outlines, p101. J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. iv. p214. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture— Genesis , p279. XLVIII:1-7.—H. W. Beecher, Sermons, 1870 , p217. XLVIII:3.—J. Oates, The Sorrow of God, p81. XLVIII:15 ,16.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxiii. No1972. F. W. Robertson, Notes on Genesis , p170. H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No2261. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture— Genesis , p279. XLVIII:19.—B. R. Wilson, A Lent in London, p81. XLVIII:21.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvii. No1630. XLIX:3 , 4.—J. C. M. Bellew, Five Occasional Sermons, p19.