The days of the years of my pilgrimage - מגורי megurai, of my sojourning or wandering. Jacob had always lived a migratory or wandering life, in different parts of Canaan, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, scarcely ever at rest; and in the places where he lived longest, always exposed to the fatigues of the field and the desert. Our word pilgrim comes from the French pelerin and pelegrin, which are corrupted from the Latin peregrinus, an alien, stranger, or foreigner, from the adverb peregre, abroad, not at home. The pilgrim was a person who took a journey, long or short, on some religious account, submitting during the time to many hardships and privations. A more appropriate term could not be conceived to express the life of Jacob, and the motive which induced him to live such a life. His journey to Padan-aram or Mesopotamia excepted, the principal part of his journeys were properly pilgrimages, undertaken in the course of God's providence on a religious account.

Have not attained unto the - life of my fathers - Jacob lived in the whole one hundred and forty-seven years; Isaac his father lived one hundred and eighty; and Abraham his grandfather, one hundred and seventy-five. These were days of years in comparison of the lives of the preceding patriarchs, some of whom lived nearly ten centuries!

Jacob said unto Pharaoh, the days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years,.... He calls his life a "pilgrimage"; as every good man's is; they are not at home in their own country, they are seeking a better, even an heavenly one: Jacob's life was very emphatically and literally a pilgrimage; he first dwelt in Canaan, from thence he removed to Padanaram, and sojourned there awhile, and then came to Canaan again; for some time he dwelt at Succoth, and then at Shechem, and after that at Hebron, and now he was come down to Egypt, and he had spent one hundred and thirty years of his life in this way: and with this perfectly agrees the account of Polyhistor from Demetrius (n), an Heathen writer, who makes the age of Jacob when he came into Egypt one hundred and thirty, and that year to be the third year of the famine, agreeably to Genesis 45:6,

few and evil have the days of the years of my life been; see Job 14:1; he calls his days but "few", in comparison of the long lives of the patriarchs in former times, and especially in comparison of the days of eternity: and "evil", because of the many afflictions he had met with; as from Esau, from whose face he was obliged to flee lest he should kill him, Genesis 27:41; and in Laban's house, where he served for a wife fourteen years, and endured great hardships, Genesis 31:41; and at Shechem, where his daughter was ravished, Genesis 34:2, and his sons made that slaughter of the Shechemites, Genesis 34:25, which he feared would cause his name to stink, Genesis 34:30; and at Ephrath, where he buried his beloved Rachel, Genesis 35:16; and at Hebron, where his sons brought him such an account as if they believed his beloved son Joseph was destroyed by a wild beast, Genesis 37:32,

and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage; his grandfather Abraham lived to be one hundred amnd seventy five years of age, Genesis 25:7, and his father Isaac lived to the age of one hundred and eighty, Genesis 35:28.

(n) Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. p. 21. p. 425.

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.

47:9 Observe Jacob calls his life a pilgrimage, looking upon himself as a stranger in this world, and a traveller towards another. He reckoned himself not only a pilgrim now he was in Egypt, a strange country in which he never was before, but his life even in the land of his nativity was a pilgrimage. He reckoned his life by days; for even so it is soon reckoned, and we are not sure of the continuance of it for a day to an end, but may be turned out of this tabernacle at less than an hours warning. The character he gives of them was, That they were few. Though he had now lived 130 years, they seemed to him but as a few days, in comparison of the days of eternity, in which a thousand years are but as one day; That they were evil. This is true concerning man in general, Job 14:1, he is of few days and full of trouble: Jacob's life particularly had been made up of evil days. the pleasantest days of his life were yet before him. That they were short of the days of his fathers; not so many, not so pleasant as their days. Old age came sooner upon him than it had done upon some of his ancestors.

9. The days of the years of my pilgrimage, &c.-Though a hundred thirty years, he reckons by days (compare Ps 90:12), which he calls few, as they appeared in retrospect, and evil, because his life had been one almost unbroken series of trouble. The answer is remarkable, considering the comparative darkness of the patriarchal age (compare 2Ti 1:10).

47:7-12 With the gravity of old age, the piety of a true believer, and the authority of a patriarch and a prophet, Jacob besought the Lord to bestow a blessing upon Pharaoh. He acted as a man not ashamed of his religion; and who would express gratitude to the benefactor of himself and his family. We have here a very uncommon answer given to a very common question. Jacob calls his life a pilgrimage; the sojourning of a stranger in a foreign country, or his journey home to his own country. He was not at home upon earth; his habitation, his inheritance, his treasures were in heaven. He reckons his life by days; even by days life is soon reckoned, and we are not sure of the continuance of it for a day. Let us therefore number our days. His days were few. Though he had now lived one hundred and thirty years, they seemed but a few days, in comparison with the days of eternity, and the eternal state. They were evil; this is true concerning man. He is of few days and full of trouble; since his days are evil, it is well they are few. Jacob's life had been made up of evil days. Old age came sooner upon him than it had done upon some of his fathers. As the young man should not be proud of his strength or beauty, so the old man should not be proud of his age, and his hoary hairs, though others justly reverence them; for those who are accounted very old, attain not to the years of the patriarchs. The hoary head is only a crown of glory, when found in the way of righteousness. Such an answer could not fail to impress the heart of Pharaoh, by reminding him that worldly prosperity and happiness could not last long, and was not enough to satisfy. After a life of vanity and vexation, man goes down into the grave, equally from the throne as the cottage. Nothing can make us happy, but the prospect of an everlasting home in heaven, after our short and weary pilgrimage on earth.