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✝️TOPIC: GIVE US BREAD
✝️📖TEXT: Genesis 47: 7-19(NKJV)
47:7. Then Joseph brought in his father Jacob and set him before Pharaoh; and Jacob blessed Pharaoh.
47:8. Pharaoh said to Jacob, “How old [are] you?”
47:9. And Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The days of the years of my pilgrimage [are] one hundred and thirty years; few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.”
47:10. So Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from before Pharaoh.
47:11. And Joseph situated his father and his brothers, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded.
47:12. Then Joseph provided his father, his brothers, and all his father’s household with bread, according to the number in [their] families.
47:13. Now [there was] no bread in all the land; for the famine [was] very severe, so that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan languished because of the famine.
47:14. And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, for the grain which they bought; and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh’s house.
47:15. So when the money failed in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, “Give us bread, for why should we die in your presence? For the money has failed.”
47:16. Then Joseph said, “Give your livestock, and I will give you [bread] for your livestock, if the money is gone.”
47:17. So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and Joseph gave them bread [in exchange] for the horses, the flocks, the cattle of the herds, and for the donkeys. Thus he fed them with bread [in exchange] for all their livestock that year.
47:18. When that year had ended, they came to him the next year and said to him, “We will not hide from my lord that our money is gone; my lord also has our herds of livestock. There is nothing left in the sight of my lord but our bodies and our lands.
47:19. “Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants of Pharaoh; give [us] seed, that we may live and not die, that the land may not be desolate.”
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STUDY: During the Nigerian Civil war, we were displaced from home and spent nearly two years in refugee camps. Many children died ofkwashiorkor and other malnutrition-related diseases. We survived by subsistence farming and occasional food rations from the World Council of Churches, the Caritas, etc. Similarly, the famine described in our text was very severe (v.13), and many would have perished. But Joseph managed the situation with skill and the fear of God. The “Strategic Food Reserves” which were accumulated during the years of plenty were sold to the people (Gen.41: 47-49; v.14). When their money was used up, they paid with their livestock, lands and even themselves (vv. 17, 20). Unlike our experience during the Civil war when some relief materials were illegally diverted, there was no report against Joseph for corruption. Rather, he brought everything realised to Pharaoh’s palace. Today, many people are displaced because of famine, climate change, war, poor economic policies, etc. Some are unemployed or under-employed. There are also challenges at the personal, family, community or national levels. Whatever the case, we can trust God to “give us this day our daily bread” and also meet our every need (Matt. 6: 11; Phil. 4: 19).
✝️🙏 PRAYER: O Lord, please help those suffering the effects of famine, war and natural disasters, Amen.
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