Genesis 46:27

Gen 46:27 And the sons of Joseph, which were born him in Egypt, [were] two souls: all the souls of the house of Jacob, which came into Egypt, [were] threescore and ten.

Ver. 27. Threescore and ten.] St Stephen reckons seventy-five. {Act 7:14} And so the Greek translateth here, which Stephen seemeth to follow; as doth likewise St Luke for Cainan; {Luk 3:36} that translation being then received, and they not willing to alter it. The Jews say, that these seventy souls were as much as all the seventy nations of the world. And Moses tells them, that whereas their fathers went down into Egypt with seventy souls, now Jehovah had made them "as the stars of heaven for multitude." {Deu 10:22}

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

46:27 The total seventy includes Joseph, Ephraim, Manasseh, and Jacob. Seventy is also a symbolic number for perfection or completion (see “Symbolic Numbers” Theme Note). From these seventy (i.e., all Israel) would grow the nation of Israel that would bless the seventy nations (i.e., all the nations) of the world (see study note on Gen 10:2-32; cp. 12:3).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

27. threescore and ten] LXX gives “threescore and fifteen,” which is followed in Act_7:14. The additional five persons were the three grandsons and two great-grandsons born to Joseph in Egypt. Cf. Gen_50:23; Num_26:28 ff.

The number “seventy” being a sacred number is secured, though at the cost of some adjustment.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And Joseph said unto his brethren, and to his father's house,.... To them and their families, after he had paid his filial respects to his father, in honour, reverence, and affection:

I will go up and shew Pharaoh; acquaint him that his father and all his family were come to Egypt; he says, "I will go up"; which same phrase is used of him, Gen 46:29; when he came, and carries some difficulty in it how to account for it, that he should be said to go up when he came, and to go up when he returned. Some have thought of upper Egypt, others of the upper part of the Nile, and others, that Pharaoh's palace was situated on an eminence; but then, as it is to be supposed he went the same road he came, it would have been said, that when he came, he came down; what Ben Melech suggests seems most agreeable, I will go up to my chariot, mount that, and return to Pharaoh, and give him an account of his father's arrival, which it was very proper, prudent, and politic to do:

and say unto him, my brethren, and my father's house, which were in the land of Canaan, are come unto me; not merely to pay him a visit, but to continue there.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

CHAPTER XLVI.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

He doth not say,

which came with Jacob into Egypt, because some of them came thither before him, and others with him, some in their persons, and some in their parents. As for the difficulty arising from comparing this place with Act 7:14, it will be more fit to speak of it when we come to that place.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

27. All the souls… threescore and ten — It accorded with Hebrew spirit and custom to so frame a register of honoured names as to have them sum up a definite and significant number. So Matthew’s genealogy of our Lord is arranged into three groups of fourteen names each, (Mat_1:17,) and yet this could be done only by omitting several important names. The compiler of this list of Jacob’s sons might, by another process equally correct, have made it number sixty-nine by omitting Jacob himself, or a lesser number by omitting some of the grandchildren, or have made it exceed seventy by adding the names of Jacob’s wives: he purposely arranged it so as to make it number seventy souls. The descendants of Noah, as registered in chap. 10, amount to seventy. The seventy elders of Israel (Num_11:16) and the seventy disciples chosen by Jesus (Luk_10:1) show a peculiar regard for this mystic number. It is not improbable that the arrangement of genealogical lists was made up to round numbers, and, where possible, to a sacred number, that the whole might be the more easily and correctly transmitted by oral tradition.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

הבאה, the stress is on the second to last syllable, seeing that the verb is in the past tense. The meaning of the word is the same as if the Torah had written אשר באה, “who had arrived,”

מצרימה, an inaccuracy, as the family did not arrive in Egypt, but in Goshen, a border province. The word is used as an “umbrella,” i.e. a description of the entire state.

Radak on the Tanakh — English translations: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash” (CC BY 4.0); “Rabbi Mike Feuer, Jerusalem Anthology” (CC BY 4.0); and “R. David Kimhi on the first book of Psalms, Translated by R.G. Finch, London, 1919” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.