Bible Strands
Genesis 46:4
I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will surely bring you back. And Joseph’s own hands will close your eyes.”
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — God speaks to Jacob at Beersheba immediately before Jacob’s household departs for Egypt.
The words — The text foregrounds אֵרֵד ('e.Red) for "I will go down" and אַֽעַלְ/ךָ֣ ('a.'al./Kha) for "I will bring up," marking the journey as a bounded divine movement.
The thread — The text explicitly promises descent and ascent in Genesis 46:4, which parallels the return promise in Genesis 28:15 and the rescue pattern in Exodus 3:8.
Why it lands — The text states that God accompanies the migration and will restore the family, requiring the reader to accept that historical displacement operates under sovereign direction rather than human strategy.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
I will go down with thee into Egypt; and I will also surely bring thee up again: and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes.
Cross-references
- Genesis 28:15 Look, I am with you, and I will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
- Exodus 3:8 I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.
- Genesis 48:21 Then Israel said to Joseph, “Look, I am about to die, but God will be with you and bring you back to the land of your fathers.
- Genesis 50:1 Then Joseph fell upon his father’s face, wept over him, and kissed him.
- Genesis 15:14 But I will judge the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will depart with many possessions.
- Genesis 50:5 my father made me swear an oath when he said, ‘I am about to die. You must bury me in the tomb that I dug for myself in the land of Canaan.’ Now let me go and bury my father, and then return.”
- Genesis 50:13 They carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave at Machpelah in the field near Mamre, which Abraham had purchased from Ephron the Hittite as a burial site.
- Genesis 50:24 Then Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will surely visit you and bring you up from this land to the land He promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
- Isaiah 43:1 But now, this is what the LORD says—He who created you, O Jacob, and He who formed you, O Israel: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are Mine!