What Does Genesis 45:19 Mean?

"You are also commanded to say, 'Do this: take wagons from the land of Egypt for your little ones and for your wives, and bring your father, and come.'" The practical provision for the journey: wagons. Joseph, through Pharaoh's instruction, provides Egyptian wagons for transporting the elderly, the women, and the "little ones": the children and dependents who could not make the journey on foot. The wagon provision is the recognition that the family relocation includes people who need special transport: an elderly patriarch (Jacob, who is old and has not traveled abroad since his return from Paddan-Aram), women with young children, the family's most vulnerable members.

The "little ones" (Hebrew: tap: the young children, the dependents) mentioned here are the same "little ones" Judah included in his survival argument in Genesis 43:8 ("so that we may live... and also our little ones"). The children of the family who needed food in Canaan are now the ones for whom Egyptian wagons are being designated. The provision moves from the abstract ("I will provide for you": v.11) to the concrete (here are wagons for the children and the wives). Joseph is thinking through the practicalities of moving a large extended family across the Sinai to Egypt.

"Bring your father, and come": the repetition of the core instruction (bring Jacob, come to Egypt) in Pharaoh's voice confirms what Joseph has already said. The father who released his sons to Egypt for grain is now being specifically identified as the person who must be transported: elderly enough to need wagon transport, important enough to be specifically named as the relocation's central goal. The wagons are sent for the family; the family is being summoned with Jacob as the central figure. Everything in the plan is oriented around getting Jacob to Egypt to reunite with the son he has been mourning for twenty-two years.