What Does Genesis 45:20 Mean?

"Have no concern for your goods, for the best of all the land of Egypt is yours." The instruction to leave possessions behind: or not to concern themselves about what they cannot transport: is the assurance that Egypt's resources will more than replace anything left in Canaan. "The best of all the land of Egypt is yours": Pharaoh's royal promise means that the possession calculus is entirely in favor of coming. Whatever they cannot bring from Canaan, Egypt will provide. The goods of Canaan are nothing compared to what Pharaoh is making available in Egypt.

The "have no concern for your goods" echoes the practical wisdom that accompanies all major providential relocations in the patriarchal narrative. When God told people to go: Abram from Ur, Jacob from Laban's house: the going was the obedience; the goods question resolved itself in the going. Here, Joseph through Pharaoh's instruction is preemptively addressing the possessions anxiety: don't let the logistics of moving a large household from Canaan to Egypt prevent or delay the relocation. Come. The goods will be taken care of at the destination end.

The practical wisdom of "the best of all the land of Egypt is yours" also sets up the family's eventual prosperity in Goshen that Genesis 47 will describe. Jacob's family arrives in Egypt and settles in Goshen; they are given the best of the land and provided for through the famine. The "best of the land" that Pharaoh promises here in verse 20 is the promise that Genesis 47:6,11 will show being fulfilled: Pharaoh gives Jacob's sons the best of the land of Egypt, in the land of Rameses. The promise and the fulfillment bracket the relocation narrative.