And thou shalt dwell in the land of Gessen: and thou shalt be near me, thou and thy sons, and thy son's sons, thy sheep, and thy gerds, and all things that thou hast.

And thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be near to me, thou, and thy sons, and thy sons' sons, and thy sheep, and thy cattle, and all that thou hast.

and thou hast dwelt in the land of Goshen, and been near unto me, thou and thy sons, and thy son's sons, and thy flock, and thy herd, and all that thou hast,

The land of Goshen will be your living-place, and you will be near me; you and your children and your children's children, and your flocks and herds and all you have:

and you will live in the land of Goshen. And you will be next to me, you and your sons and the sons of your sons, your sheep and your herds, and all that you possess.

Et habitabis in terra Gosen, et eris propinquus mihi, tu et filii tui, et filii filorum tuorum, et pecudes tuae, et boves tui, et omnia quae sunt tibi.

Thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen - Probably this district had been allotted to Joseph by the king of Egypt, else we can scarcely think he could have promised it so positively, without first obtaining Pharaoh's consent. Goshen was the most easterly province of Lower Egypt, not far from the Arabian Gulf, lying next to Canaan, (for Jacob went directly thither when he came into Egypt), from whence it is supposed to have been about fourscore miles distant, though Hebron was distant from the Egyptian capital about three hundred miles. At Goshen Jacob stayed till Joseph visited him, Genesis 46:28. It is also called the land of Rameses, Genesis 47:11, from a city of that name, which was the metropolis of the country. Josephus, Antiq., 1. ii., c. 4, makes Heliopolis, the city of Joseph's father-in-law, the place of the Israelites' residence. As גשם geshem signifies rain in Hebrew, St. Jerome and some others have supposed that גשן Goshen comes from the same root, and that the land in question was called thus because it had rain, which was not the case with Egypt in general; and as it was on the confines of the Arabian Gulf, it is very probable that it was watered from heaven, and it might be owing to this circumstance that it was peculiarly fertile, for it is stated to be the best of the land of Egypt. See Genesis 47:6, Genesis 47:11. See also Calmet and Dodd.

And thou shall dwell in the land of Goshen,.... Called by Artapanus (t) Kaisan or Kessan; the Septuagint version Gesan of Arabia, as it was that part of Egypt which bordered on Arabia: it seems to be the same with the land of Rameses, see Genesis 47:11; and the Heliopolitan home, which, Strabo (u) says, was reckoned to be in Arabia, and in which were both the city of Heliopolis and the city Heroopolis, according to Ptolemy (w); for in the Septuagint version of Genesis 46:28, instead of Goshen is Heroopolis, or the city of the Heroes in the land of Rameses, with which agrees Josephus (x): wherefore Dr. Shaw (y) observes, the land of Rameses or Goshen could be no other than the Heliopolitan home, taking in that part of Arabia which lay bounded near Heliopolis by the Nile, and near Heroopolis by the correspondent part of the Red Sea. Now either before this time Joseph had got a grant of this country, of Pharaoh, to dispose of at pleasure, or he had so much power and authority of himself as to put his father into it: or it may be, it was the domains of his father in law the priest of On, since On or Onii, according to Ptolemy (z), was the metropolis of the Heliopolitan home, and by some thought to be Heliopolis itself, and perhaps might be Joseph's own country, which he had with the daughter of the priest of On: indeed if what the Jewish writers say (a), that Pharaoh, king of Egypt in Abraham's time, gave to Sarah the land of Goshen for an inheritance, and therefore the Israelites dwelt in it, because it was Sarah their "mother's"; it would account for Joseph's proposing to put them into the possession of it without the leave of Pharaoh; but Goshen seems to have been in the grant of Pharaoh, who agreed and confirmed what Joseph proposed, Genesis 47:6,
and thou shalt be near unto me; as he would be in Goshen, if Memphis was the royal seat at this time, as some think (b), and not Tanis or Zoan; or Heliopolis, or both, in their turn; and Artapanus (c) is express for it, that Memphis was the seat of that king of Egypt, in whose court Moses was brought up; and especially Heliopolis, nay be thought to be so, if Joseph dwelt at On or Heliopolis, where his father in law was priest or prince, which was near if not in Goshen itself: and according to Bunting (d), On or Oni was the metropolis of Goshen; and Leo Africanus says (e), that the sahidic province, in which was Fium, where the Israelites dwelt, see Genesis 47:11, was the seat of the nobility of the ancient Egyptians:
thou and thy children, and thy children's children: for Jacob's sons had all of them children, even Benjamin the youngest, as appears from the following chapter:
and thy flocks, and thy herds, and all that thou hast; and Goshen, being a place of pasturage, was fit and suitable for them; and so Josephus says (f), of Heliopolis, which he takes to be the place where Jacob was placed, that there the king's shepherds had their pastures.
(t) Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. 23. p. 27. (u) Geograph. l. 17. p. 555. (w) Geograph. l. 4. c. 5. (x) Antiqu. l. 2. c. 7. sect. 5. (y) Travels, 305, 306. Ed. 2. (z) Ut supra. (w)) (a) Pirke Eliezer, c. 26. (b) Dr. Shaw. ut supra, (y)) p. 304, &c. Jablonski de Terra Goshen, Dissert. 4. sect. 3, 4, 5. & Sicardus in ib. Dissert. 5. sect. 1. (c) Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. 23, 27. (d) Travels, &c. p. 76. (e) Descriptio Africae, l. 8. p. 669. (f) Ut supra, (x)) sect. 6.