And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.

He answered: The days of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty years, few, and evil, and they are not come up to the days of the pilgrimage of my fathers.

And Jacob said to Pharaoh, The days of the years of my sojourning are a hundred and thirty years. Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they do not attain to the days of the years of the life of my fathers, in the days of their sojourning.

And Jacob saith unto Pharaoh, 'The days of the years of my sojournings are an hundred and thirty years; few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not reached the days of the years of the life of my fathers, in the days of their sojournings.'

And Jacob said, The years of my wanderings have been a hundred and thirty; small in number and full of sorrow have been the years of my life, and less than the years of the wanderings of my fathers.

And Jacob said unto Pharaoh: 'The days of the years of my sojournings are a hundred and thirty years; few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their sojournings.'

He responded, "The days of my sojourn are one hundred and thirty years, few and unworthy, and they do not reach even to the days of the sojourning of my fathers."

Et dixit Jahacob ad Pharaonem, Dies annorum peregrinationum mearum sunt triginta et centum anni: pauci et mali fuerunt dies annorum vitae meae, et non attigerunt dies annorum vitae patrum meorum in diebus peregrinationum suarum.

Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been. Jacob may here seem to complain that he had lived but a little while, and that, in this short space of time, he had endured many and grievous afflictions. Why does he not rather recount the great and manifold favors of God which formed an abundant compensation for every kind of evil? Besides, his complaint respecting the shortness of life seems unworthy of him; for why did he not deem a whole century and a third part of another sufficient for him? But if any one will rightly weigh his words, he rather expresses his own gratitude, in celebrating the goodness of God towards his fathers. For he does not so much deplore his own decrepitude, as he extols the vigor divinely afforded to his fathers. Certainly it was no new and unwonted thing to see a man, at his age, broken down and failing, and already near to the grave. Wherefore, this comparison (as I have said) was only intended to ascribe glory to God, whose blessing towards Abraham and Isaac had been greater than to himself. But he does not compare himself with his fathers in sufferings, as if they had been treated with greater indulgence; for we know that they had been tried to the utmost with all kinds of temptations: he merely states that he had not attained their age; as if he had said, "I, indeed, have arrived at those years which, by others, is deemed a mature old age, and which complete the proper term of life; but the Lord so prolonged the life of my fathers, that they far exceeded this limit." He makes mention of evil days, in order to show that he was not so much broken down and consumed by years, as by labors and troubles; as if he had said, "My senses might yet have flourished in their vigor, if my strength had not been exhausted by continual labors, by excessive cares, and by most grievous sufferings." We now see that nothing was less in the mind of the holy man than to expostulate with God. Yet it may seem absurd that he speaks of his life as being shorter than that of his fathers. For, whence does he conjecture that so little time should still remain for him, as to prevent him from attaining their age? Should any one answer, that he formed this conjecture from the weakness of his body, which was half dead; the solution will not prove satisfactory. For Isaac had dimness of sight and trembling limbs thirty years before his death. But it is not absurd to suppose that Jacob was every moment giving himself over to death, as if the sepulcher were before his eyes. He was, however, uncertain what length of time was decreed for him in the secret counsel of God. Wherefore, being unconcerned about the remainder of his life, he speaks just as if he were about to die on the next day.

The days of the years of my pilgrimage - מגורי megurai, of my sojourning or wandering. Jacob had always lived a migratory or wandering life, in different parts of Canaan, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, scarcely ever at rest; and in the places where he lived longest, always exposed to the fatigues of the field and the desert. Our word pilgrim comes from the French pelerin and pelegrin, which are corrupted from the Latin peregrinus, an alien, stranger, or foreigner, from the adverb peregre, abroad, not at home. The pilgrim was a person who took a journey, long or short, on some religious account, submitting during the time to many hardships and privations. A more appropriate term could not be conceived to express the life of Jacob, and the motive which induced him to live such a life. His journey to Padan-aram or Mesopotamia excepted, the principal part of his journeys were properly pilgrimages, undertaken in the course of God's providence on a religious account.
Have not attained unto the - life of my fathers - Jacob lived in the whole one hundred and forty-seven years; Isaac his father lived one hundred and eighty; and Abraham his grandfather, one hundred and seventy-five. These were days of years in comparison of the lives of the preceding patriarchs, some of whom lived nearly ten centuries!

Jacob said unto Pharaoh, the days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years,.... He calls his life a "pilgrimage"; as every good man's is; they are not at home in their own country, they are seeking a better, even an heavenly one: Jacob's life was very emphatically and literally a pilgrimage; he first dwelt in Canaan, from thence he removed to Padanaram, and sojourned there awhile, and then came to Canaan again; for some time he dwelt at Succoth, and then at Shechem, and after that at Hebron, and now he was come down to Egypt, and he had spent one hundred and thirty years of his life in this way: and with this perfectly agrees the account of Polyhistor from Demetrius (n), an Heathen writer, who makes the age of Jacob when he came into Egypt one hundred and thirty, and that year to be the third year of the famine, agreeably to Genesis 45:6,
few and evil have the days of the years of my life been; see Job 14:1; he calls his days but "few", in comparison of the long lives of the patriarchs in former times, and especially in comparison of the days of eternity: and "evil", because of the many afflictions he had met with; as from Esau, from whose face he was obliged to flee lest he should kill him, Genesis 27:41; and in Laban's house, where he served for a wife fourteen years, and endured great hardships, Genesis 31:41; and at Shechem, where his daughter was ravished, Genesis 34:2, and his sons made that slaughter of the Shechemites, Genesis 34:25, which he feared would cause his name to stink, Genesis 34:30; and at Ephrath, where he buried his beloved Rachel, Genesis 35:16; and at Hebron, where his sons brought him such an account as if they believed his beloved son Joseph was destroyed by a wild beast, Genesis 37:32,
and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage; his grandfather Abraham lived to be one hundred amnd seventy five years of age, Genesis 25:7, and his father Isaac lived to the age of one hundred and eighty, Genesis 35:28.
(n) Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. p. 21. p. 425.

The days of the years of my pilgrimage, &c.--Though a hundred thirty years, he reckons by days (compare Psalm 90:12), which he calls few, as they appeared in retrospect, and evil, because his life had been one almost unbroken series of trouble. The answer is remarkable, considering the comparative darkness of the patriarchal age (compare 2-Timothy 1:10).

Observe Jacob calls his life a pilgrimage, looking upon himself as a stranger in this world, and a traveller towards another. He reckoned himself not only a pilgrim now he was in Egypt, a strange country in which he never was before, but his life even in the land of his nativity was a pilgrimage. He reckoned his life by days; for even so it is soon reckoned, and we are not sure of the continuance of it for a day to an end, but may be turned out of this tabernacle at less than an hours warning. The character he gives of them was, That they were few. Though he had now lived 130 years, they seemed to him but as a few days, in comparison of the days of eternity, in which a thousand years are but as one day; That they were evil. This is true concerning man in general, Job 14:1, he is of few days and full of trouble: Jacob's life particularly had been made up of evil days. the pleasantest days of his life were yet before him. That they were short of the days of his fathers; not so many, not so pleasant as their days. Old age came sooner upon him than it had done upon some of his ancestors.