So Jacob said to Pharaoh, "The years of my sojourning are one hundred and thirty; few and unpleasant have been the years of my life, nor have they attained the years that my fathers lived during the days of their sojourning"What a sad statement to make, near the end of one's life. Today, to hear of someone who lived to be 130, and was likely still able to walk on his own, is unheard of. Then think that he lived to 147, and it gets even harder to comprehend.
But to have lived such a long life, and describe your life as unpleasant, seems so terrible. Here the conniver, the deceiver, looks back upon it all and says it wasn't worth it. The man stole his older brother's blessing, his older brother's birthright, was tricked by his uncle into marrying the wrong woman and then the one he wanted (and had a couple extra concubines as well), makes peace with his brother, has over a dozen children, loses his beloved to the last son, and then loses his favorite son only to be reunited again, and he describes his life as "unpleasant." How differently might the book of Genesis read, if Jacob had followed a "better" path, and been more of the role model that we would look up to today?
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