Adam Clarke's Bible Commentary Verse 9. The days of the years of my pilgrimage] yrwgm 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!
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 7-12 - With the gravity of old age, the piety of a true believer, and the authority of a patriarch and a prophet, Jacob besought the Lord to bestow a blessing upon Pharaoh. He acted as a man not ashamed of his religion; and who would express gratitude to the benefactor of himsel and his family. We have here a very uncommon answer given to a very common question. Jacob calls his life a pilgrimage; the sojourning of stranger in a foreign country, or his journey home to his own country He was not at home upon earth; his habitation, his inheritance, his treasures were in heaven. He reckons his life by days; even by day life is soon reckoned, and we are not sure of the continuance of it for a day. Let us therefore number our days. His days were few. Though he had now lived one hundred and thirty years, they seemed but a few days in comparison with the days of eternity, and the eternal state. The were evil; this is true concerning man. He is of few days and full of trouble; since his days are evil, it is well they are few. Jacob's lif had been made up of evil days. Old age came sooner upon him than it ha done upon some of his fathers. As the young man should not be proud of his strength or beauty, so the old man should not be proud of his age and his hoary hairs, though others justly reverence them; for those wh are accounted very old, attain not to the years of the patriarchs. The hoary head is only a crown of glory, when found in the way of righteousness. Such an answer could not fail to impress the heart of Pharaoh, by reminding him that worldly prosperity and happiness coul not last long, and was not enough to satisfy. After a life of vanit and vexation, man goes down into the grave, equally from the throne a the cottage. Nothing can make us happy, but the prospect of a everlasting home in heaven, after our short and weary pilgrimage of earth.
Original Hebrew ויאמר559 יעקב3290 אל413 פרעה6547 ימי3117 שׁני8141 מגורי4033 שׁלשׁים7970 ומאת3967 שׁנה8141 מעט4592 ורעים7451 היו1961 ימי3117 שׁני8141 חיי2416 ולא3808 השׂיגו5381 את853 ימי3117 שׁני8141 חיי2416 אבתי1 בימי3117 מגוריהם׃4033
