(26) All the souls were threescore and six.--This total is obtained by omitting Jacob, Joseph, and Joseph's two sons. If we include these, the whole number becomes threescore and ten, as in Genesis 46:27. In the LXX. the names of five grandsons are added to Genesis 46:20, and thus the total is made seventy-five, as quoted by St. Stephen in Acts 7:14.

Verses 26, 27. - All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins, besides Jacob's sons' wives, all the souls were threescore and six; and the sons of Joseph, which were born him in Egypt, were two souls: all the souls of the house of Jacob, which came into Egypt, were threescore and ten. According to the LXX. the number of Joseph's sons was nine; and the number of those who came with Jacob into Egypt seventy five, a number adopted by Stephen (Acts 7:14). The apparent confusion in these different numbers, sixty-six, seventy, seventy- five, will disappear if it be observed that the first takes no account of Jacob, Joseph, Manasseh, and Ephraim, while they are as palpably included in the second computation, and that Stephen simply adds to the seventy of ver. 27 the five grandsons of Joseph who are mentioned in the Septuagint version, from which he quoted, or to the sixty-six of ver. 26 the nine mentioned above, consisting of Jacob, Joseph, Manasseh, Ephraim, and Joseph's five grandsons, thus making seventy five in all. There is thus no irreconcilable contradiction between the Hebrew historian and the Christian orator.

46:5-27 We have here a particular account of Jacob's family. Though the fulfilling of promises is always sure, yet it is often slow. It was now 215 years since God had promised Abraham to make of him a great nation, ch. 12:2; yet that branch of his seed, to which the promise was made sure, had only increased to seventy, of whom this particular account is kept, to show the power of God in making these seventy become a vast multitude.All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt,.... These are in parcels before mentioned, but here they are brought to a sum total; and by this phrase are excluded those that died before, as Er and Onan, and those that were in Egypt before, as Joseph and his two sons; and I should think also all that were born in Egypt afterwards, even while Jacob was living: those reckoned are only such:

which came out of his loins: such as were his seed and offspring. This is observed for the sake of what follows, and to exclude them:

besides Jacob's sons' wives; these do not come into the account, because they did not spring from him:

all the souls were threescore and six; thirty two of Leah's, leaving out Er and Onan, sixteen of Zilpah's, fourteen of Rachel's, and seven of Bilhah's, make sixty nine; take out of them Joseph and his two sons, who were in Egypt before, and you have the exact number of sixty six.