And the sons of Joseph, who were born to him in Egypt, were two souls: all the souls of the house of Jacob, who came into Egypt, were three score and ten.
All Commentaries on Genesis 46:27 Go To Genesis 46
Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
Therefore seventyfive souls go down into Egypt, just as it is written, and this in the mystical sense is the number of forgiveness. For after such great hardness, after such great sins, they would be considered unworthy unless there were granted them the forgiveness of sins. Judah—that is, the confession of sin—goes to meet Joseph. The people of the Jews that is to come sends him ahead as a forerunner of itself. So also the true Joseph, that is, “the witness and interpreter of the Godhead,” comes to meet those who before were in the possession of unbelief, because now their confession precedes them. For Christ is the interpreter of the Godhead, because “no one has at any time seen God, except the onlybegotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father; he has revealed him.” It is he who in the last times will receive the people of the Jews, by then in an advanced age and grown weary, and do so, not according to its merits but according to the election of his grace; and he will put his hand on its eyes to take away its blindness. And so he postponed its healing, so that the people who earlier did not think it should be believed might be the last to believe and might lose the prerogative of earlier election. On this account also the apostle says, “that a partial blindness has befallen Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles should enter, and thus all Israel should be saved.” And thus it is that the deeds of the patriarchs are symbols of events to come. Indeed, Jacob himself speaks to this effect to his sons: “Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you the things that shall befall you in the last days. Gather yourselves together, and hear Israel your father.”
