Jacob is told that Joseph is alive and is taken to see him in Egypt.  God calls to Jacob one night during the journey and tells Jacob that he will prosper in Egypt and that Joseph will be present at Jacob’s deathbed.

Jacob and Joseph have a tearful reunion.  The family continues to work as shepherds in Egypt in the region of Goshen.  The famine continues in Egypt and Joseph sells grain to the people.  Eventually, the people sell all they own to Pharaoh in order to purchase grain.  By the end of the famine, Pharaoh owns all of the land in Egypt save the land of the priests.  At the end of the famine, Joseph gives seeds to the people and directs then to repay Pharaoh with one-fifth of their harvest.

Joseph chooses to settle his family in Goshen, an area in northeastern Egypt (see Jewish History Atlas by Gilbert, p. 2).  The Egyptians worshipped sheep and thus had an aversion to shepherds.  Joseph was therefore able to justify the need for physical distance between his family and the Egyptian population centers.  The Netziv explained Joseph’s motive differently.  Joseph did not want the household of Jacob assimilating into Egyptian culture.  He wanted to preserve them as a group so they could become a nation.  Although the details are a bit different today, the issue of how to preserve the Jewish nation has been ongoing since Biblical times.