Jacob lived in Egypt, but his heart was already looking past Egypt.
Zohar, Vayechi 1:1 reads "Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years" (Genesis 47:28) as more than the quiet end of a patriarch's life. Rabbi Yosi says Jacob saw by prophecy that his descendants would suffer exile after exile, from that descent into Egypt until the final end and the coming of the Messiah.
Egypt becomes the first chamber of a much longer vision. Jacob is not only an old man with his children gathered around him. He is the father who sees the cost of the future. His family will survive, but survival will not be gentle.
The Zohar does not let exile become an accident. It becomes part of a long road whose end Jacob can glimpse but not enter. The pain is real, and the promise is real. The same prophetic heart sees both.
That is why the verse says Jacob lived. He is surrounded by the land of bondage, and still his vision reaches toward redemption. The family will go down. The people will wander. The end will come. Jacob carries all of it in one old heart.