Hey everybody! Are you ready to begin again?! We just finished Genesis, and now we are starting a new journey through the book of Exodus. And journey is the right word because that's definitely what this was for the Israelites. It was the journey of journeys, a journey still commemorated by Jews worldwide to this very day. Through this study, we will learn that the promises of God today are just as sure as the promises made long ago.
As we open the Word of God, remember that this is God's book given to us that we might know Him and understand His ways. He wants you to love Him with the entirety of our tri-part being: body, soul, and spirit. We show this by keeping His commandments. And we learn what He expects of us by studying His Word. Remember that Satan and his demonic underlings are the enemies of your soul. They don't want us to spend time in the Bible, but they can't stop us from persevering unless we let them. Sometimes even working for the Lord can keep us from being in His Word to get our nourishment. Jesus said, "People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." When you aren't in the Bible daily, you are starving yourself. Would you skip meals days or weeks at a time? If not, then why starve your soul and spirit?
Everything that happens in Exodus has its roots in Genesis. So for those of you who might be new, let's look a little bit at where we have been to better understand where we are going. Yahweh had said to Abram, "Leave your native country, relatives, father's family, and go to a land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. All the families on Earth will be blessed through you." So Abram departed as Yahweh had instructed, and Lot went with him. Abram was 75 years old when he left Haran. Abraham took his wife Sarai (whose name would later be changed to Sarah). He also took his nephew Lot and his wealth. That included livestock and all the people taken into his household at Haran. Then they headed for the land of Canaan. Abraham traveled through the land as far as Shechem. There he set up camp beside the oak of Moreh. At that time, the area was inhabited by Canaanites. Then Yahweh appeared to Abram and said, "I will give you and your descendants this land." And Abram built an altar there and dedicated it to Yahweh, who had appeared to him.
Later, after Lot had gone, Yahweh said to Abram, "Look as far as you can in every direction--north, south, east, and west. As far as you can see, I am giving all this land to you and your descendants forever. And I will provide you with so many descendants that, like the dust of the earth, they cannot be counted! So go and walk through the land in every direction, for I am giving it to you. So Abram moved his camp to Hebron and settled near the oak grove belonging to Mamre. There he built another altar to Yahweh.
Another time, Yahweh said to Abram, "You can be sure that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land, where they will be oppressed as slaves for 400 years. But I will punish the nation that enslaves them, and in the end, they will come away with great wealth. (As for you, you will die in peace and be buried at a ripe old age.) So then, after four generations, your descendants will return here to this land, for the sins of the Amorites do not yet warrant their destruction." After the sun went down and darkness fell, Abram saw a smoking firepot and a flaming torch pass between the halves of the carcasses. Yahweh made a covenant with Abram that day and said, “I have given this land to your descendants, all the way from the border of Egypt to the great Euphrates River."
During the time of Abraham's son Isaac, a severe famine had struck the land, just as had happened before in Abraham's time. So Isaac moved to Gerar, where Abimelech, king of the Philistines, lived. Yahweh appeared to Isaac and said, “Do not go down to Egypt, but do as I tell you. Live here as a foreigner in this land, and I will be with you and bless you. I now confirm that I will give you and your descendants all these lands, just as I solemnly promised Abraham, your father. I will cause your descendants to become as numerous as the stars of the sky, and I will give them all these lands. And through your descendants, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. I will do this because Abraham listened to me and obeyed all my requirements, commands, decrees, and instructions." So, Isaac stayed in Gerar.
In the next generation, Isaac's son Jacob, staying in Beersheba, left and traveled toward Haran. At sundown, he arrived at a good place to set up camp and stopped there for the night. Jacob found a stone to rest his head against and lay down to sleep. As he slept, he dreamed of a stairway that reached from the earth up to Heaven. And Jacob saw the angels of God going up and down the stairway. At the top of the stairway stood Yahweh, and he said, “I am Yahweh, the God of your grandfather Abraham, and the God of your father, Isaac. The ground you are lying on belongs to you. I am giving it to you and your descendants. What’s more, I am with you, and I will protect you wherever you go. One day I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have finished giving you everything I have promised you."
The previous paragraphs have highlighted the repeated everlasting promise of Yahweh to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the rest of the Jewish people that have or will descend from them. God doesn't need to repeat Himself, but He chooses to for our sake. My guess is He knew of the disputes over the Promised Land throughout the future. So, He was just making His will especially clear. But that's not all that happened in Genesis. If you were with me before, you know 13 of the last 14 chapters of Genesis have to do with the life of Joseph. His brothers were intensely jealous of him to the point of hatred because he was Jacob's favorite. He also seemed to be, from my perspective at least, the best behaved of them all. Maybe that's why he was the favorite. One time, when Jacob sent Joseph to check on his older brothers, they ripped off the beautiful robe his father had given him. Then they grabbed him and threw him into a cistern with no water in it. Then, just as they were sitting down to eat, they looked up and saw a caravan of camels in the distance coming toward them. A group of Ishmaelite traders took a load of gum, balm, and aromatic resin from Gilead down to Egypt. One of Joseph's older brothers, Judah, said to the others, "What will we gain by killing our brother? We’d have to cover up the crime. So instead of hurting him, let’s sell him to those Ishmaelite traders. After all, he is our brother—our own flesh and blood!" And his brothers agreed. So when the Ishmaelites, who were Midianite traders, came by, Joseph’s brothers pulled him out of the cistern and sold him to them for twenty pieces of silver. That's $209.52 in today's money. And the traders took him to Egypt.
But Joseph thrived even as a slave because Yahweh was with him. So he was put in charge of Potiphar's house even Joseph was Potiphar's slave. Then Potiphar's wife made advanced toward him that Joseph rejected because he didn't want to dishonor his heavenly Master or his earthly master. So she falsely accused him of rape, and he was thrown into prison. He prospered there and was made an overseer of the prison. While in prison, Joseph correctly interpreted the prophetic dreams of two fellow inmates. One of those received the death penalty, while the other was granted freedom and restored to his previous position working under Pharaoh. Joseph interpreted that dream correctly as well, a dream about the next 14 years. The first seven years would be a time of bountiful harvest nationwide. The next seven years would be a time of severe famine to such a degree that it would leave Egypt and the surrounding nations in total desperation. Pharaoh was so impressed that he made Joseph the second-in-command in Egypt, or what I like to call Vice Pharaoh. Meanwhile, Joseph's brothers had lied to their father 22 years later about what happened to him, saying that he had been killed by a wild animal. Jacob sent the other sons to Egypt for food, not knowing Joseph was alive, where he was, or his status. To keep a long story from getting longer, Joseph eventually reveals himself to his brothers and forgives them for what they did to him. He then invites his whole family to come and stay in Egypt. Jacob was afraid to go because he remembered all the promises of Yahweh about the Promised Land. But during the night, God spoke to Jacob in a vision. Yahweh said to Jacob, "I will go with you down to Egypt, and I will bring you back again. You will die in Egypt, but Joseph will be with you to close your eyes."
When Jacob died, Joseph threw himself on his father, wept over him, and kissed him. Then Joseph told the physicians who served him to embalm his father’s body. So Jacob was embalmed. The embalming process took the usual 40 days. And the Egyptians mourned his death for 70 days. When the mourning period was over, Joseph approached Pharaoh’s advisers and said, “Please do me this favor and speak to Pharaoh on my behalf. Tell him that my father made me swear an oath. He said to me, ‘Listen, I am about to die. Take my body back to the land of Canaan, and bury me in the tomb I prepared for myself.’ So please allow me to go and bury my father. After his burial, I will return without delay." Pharaoh agreed to Joseph’s request. “Go and bury your father, as he made you promise,” he said. So Joseph went up to bury his father. He was accompanied by all of Pharaoh’s officials, all the senior members of Pharaoh’s household, and all the senior officers of Egypt. Joseph also took his entire household and his brothers and their households. But they left their little children and flocks and herds in the land of Goshen. A significant number of chariots and charioteers accompanied Joseph. When they arrived at the threshing floor of Atad, near the Jordan River, they held a very great and solemn memorial service, with seven days of mourning for Joseph’s father. The local residents, the Canaanites, watched them mourning at the threshing floor of Atad. Then they renamed that place (near the Jordan) Abel-mizraim (Mourning of the Egyptians), for they said, “This is a place of deep mourning for these Egyptians.” So Jacob’s sons did as he had commanded them. They carried his body to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave in the field of Machpelah, near Mamre. This is the cave that Abraham had bought as a permanent burial site from Ephron the Hittite. After burying Jacob, Joseph returned to Egypt with his brothers and all who had accompanied him to his father’s burial.
But now that their father was dead, Joseph’s brothers became fearful. “Now Joseph will show his anger and pay us back for all the wrong we did to him,” they said. So they sent this message to Joseph: “Before your father died, he instructed us to say to you: ‘Please forgive your brothers for the great wrong they did to you—for their sin in oppressing you.’ So we, the servants of the God of your father, beg you to forgive our sin.” When Joseph received the message, he broke down and wept. Then his brothers came and threw themselves down before Joseph. “Look, we are your slaves!” they said. But Joseph replied, "Don’t be afraid of me. Am I God that I can punish you? You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people. So no, don’t be afraid. I will continue to take care of you and your children." So he reassured them by speaking kindly to them.
So Joseph and his brothers and their families continued to live in Egypt. Joseph lived to the age of 110. He lived to see three generations of descendants of his son Ephraim, and he lived to see the birth of the children of Manasseh’s son Makir, whom he claimed as his own. "Soon I will die," Joseph told his brothers, "but God will surely come to help you and lead you out of this land of Egypt. He will bring you back to the land he solemnly promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear an oath, and he said, "When God comes to help you and lead you back, you must take my bones with you." So Joseph died at the age of 110. The Egyptians embalmed him, and his body was placed in a coffin in Egypt.
The following photo compares the boundaries of the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as an everlasting possession with the land they currently possess. Despite the discrepancy, God's promise will be wholly fulfilled in the future when Jesus returns to set up His Kingdom on Earth.
Thank you all for joining me for this background information on Exodus. I hope you all are as excited about this as I am! "I AM"... those words will be important later. Until next time, may you seek God with all your heart and find Him!
SOURCES
- Precept Upon Precept: Exodus
- 1 Thessalonians 5:23
- Matthew 4:4
- Genesis 12:1-7
- Genesis 13:14-18
- Genesis 15:13-18
- Genesis 26:1-6
- Genesis 28:10-15
- Genesis 37-50
- Silver Prices Today, Live Spot Prices & Historical Charts by Money Metals
- Photo courtesy of a Skip Heitzig sermon I cannot currently find
- Jeremiah 29:13
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