God's Covenant with Jacob (Israel)

COVENANT with ISRAEL
Genesis 48:3-4, Genesis 50:24-26, Exodus 1

Genesis 48:3: “Jacob said to Joseph, ‘God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and there He blessed me, and said to me, ‘I am going to make you fruitful and will increase your numbers. I will make you a community of peoples, and will give you this land as an everlasting possession to your descendants after you.’”

By now, God’s covenant had passed from Noah, to Abraham. Through Isaac and on to Jacob. They are the patriarchs of our faith. The Lord God renamed Jacob, Israel. Israel’s son Joseph brought the family to Egypt during the famine. Joseph was governor of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh.

On route to Egypt to meet Joseph, Israel’s wife, Rachel died. She died in Canaan, and he buried her in Bethlehem. It was when he was at Luz, in the land of Canaan, that God blessed him. God revealed to Israel that He would make him fruitful. From Israel would come a multitude of people. God’s covenant was that He would give them this land as an everlasting possession. (Esodus 33:1-3, Leviticus 20:24, 25:38, Numbers 34, Deuteronomy 1:7-8, Joshua 1:1-6, 14:9).

WOW! How did they know for certain this land was really theirs? (Hebrews 11:1).

After Israel died, Joseph got Pharaoh’s permission to bury his Father in Canaan. Joseph and his father’s entire household returned to Egypt. Joseph lived to be 110 years old. He made his children promise to carry his bones out of his coffin in Egypt, and bury them in the land which God swore to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Pharaoh died, and a new king, or Pharaoh, came along. This new ruler of Egypt did not know Joseph. There were over seventy people in Joseph’s family. All Jacob’s, or Israel’s, children had been fruitful. When the new Pharaoh saw how plentiful they were. He grew afraid of their strength.

He said to the Egyptians, “The children of Israel are more than us! They are mightier than us! Let us deal wisely with them so they do not grow any more abundantly than they already have.”

He made the Egyptians stern taskmasters over the Israelites. They afflicted the people with heavy burdens. They were to build the new Pharaoh’s treasury cities.

But the harder the Egyptians worked the Israelites, the more they multiplied. The Egyptian king grew alarmed about their strength, so he made the Egyptians bear down even harder on them. The Egyptians made the Israelites lives bitter with hard bondage.

Take Home Nugget

The king of Egypt told the Hebrew midwives to kill any son born of an Israelite woman. The Hebrew midwives feared God, and they let the boy babies live. Pharaoh was angry by their refusal, so he charged all his people with another command. They were to toss every male child into the river, allowing females to live.

Hard times are never easy
And people grow weary
But we serve a God who’s kind.
He breaks chains that formerly bind.

J.D. Griffith

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