Chapter 8
God's Covenant People - Israel
  In our last lesson we saw that God entered into covenant relationship with Abraham in order to preserve upon the earth the revelation of Himself which He had given to man.
  Abraham and his descendants were to be God's covenant people. Genesis 17:7 "And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be a God unto thee and thy seed after thee."
  Through this covenant people, God was going to send the redeemer. Genesis 22:17, 18 "That in blessing I will bless thee and in multiplying thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore, and thy seed shall possess the gate of thy enemies, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice."
  The people who were brought into covenant relationship with God were also to be His testimony upon the earth.
  Palestine was located geographically so that the ancient civilizations had to pass through it in their commercial relation with each other. God's covenant people, Israel, were to be a witness to them of the revelation of the true and living God.

Isaac, Jacob and Joseph
  After giving to us the history of Abraham, the book of Genesis gives us a brief history of his immediate descendants - Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.
  All Genesis may be grouped around five names . . . Adam, chapters 1-5; Noah chapters 6-11; Abraham, chapters 12-26; Jacob, chapters 27-37; Joseph, chapters 38-45.
  We will give just a brief summary of the character of these descendants of Abraham in the Blood Covenant.
  Isaac, the most beautiful of the old testament characters a gentle quiet spirit, has left an impression upon Jewish life, that no others of the fathers ever gave. His marriage and love for Rebecca is one of the most lovely of the stories of the founders of that wonderful people, Israel.
  Jacob, is another character; crooked, selfish, and shrewd. It is doubtful that he ever made anyone happy. He met God at Jabbok and God laid His hand upon him. Jacob is a different man from that day. He had power with God and man. His life proves that God can change the most crooked men and make them to live lives that are straight and clean.
  Joseph is our Prince, beautiful. Nowhere in literature is there anything to compare with this young boy, man, statesman, founder, and preserver of a nation. The fragrance of this life lingers upon the ages of Israel's history. Many boys have been made good and strong by the influence of this commanding figure and personality.
  At the age of seventeen, Joseph was sold as a slave into Egypt (Genesis 37:25-28). At thirty years of age, he became ruler of Egypt (Genesis 41:37-45). When he was forty years old, Jacob with seventy souls went into Egypt (Genesis 46:1-26).

Reasons For Going into Egypt
  The covenant keeping God remembered His promise to Abraham that He would make of him a great nation.
  To save His covenant people from destruction during the famine that was sweeping the land of Caanan, the covenant God brought them into Egypt, there to thrive and multiply. Genesis 45:6-7 "For these two years hath the famine been in the land, and there are yet five years in which there shall be neither plowing or harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve you a remnant in the earth, and to save you alive by a great deliverance."
  It was for this purpose, the preservation of His covenant people, that Joseph had been sold into Egypt and made ruler there.
  Genesis 45:8 "So now it was not you that sent me hither but God, and He hath made me a father to Pharaoh and lord of all his house and ruler of the land of Egypt."
  What a picture it gives us of the faithfulness and the loving care of the God who said: "By myself have I sworn." God was faithful to the covenant He made with Abraham!
  The children of Israel grew and prospered amidst the ease and abundance and balmy brightness of the land of Goshen. They were favored settlers. The best of the land had been bestowed upon them. They held honorable and well paid offices under the Egyptian kings (Genesis 47:1-12, 27). Above all, the favour of God was upon them.
  He was keeping His covenant with Abraham and the word that He spoke saying that His seed should be for multitude as the stars of heaven and as the sand upon the seashore. Their increase was marvelous. God was making of them a great nation that would be His witness upon the earth.
  The scripture in repeated statements directs our attention to the marvelous growth of God's covenant people. Exodus 1:7 "And the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly and multiplied, and waxed exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them." In the 430 years in which the children of Israel were in Egypt (Exodus 12:40), their number increased from 70 to over three million. Men over 20 years of age numbered in excess of six hundred thousand (Numbers 1:46).
  (There is a school of thought which teaches that the children of Israel were in Egypt for 210 years. This assumption is based upon most chronological arrangements extant. This seems to present a difficulty with other passages of scripture such as Exodus 12:40, which certainly seems to give the period of their sojourn in Egypt as 430 years. However, the Septuagint translation of this reads: "The sojourning of the children and their fathers which they sojourned in the land of Canaan and the land of Egypt." Galatians 3:16-17 throws light upon it as showing the period began to be reckoned from the date of the promise to Abraham to the deliverance of the children of Israel which is 430 years. In this system of chronology, it is ascertained that Abraham after his call, sojourned in Haran five years. There passed between the entering of Canaan and the birth of Isaac, twenty-five years. From the birth of Isaac until the birth of Jacob, there were sixty years. Jacob was 130 years old when he entered Egypt. This whole interval amounts to 220 years. Add the 210 years to this number gives the 430 years. Or, 430 years from the sojourning of Abraham to the deliverance in Egypt.)

The Persecution of Israel in Egypt
  We saw in our last weeks lesson the working of Satan to destroy the "seed of the woman" through whom the promised redeemer was to come. Now that the redeemer has been specified, as the "seed of Abraham," Satan seeks to destroy God's Covenant people.
  After a period of many years in Egypt, during which the Israelites had grown into a mighty people, Satan seeks to destroy them. Satan put fear into the hearts of the statesman of Egypt, an ill-founded fear that the Israelites, who were so mighty in number would join themselves to the enemies of the Egyptians in the time of war (Exodus 1:8-10).
  Then followed councils of systematic oppression and enslavement of determined tyranny and cruelty (Exodus 1:10-13).
  The increase, however, of Israel was a part of a Divine plan for His covenant people, and all the world could do nothing to arrest it. The more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew (Exodus 1:15-22).
  The treatment that the slaves received from the Egyptians was something very horrible. The mutilations and the tortures that were inflicted upon the Israelites, with the command that every son be killed or cast into the river, were of Satanic character.
  The persecution that Israel received was so great that they cried to their covenant God for deliverance. He heard their cry, He remembered the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The covenant keeping God comes down to deliver His people from their bondage (Exodus 2:23-25, Exodus 3:5-8).
  In His call to Moses, He said: "Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." Moreover He said: "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." The second chapter of Exodus gives to us the record of the birth of Moses until the time of his call.
  We notice two facts here. The hiding of the baby Moses at the river's bank by his mother, and Moses later renunciation of Egypt were not rash acts. Hebrew 11:23-27 shows us that both acts were based on faith in the Covenant-keeping God.
  "By faith Moses when he was born, was hid three months by his parents . . . By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter . . . "By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king."
  This third and the fourth chapters of Exodus give to us the call of Moses, including the story of the burning bush, the revelation of God to him, in His plans for delivering the Israelites, Moses' hesitancy to respond, and permission for Aaron to accompany him. We notice the power given to Moses' rod whereby he might perform miracles. We notice that God manifested Himself to Moses not only as the Covenant keeping God, but also as the miracle-working God.
  Exodus 4:20-26 reveals the important place that the blood Covenant held. Moses had neglected the circumcision of his first son. He had been unfaithful to the covenant. While on his way from the wilderness of Sinai to Egypt with the Egyptians, Moses was met by a startling providence and came face to face with death. The Lord met him and sought to kill him. It seems to have been perceived both by Moses and his wife that they were being cut off from further share in God's covenant plans for the descendants of Abraham, because of their failure to conform to their obligations in the covenant of Abraham.
  In our next lesson we shall become spectators of the mightiest conflict in history. On one side is arrayed all the power and wealth and splendor of Egypt, its learning, its pride, and its confident dependence upon its gods. On the other hand, is a poor weak, aged, broken, and discredited man. He has but one follower, his brother Aaron. It is no formidable procession which these two make as they pass through the palace gates, and ask an audience of the king; and the lighthearted witty Egyptians must have enjoyed many a jest at their expense. But there was a heart of astonishment behind all the laughter. What generation of men had ever witnessed such a thing!
  Two slaves demanding liberty not for themselves but for three million people. Demanding it again and again after repeated refusal from Pharaoh. The god-king of the mightiest civilization of that day.
  We shall see that laughter dies down before the persistency of these men, and the astonishment that followed was changed to fear. The cheek pales and the heart trembles at the sound of their steps. These two men, blood-covenant men, hold the fate of Egypt in their hands, and leave written upon the land a record that continues to live on long centuries after Egypt's greatness had passed away.
  Before we study the exit of the children of Israel out of Egypt, it will help us to note some facts about the King of Egypt.
  A prince in mounting the throne of Egypt was, so to speak, transfigured in the eyes of his subjects. In the mind of the Egyptian, Pharaoh was equally man and god.
  "We may imagine," writes Lanormant, "what prestige such an exaltation in Egypt gave to the sovereign power!" The Egyptians in the eyes of the king, were by trembling slaves compelled from religious motives to execute his orders blindly.
  Worship was addressed to him as a divinity. His ministers and he occupy two different platforms. He sits apart and alone. When he has spoken the matter is judged. It is to him alone that God's demands are addressed, and to him the responsibility of refusal and continual injustice is laid.
  We now understand why Pharaoh stands forth as the one man in all Egypt, with whom the deliverer of the Israelites has a controversy. Such words as these take on new significance when they are set forth in the light of these facts.
  Exodus 8:22-23 "That thou (Pharaoh) may know that there is none like the Lord our God, and I will sever in that day the land of Goshen in which my people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there; to the end that thou mayest know that I (emphatic I and not you or your gods) am the Lord in the midst of the earth, and I will put a division between my people and thy people."
  God and His people are on one side; Pharaoh and his people are on the other side. It is the contest between the true and living God with a pretender. God has to break the idol to pieces, and lay the idol low to deliver His people.


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