Exodus: The Beginnings of a Nation

The book of Genesis closes with the  record of Joseph and his family in Egypt due to the famine in Canaan (Ex 1:5). The book of  Exodus opens, not with a family but a nation. God  had already fulfilled the first part of His Promise to Abraham.   God promised Abraham that He would make him a great nation and make his name exceedingly great (Gen 12:2). When faced with doubt and despair concerning who would be his heir, Abraham was commanded by God to look at the stars and try to number them. “So shall your seed be”, God promised (Gen 15:5). Ex 1:7 records the extent of their greatness. The family of 70 had grown into a nation numbering millions because God fulfilled His Promise to Abraham.

However, trouble was on the horizon. Joseph, his father and brothers and all that generation passed away and there came a time when a new king rose to power in Egypt, one who had no remembrance of Joseph. The Bible does not record the length of time that passed before this new Pharoah came to power or the reasons surrounding the Egyptian royal dynasty’s forgetfulness of Joseph’s benevolent rule.  Perhaps, it was because the nation of Israel at its zenith had themselves forgotten how they came to be in Egypt. Maybe they got too comfortable in Egypt, forgetting that their inheritance was not to be in that land, but rather in Canaan. They were a powerful, blessed and great nation but God’s entire Promise was not yet fulfilled. God desired that they should have their own land and that He would be their King, not a Pharoah. Sometimes, God’s Plan for us is different from our own. He  has a better plan and will intervene in mysterious ways to accomplish His Will. Joseph understood that the destiny of his people was not to be in Egypt, favourable though the conditions may have been. In a prophetic utterance before his death, he asked that his bones be carried to Canaan when God visited His people to fulfil the next portion of His Promise to Abraham i.e. their own land! (Gen 50:25-26).

The new Pharoah sought to subjugate the nation of Israel. He saw them not as a great ally, but a potential enemy. He made them slaves in Egypt, building the store cities of Raamses and Pithom. It was Joseph who through God’s wisdom had invented store cities! Pharoah also requested the Israelite midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, to kill all infant Hebrew boys and only let the girls live. He sought to weaken Israel, hoping all the older men would die under the harsh conditions of slavery and they would be a nation of women! The midwives however, chose to obey God instead of Pharoah and God honoured them by rewarding them with families and households of their own. Pharoah was on a collision course with God’s Promise and God’s Will for His people and he was fighting a losing battle. Despite the affliction of slavery and the command to kill the infant sons of Israel, Israel blossomed and multiplied under the hand of a gracious God. How ironical that the Bible makes mention of the lowly, God-fearing Hebrew midwives by name but fails to mention the reigning monarch by his name! The lowliest of God’s servants are honoured by Him more than kings (Ex 1:8, 15-21)

Scripture refs: Exodus 1

God's Grace in the Old Testament-Part 6

We have finally  come to the last instalment of our series on Genesis, yet this is only the beginning of God’s unfathomable Grace! Today, we will examine Joseph’s understanding of God’s Grace, how the inward working of God’s Grace in his life revealed itself through his actions and conduct.

There are many times in our lives when we think that we have been dealt the short end of the stick, a raw deal or an unfavourable hand. It is in times like these that we can relate to someone like Joseph. Joseph experienced some of the worst things that life in all its unfairness could deal a person, and he experienced it from the tender age of 17. Sold into slavery by his own brothers, uprooted from his family and culture,  condemned to a strange land, then cast into prison when he had done nothing wrong, he had every reason to be angry and resentful. However, he did not allow himself the luxury of self-pity. He did not languish in the dungeon, although it seemed that both God and man had forgotten him. Instead, he chose to busy himself doing whatever work his hands found to do and God honoured his positive attitude and willingness to serve.

He never once cursed God, neither did he blame others for his situation. He used the talents God gave him and gave all credit to God. Joseph’s deep experiental and living understanding of God’s Grace is revealed through his conduct after being reunited with his brothers. He did not exact revenge on them in their helpless state, when they came to him with no bargaining power in his position of authority.  He sought only to test them to see if their characters had changed, if they remembered what they had done to him and showed any remorse (Gen 42:18-24, Gen 44:16-34). Once convinced that they realized that what they had done was wrong, he immediately embraced them and forgave them, explaining that it was God’s design to send him ahead of them so that their whole family would be preserved!  What they had meant for evil, God had used for their good. (Gen 43:30, Gen 45)

How often do we see our circumstances, difficult as they may be, as another way that God is showing His Grace to someone else? Or do we mostly view opposition and adversity from the standpoint of selfishness, of how it affects just us? I think the latter is more often the case than the former. Only one who has a real, deep and true understanding of God’s Grace can look outside himself and see how God is using even his adverse circumstances for the good of others and his own long-term benefit.

Joseph’s brothers thought that his graceful conduct would end with the death of his father, Jacob. They thought that he was reserving judgment for them and would visit it upon them after their father died. When Jacob died, they were terrified! Joseph was an example of God’s Grace at work in a human life (Gen 50:16-21). He spoke kindly to his brothers, promising to look after them and their families. God preserved the nation of Israel through Joseph and fulfilled His Promise to Abraham.

Joseph’s life had many parallels to Christ, confirming that same Grace that worked in Christ’s life was at work in him.

God's Grace in the Old Testament-Part 5

As we continue our journey of  exploration into God’s Grace, we learn some important truths. The book of Genesis is a book of beginnings, but also a book of revelation. It is a revelation of God’s Grace at work, how He meets with us in the depths  of sin, makes us a Promise, keeps His Promise and forever changes us.

Jacob was the first Patriarch to verbally affirm the effectual working of God’s Grace in His life. Joseph took this a step further. He was able to live out God’s Grace, despite the adverse circumstances that manifested through most of his youth.

As a young boy in the house of his father and a son of Jacob’s most loved wife, Rachel, it was a well-known fact that he was his father’s favourite son. His honest disposition did not help the situation as it created a clear distinction between him and his brothers. At 17 years of age, he was sold into slavery by his brothers and found himself in the household of  Potiphar, a high ranking official in Egypt.  (Gen 37)

Throughout his experience, God was always with him and Joseph never doubted or questioned God. Despite the hard times and afflictions of slavery, he honoured God first and foremost.  When Potiphar’s wife sought to commit adultery with Joseph, Joseph’s first regard was to God. He realized that by complying with her wishes, he would be sinning against God. He did not use his difficult circumstances as an excuse to engage in sinful practices, but rose above them thus maintaining a clean conscience. (Gen 39:1-9)

Sometimes doing the right thing comes at a price, however honourable our actions may be. Joseph’s situation seemed to get progressively worse. For refusing to sin against God in adultery, he was cast into prison yet even in prison, he refused to renounce his God. God rewarded his faithfulness not with freedom, which he must have desired with all his heart. God rewarded him with His Presence. God was with Joseph and so he prospered despite his circumstances and blossomed like a tender root sprouting out of dry ground. He was soon promoted to manager of the prison. Yes, no matter how terrible the place, you can be a manager there too! (Gen 39:18-23)

Just when it seemed that things couldn’t get any worse, Joseph experienced the pain of being forgotten. One of the prisoners whose dream he had interpreted promised to remember him and bring his case before Pharoah should his dream of being reinstated to office come true. However, once he was reinstated, he forgot all about Joseph! The Lord gave Joseph the interpretation of dreams. Many people having such a gift would have used  it to their advantage, taking credit for themselves but Joseph always gave credit to God.

He did the same even when eventually called upon to interpret Pharoah’s dream. God honoured Joseph and gave him his freedom, making him prime minister of Egypt and second in charge to Pharoah. (Gen 40-41, Phil 2:4-14)