Why the Hebrews went to Egypt; Gen. 12-50

By the time we come to Exodus we find that this nation that God has called out in Genesis chapter twelve is in slavery in Egypt. Why is it that this has come about? Instead of seeing this new nation advance triumphantly what we see is a reverse trend, the collapse of the family and their ending up in Egypt. If we were reading this for the first time as a Jew on the plains of Moab, prior to entering into the land of Canaan, what would be the kind of questions that would be going through our minds? God had promised this land to Abraham 600 years earlier. Why has it taken so long? If Abraham, Isaac and Jacob all live in the land why did they leave the land? Why did God remove them from the land of Canaan? Why did He make us slaves for 400 years in Egypt serving the Pharaoh? One of the reasons Moses has written this is to demonstrate to the nation God’s sovereign care throughout this period. Egypt was a sort of incubator for that infant nation so that it could grow from about seventy individuals who went down from Canaan to Egypt to between two and three million when they left 400 years later. Moses is answering that question.

If we just read through these episodes from Genesis 12-50 in a somewhat superficial manner then we might determine that the reason that God took them down to Egypt was simply to protect them and provide for them when the great famine came in the Middle East. God was working in and through all of that in order to protect and preserve the nation, and this is a great lesson. No matter how bad things get and no matter how much we fail God, God does not desert us and God’s grace is never dependent upon who we are or what we have done. So as we look at this we are going to see God’s sovereign control and how he preserved the nation.

One of the things that we should notice when we come to the text is that there is this tremendous contrast that takes place between Abraham, Isaac and Jacob the patriarchs and the twelve sons of Israel. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are all devoted to Yahweh, they all have a high spiritual sense, a deep and profound sense of who they are, their relationship to the Abrahamic covenant and what God is doing in their life. This sort of dilutes itself in each generation. Abraham is the father of the nation, the exemplar throughout the Bible of faith. Isaac is still a fairly strong believer but he is not as strong as his father; Jacob is even less strong spiritually. The spiritual dynamic that is present in Abraham becomes diluted in Isaac, diluted even more in Jacob, and by the time we get to Jacob’s sons we just wonder if they ever heard of Yahweh, the Abrahamic covenant and what God was trying to do with them.

The first thing we should notice as we read through the chapters on Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is that wherever the first three generations go they build an altar in Canaan and then make proclamation in the name of Yahweh. They are concerned with witnessing. This is God’s evangelic outreach to the entire human race through Abraham and they recognize this. The altar was symbolic of their spiritual purpose in the land. They understand that they are there to represent God.

As we come to the last four people in Genesis we are going to summarize and see how God uses them to establish the nation. Solomon dedicated the temple in 966 BC. There are 480 years between the temple dedication and the exodus in 1446 BC. Four hundred and thirty years before the exodus was the time that Jacob entered Egypt, 1876 BC. Abraham was born about 2166 BC. So the time period we look at now is roughly between 2100 BC and about 1850 BC. They understood the mandate from Genesis 12, “And you shall be a blessing.” They were to be a blessing to the nations; they understand their role as a representative and that God has promised to bless the Gentiles around them, all these people that make up the culture of Canaan. Abraham was commanded to be a blessing; that was the purpose of building the altar.

Genesis 12:4 ^NASB “So Abram went forth as the LORD had spoken to him; and Lot went with him. Now Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. [5] Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his nephew, and all their possessions which they had accumulated, and the persons which they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan; thus they came to the land of Canaan.[6] Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. Now the Canaanite {was} then in the land.” The Canaanites had the land at the time Abram was given the land.

Note: In our culture what happens so often is that somebody gets saved and they go and join a church, get involved in the local Christian community and within 18 months they don’t have any non-Christian friends anymore. They become isolated. But when God calls out Abram He doesn’t send him off to a monastery, He sends him into the midst of the most degenerate, perverted, immoral, anti-God culture on the planet. God wants to change the world and the only way to do that is to put people out in it, though not to be influenced by that surrounding culture. They are to impact the surrounding culture.

Genesis 12:7 ^NASB “The LORD appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your descendants I will give this land.’ So he built an altar there to the LORD who had appeared to him. [8] Then he proceeded from there to the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the LORD and called upon the name of the LORD.” “Called on the name of the Lord” is a Hebrew idiom. It doesn’t mean that he sang hymns to God or that he prayed to God. It means that he made proclamation in the name of Yahweh. Martin Luther translated this, “He preached throughout the land.” That may be a little strong but it comes very close to the main idea that is here, and that is that Abram made proclamation. He took a stand in the midst of this pagan culture for the God of heaven and earth and continuously made proclamation (taught doctrine) and witnessed to the surrounding culture around him. He was functioning now as the representative of God to this pagan culture. It is comparable to the believer’s responsibility as an ambassador for Christ to be a witness to the world. Isaac does the same thing. In Genesis 26:25 ^NASB “So he built an altar there and called upon the name of the LORD, and pitched his tent there; and there Isaac’s servants dug a well.” He continues that role, as does Jacob, Genesis 33:20 ^NASB “Then he [Jacob] erected there an altar and called it El-Elohe-Israel.” Notice that in the case of Jacob something is missing. It does not say that he made proclamation in the name of the Lord. So we see this deterioration, this dilution of the spiritual dynamic among the patriarchs.

From this we see that the patriarchs had a clear sense of their purpose. They understood that God had called them out and was performing a unique work through them and as a result of this concern for their purpose, i.e. to be a witness for God, they had a sense of unity. That has application for the church today. Unity is based on doctrine, not on having some common experience or simply being saved. Unity is based on truth, not at the expense of truth. On the basis of they had been taught in the Abrahamic covenant they had a sense of purpose, and that gave them a sense of unity; and through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob they do not mingle with the people that surround them. There is this sense of isolation from them.

One example of this is Genesis 13:5 ^NASB “Now Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents. [6] And the land could not sustain them while dwelling together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to remain together. [7] And there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram’s livestock and the herdsmen of Lot’s livestock. Now the Canaanite and the Perizzite were dwelling then in the land.” There is this outbreak of hostility and friction between believers in the land, and what is this doing to their testimony? Abraham is sensitive to that. [8] So Abram said to Lot, ‘Please let there be no strife between you and me, nor between my herdsmen and your herdsmen, for we are brothers.” In other words, Abraham’s emphasis is on the family relationship and their common testimony to the pagan nations surrounding them. [9] “Is not the whole land before you? Please separate from me; if {to} the left, then I will go to the right; or if {to} the right, then I will go to the left.” This is Abraham’s humility.

This sense of purpose and unity further led them to recognize the need to live separately from the Canaanites, but this is only seen in the first three generations. They were to be in the world but not of the world. This is illustrated by the fact that Abraham did not want his son to take a wife from among the Canaanite women. Genesis 24:3 ^NASB “and I will make you swear by the LORD, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I live.” Rebekah, too, does not want Jacob to take a wife from among the pagan culture surrounding the family. Gen 27:46 ^NASB “Rebekah said to Isaac, ‘I am tired of living because of the daughters of Heth; if Jacob takes a wife from the daughters of Heth, like these, from the daughters of the land, what good will my life be to me?’ [28:1] So Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and charged him, and said to him, ‘You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan’.”

But by the time we come to Abraham’s great grandchildren there is a tremendous shift in their orientation. No longer are the descendants positive to God. Now there is a negative generation, a generation caught up in self-absorption and self-indulgence, a generation that is negative to God. It was a generation that was basically wicked and had lost the sense of unity and purpose, of concern for one another. Genesis 37:2 ^NASB “These are {the records of} the generations of Jacob.   Joseph, when seventeen years of age, was pasturing the flock with his brothers while he was {still} a youth, along with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives. And Joseph brought back a bad report about them to their father.” This our hint that there is no longer any spiritual gas in the tank, so to speak, and the tire has gone flat. There was no interest in spiritual things in this new generation. Example: Reuben, Genesis 35:22 ^NASB “It came about while Israel was dwelling in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine, and Israel heard {of it.}” This is some clue as to Reuben’s character. He is sexually promiscuous and has no remorse. This is a power play directed against his father because he is basically making the claim, “I have a right to everything that you have.” It is a statement of rebelliousness, a rejection of the authority of his father, and a rejection of everything that his father stands for.

Then we have an interesting episode in Genesis 34 regarding Simeon and Levi. In Genesis 34:1 Dinah gets tired of living at home and wants to go out and visit the daughters of the land. She wants to be like all the other kids. Genesis 34:2 ^NASB “When Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her, he took her and lay with her by force.” Of course, the whole family is upset that this has happened to Dinah. Shechem wants and arranged marriage to Dinah. Remember the background: they are to be a blessing to the nations around them.

Genesis 34:11 ^NASB “Shechem also said to her father and to her brothers, ‘If I find favor in your sight, then I will give whatever you say to me.’” He is bargaining for the dowry here. [12] “Ask me ever so much bridal payment and gift, and I will give according as you say to me; but give me the girl in marriage.” Now notice how Jacob’s boys handle this. [13] “But Jacob’s sons answered Shechem and his father Hamor with deceit, because he had defiled Dinah their sister.” They are operating on revenge motivation and vindictiveness, they are not going to be a blessing to Hamor’s family. [14] “They said to them, ‘We cannot do this thing, to give our sister to one who is uncircumcised, for that would be a disgrace to us’.” They don’t really care about spiritual things, about circumcision and its spiritual significance as far as the Abrahamic covenant was concerned, but they are going to use this now for their own purposes.

Genesis 34:24 ^NASB “All who went out of the gate of his city listened to Hamor and to his son Shechem, and every male was circumcised, all who went out of the gate of his city.” They made a deal. [25] “Now it came about on the third day, when they were in pain, that two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, each took his sword and came upon the city unawares, and killed every male.” Notice how they had managed to put the entire populace of the city at a disadvantage and wiped out their military capability. Now there was not the blessing on the city but the cursing on the city. [26] “They killed Hamor and his son Shechem with the edge of the sword, and took Dinah from Shechem’s house, and went forth. [27] Jacob’s sons came upon the slain and looted the city, because they had defiled their sister.” So now the other boys come along behind them and loot the city for their own purposes in revenge because of the defilement of their sister. [28] “They took their flocks and their herds and their donkeys, and that which was in the city and that which was in the field; [29] and they captured and looted all their wealth and all their little ones and their wives, even all that {was} in the houses.”

Genesis 34:30 ^NASB “Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, ‘You have brought trouble on me by making me odious among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites; and my men being few in number, they will gather together against me and attack me and I will be destroyed, I and my household’.” So what we see is the deterioration of Abraham’s line, and now his great grandchildren, instead of being a blessing to the nations around them, have become a cursing. They have perverted the entire institution of circumcision into nothing but an empty ritual and then it is utilized as a means of murder and destruction. What we see with the twelve is something that is no longer seen again, and that is an altar that they build; there is simply evil action. Secondly, there is no longer a unity in the family. They have lost their sense of purpose. Once doctrine is removed unity collapses. The divine program begins now to disintegrate because of negative volition. Third, there is no longer a care or concern about being separate from the pagan environment around them. They want to live like everyone else does and don’t want to stand out because of what they believe.

This is exemplified even more in the case of Judah in Genesis 38. This chapter covers a period of 22 years. During this period is a positive side showing God’s control through the family to preserve the nation and to build the nation through the regenerate son. On the other side we see this dark picture of the negative volition within the family and its self-destruction through sinfulness. During the time when Joseph is down in Egypt the incident takes place with his brother Judah back in the land. This is a different scene illustrating to us the depravity of the family.

Genesis 38:1 ^NASB “And it came about at that time, that Judah departed from his brothers [lack of unity] and visited a certain Adullamite, whose name was Hirah. [2] Judah saw there a daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua; and he took her and went in to her. [3] So she conceived and bore a son and he named him Er.” During this episode Judah is going to have three sons. The oldest is Er, the second is Onan, and the third is Shelah. As we go through this we discover that the deterioration of the family gets even worse.

Genesis 38:5 ^NASB “She bore still another son and named him Shelah; and it was at Chezib that she bore him.” Chezib means liar. There is a hint here that what is going on is massive deception. [6] “Now Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn, and her name {was} Tamar.” So Tamar and Er get married, but Er, we are told was evil in the sight of the Lord, so the Lord took his life. What is going on here is that we have the infant nation Israel and they are becoming so evil by this time that God has to step in and intervene in order to protect the infant nation. We see the same dynamic taking place in Acts in the infant church. Two people, Ananias and Saphira, are going to lie about how much money they have given to the church. God took them because the church was in its infancy and needed to be protected. He needed to take dire measures at that time in history.

Judah goes to the second son, Onan. Genesis 38:8 ^NASB “Then Judah said to Onan, ‘Go in to your brother’s wife, and perform your duty as a brother-in-law to her, and raise up offspring for your brother’.” This is something that is totally foreign to us as a culture. The purpose was to preserve the memory, the name, and the inheritance of a man who died childless. A brother would take the wife, the widow, as his wife. They would procreate and have a child and that child would be raised up in the name of the brother who had died and would receive his inheritance and pass on his name. It also protected the widow. [9] “Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so when he went in to his brother’s wife, he wasted his seed on the ground in order not to give offspring to his brother.” It’s not my kid, I don’t care! He is totally self-absorbed and self-indulgent. The result: Genesis 38:10 “But what he did was displeasing in the sight of the LORD; so He took his life also.”

There is one son left: Shelah. He is much younger. Tamar is still a widow and doesn’t have anyone to take care of her. Now Judah is not thinking doctrinally. His sons are dropping like flies and rather than analyzing the situation from a doctrinal perspective he just blames Tamar. He makes a decision not to give Shelah to Tamar. Genesis 38:11 ^NASB “Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, ‘Remain a widow in your father’s house until my son Shelah grows up’; for he thought, ‘{I am afraid} that he too may die like his brothers.’ So Tamar went and lived in her father’s house.” Tamar is being maltreated by Jacob. She is not getting what she deserves, totally in line with the culture, and so then we have a very interesting episode take place where.

Genesis 38:12 ^NASB “Now after a considerable time Shua’s daughter, the wife of Judah, died; and when the time of mourning was ended, Judah went up to his sheepshearers at Timnah, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite. [13] “It was told to Tamar, ‘Behold, your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep’.” What she does is to disguise herself, and she sits on the roadway outside the gates going into the town. This is normally where the prostitutes would sit. She waits for Judah to come along and she seduces him. In the process she asks him for some tokens to indicate his concern for her, a sort of payment for their sex, and then he leaves. After he leaves he needs to get his stuff back and he sends Hirah to look for her. He can’t find her anywhere and he just forgets about it.

Genesis 38:24 ^NASB “Now it was about three months later that Judah was informed, ‘Your daughter-in-law Tamar has played the harlot, and behold, she is also with child by harlotry.’ Then Judah said, ‘Bring her out and let her be burned!’” He is going to execute judgment, but she comes out and says, “Hmm, I wonder who this stuff belongs to.” She pulls it out and he immediately recognizes what he has done. [26] “Judah recognized {them,} and said, ‘She is more righteous than I, inasmuch as I did not give her to my son Shelah.’ And he did not have relations with her again.” That was his responsibility, he should have given Shelah to take care of her and to fulfill the marriage position. So in the picture of all of this we see the total collapse of family unity and their distinction from the culture around them. They are operating just like all of the pagans round them.

Why is it that God took them down to Egypt? He did this in order to protect them from themselves. They have now become assimilated into the culture, are not any different from the Canaanites around them, and God has to preserve them. Even though men go negative it doesn’t jeopardize God’s plan, He is always going to take care of His plan and will still deal with them in grace. He does not judge them; He provides a solution.

God leads the family down to Egypt and the reason is the nature of Egyptian culture. Egyptian culture was very segregated, and God was going to use their segregation in practice, their racism in Egypt, in order to protect the Jews. The problem now is that they are to be separate from those around them and they are not. They are marrying those around them, they are being assimilated into the pagan culture, and so God is going to take them down to Egypt where they will be protected because of the Egyptian prejudice and segregationist practices. We get a hint of this in Genesis 43:32 ^NASB “So they served him by himself, and them by themselves, and the Egyptians who ate with him by themselves, because the Egyptians could not eat bread with the Hebrews, for that is loathsome to the Egyptians.” The point is, if the Egyptians won’t eat with them they are not going to have sex with them and they are not going to marry them. They are not going to have anything to do with these Semites coming out of the Middle East, they will keep them distinct.

We see in all of this that God’s grace and His program continues despite the sinfulness of man, despite failures and rejection of Him; God continues His initiative of grace. God’s plan is never dependent upon us but God’s grace is always there to restore us, despite our failures or sins.