Tim Maas Supporter Retired Quality Assurance Specialist with the U.S. Army

The descendants of Jacob (numbering only seventy people at the time) originally journeyed to Egypt as a source of food in response to a famine that was occurring in the land of Canaan (Palestine).

The Egyptians initially allowed the Israelites to settle peaceably in Egypt because of the favor in which Joseph (who had preceded the rest of his family to Egypt as a result of his jealous brothers selling him into slavery there) was held by the Egyptian pharaoh. Thus, their initial settlement was an act of mercy on Egypt's part, and an example of God providing for the descendants of Jacob (also known as Israel) during the time of famine, and also allowing them to grow into a great nation under conditions of favor and protection (at least, initially) from the Egyptians. (These events are recounted in Genesis 37-50.)

However, after hundreds of years, the Israelite population in Egypt had grown to such an extent that a later pharaoh regarded them as a threat to his rule. He therefore placed them under conditions of slavery, from which God freed them through the calling of Moses, as related in Exodus 1-14.

Although the responsibility for Israel's enslavement thus rested on Egypt, God allowed it in order to ultimately demonstrate to both the Egyptians and the Israelites His identity and power as the only true God, which provided the basis for the entire nation of Israel (numbering hundreds of thousands of people by that time) worshiping Him from then on as their God, and obeying the Law that He handed down to them through Moses.

May 02 2021 • 0 responses • Vote Up • Share • Report

Harry Leon Levin Supporter Retired Pharmacist

God did not just allow the Israelites to become slaves in Egypt. He made them become slaves. When God called Abraham to leave his country, his people, and his family and go to a land that God would show him, He told Abraham that He would make him into a great nation and that all peoples on Earth would be blessed through him (Gen.12;1-4). After Abraham obeyed and went, God told him that his descendants would be strangers in a country not their own and would be enslaved for 400 years (Gen.15;13).

When Jacob (Israel) was in the Promised Land, by a series of divine interventions (Gen.37-46) God made the children of Israel leave it and go into Egypt, where they ultimately grew into a great nation and were enslaved. So, the question is more appropriately: Why did He lead them into slavery in Egypt, or Why did God MAKE the Israelites become slaves? 

The answer to that is firstly, so that God could demonstrate His great power and authority over nature. But at its most fundamental level, the answer is, so that the tenth plague would come.

When God sent Moses to bring the Israelites out of Egypt, He told him that He would harden Pharoah's heart so that he would not let the Israelites go until the tenth plague had come (Ex.7;3-5). Then Pharoah would drive them out of Egypt (Ex.11;1). The tenth plague was the smiting of the firstborn. God said that He would pass through the land of Egypt at midnight and strike dead all the firstborn males in the land, both man and animals. But he told the Israelites to take a young lamb into their homes and keep it for 5 days (until it was a pet), and then at twilight on the 5th day they were to slaughter it, roast it and EAT it together with unleavened bread that night, and daub some of the blood on the doorposts and lintels of the doors of their houses. By this sacrifice they were to redeem the lives of their firstborn sons. Wherever God saw the blood He would pass over that house (hence the name Passover), and no destructive plague would touch the firstborn of that house. Imagine that God told you to kill and eat your pet, and that the life of your firstborn child depended on your obedience. It had to be a real sacrifice, and by eating it and internalizing it you identified yourself intimately with the body of that sacrifice. Its death was the substitute for the life of your child. (c.f. Jn.6;53ff.)

So, what did God actually see when he saw the blood? He saw the FAITH in His promise of salvation for their firstborn sons, and He saw the OBEDIENCE to His command. That night God was laying down the principles of how mankind could be reconciled to Him that would ultimately culminate in Jesus' sacrificial death on the cross, on the last passover that He observed. So important were these principles of FAITH and OBEDIENCE for salvation, that God ordained that the feast of unleavened bread (Passover) was to be observed by the Israelites and their descendants for 7 days every year throughout all their generations (Ex.12;14,15), as it is still done today.

After the Spiritual Adam (=Mankind), created in the image of God (Gen.1;27), fell from grace in heaven because of breaking faith with God and disobeying Him (c.f. Gen.2;17. Gen.3:4,17), mankind was banished from heaven to become a lowly mortal on the Earth for whom it is appointed for all to taste death once and then to face judgment. (Hb.9;27). But God, in His mercy, postponed the sentence till the Judgment Day and set in place His plan to save the soul of mankind, which would ultimately culminate in Him recreating Himself in the image of man, taking on our humanity and taking our death penalty in His own flesh on our behalf. But we need to own His sacrificial death, and the way that God requires us to do it is by the same principles that he required of Adam, and later re-established in the Passover, namely FAITH that he has done this for us, and OBEDIENCE to His command to love him by loving one another as He has loved us. (Jn14;23 and Jn.15;10,12)

November 30 2024 • 0 responses • Vote Up • Share • Report