Last time, we witnessed the tragic events of Genesis 3. Adam and Eve (God’s people) chose to rebel against God. By doing so, they forfeited God’s presence in their lives as they were exiled from the Garden of Eden (God’s place). But not all hope was lost. In Genesis 3:15 God promised that a chosen Seed (zerá) of the woman would one day be born and would crush the Serpent’s head. We also noticed how God sovereignly protected the line of this chosen Seed from a series of threats in Genesis, chapters 4-11.
And as we turned the corner from these threats to 12:1-3, we saw that the Seed’s line would continue through a man named Abraham. God called Abraham to belong to Him (God’s presence) and promised him a land to live in (God’s place) and many descendants (God’s people). But the greatest promise was that, through this people, God would one day restore His blessing over all the peoples of the earth (i.e. the birth of the Serpent Crushing Seed would come through this people).
Where Are We At In The Story?
Wide-Angle Shot
In today’s episode, we will trace the growth of Abraham’s family to a large nation known as Israel (God’s people) and how they ended up as slaves in Egypt — a kind of Babel 2.0 where a new pharaoh forces them to hard labor in city-building.
Close-Angle Shot
Father Abraham Had Many Sons
Chapters 12-50 of Genesis are often referred to as the Patriarchal narratives because the stories in them are centered around Israel’s founding fathers, so to speak: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
While there are an abundance of topics we could explore within these chapters, we will limit our focus to tracing the promised Seed’s line (Gen. 3:15), as well as the growth of Abraham’s family from a small nuclear group to a large nation. The graph below traces the development of both. Take a moment to look it over and then we’ll put some more context around it.
You probably noticed that some circles in the graph are gold. These represent the specific line of the Seed within Abraham’s broader family. In simplest terms, the line goes from Abraham to Judah (we’ll cover David later on in the series). Check out this passage from Genesis 49:10…
“The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.”
Another thing you may have noticed in the graph is that Jacob is also called Israel and he had twelve sons.1 Ten of them will stand at the head of the well-known Twelve Tribes of Israel. The remaining two come from Joseph’s two sons, who take the place of Levi and Joseph. So for clarity’s sake, the Twelve Tribes of Israel are: (1) Reuben, (2) Judah, (3) Simeon, (4) Zebulun, (5) Issachar, (6) Gad, (7) Asher, (8) Dan, (9) Naphtali, (10) Benjamin, (11) Ephraim, and (12) Manasseh.
What’s interesting is that since this family composed God’s covenant people, they are depicted as a new humanity. We see this in two ways.
First, Abraham’s family is frequently promised God’s blessing and the assurance that they would be fruitful and multiply — echoing the blessing and commission given to the entire human race in Genesis 1:26-28.2
Second, when Israel enters Egypt toward the end of Genesis, the total number of people is 70 (Gen. 46:27). Old Testament scholar John Sailhammer has pointed out that this numbering is significant became it’s the same total given in the Table of Nations in Genesis 10.3 Again, the implication is that Israel is now the new humanity who will seek to carry out God’s creational intent from Genesis 1 until the promised Seed is born.4
Egypt — a.k.a Babel 2.0
And that truth is repeated again in Exodus 1, alerting us to the fact that the story that began in Genesis continues on into the book of Exodus.
“But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong so that the land was filled with them.” -Ex. 1:7
Okay, but how did Israel wind up in Egypt? Well, it’s sort of a long story, but here’s the short version:
Joseph was Jacob’s favorite son and the other boys knew it. And their resentment of him grew to the point that they ended up selling him to some traders who were headed to Egypt. Then the brothers proceeded to convince Jacob that Joseph had been torn to shreds by some kind of fierce animal. Once there, Joseph went through a long and hard season filled with many trials. But in the end, he wound up being the second most powerful person in all of Egypt. Interestingly enough, it was around this same time that a famine was sweeping through Egypt. Now that was a problem because if the famine wiped out Jacob and his family, then the line of the promised Seed would be extinguished.5 So where does the family go to find food? Egypt. And once there, Joseph graciously forgave his brothers and allowed them to enter Egypt, thus saving the covenant line. He was able to forgive them because he recognized God’s sovereign purpose in his suffering. Listen to what he says…
"But Joseph said to them, ‘Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.’” - Genesis 50:19-20 (emphasis mine)6
And so the people of Israel settled in Egypt. And things were good for a while. But Exodus 1:8 strikes an ominous tone—
“Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.”
This new pharaoh was worried about Israel’s size and feared they may break out of the land and “spread abroad.” So he forces them to hard labor in city-building. Now recall here again God’s commission of humanity to fill the earth and of the people’s sin at Babel (refusal to spread abroad and decision to build a city with a huge tower). The message being telegraphed in Exodus 1 is that Pharaoh is going directly against God’s purposes for His people. And in this sense, Egypt is being cast as a Babel 2.0.7
This is seen further in 1:14, where the labor is intensified with “mortar and brick.” In the Hebrew text, these two words occur together in only one other context.8 Can you guess it?
Genesis 11. The Babel narrative.
This is what sets up the storyline moving forward…
God has commissioned His people, Israel to be a new humanity who would be fruitful and multiply. But pharaoh is determined to keep Israel from fulfilling this purpose.
How will God respond? That will be the subject of our next post
The story of Jacob’s name change can be found in Genesis 32:22-32.
See Gen. 17:2; 22:17; 28:14; 35:11; 47:27.
John Sailhammer, The Pentateuch as Narrative: A Biblical-Theological Narrative (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995), 241.
Ibid.
In a fashion very similar to Genesis 4-11, we see the Serpent lurking in the background, seeking to destroy the line of the Seed. This whole paragraph, by the way, is taken from Genesis 37-50.
This text invites us to ponder the interplay between God’s sovereignty and human responsibility. On the one hand, the brothers were 100% morally culpable for what they did to Joseph. Yet on the other, it was undeniably God’s will for Joseph to go to Egypt for the purpose of raising him up to save the covenantal line of the Seed. Another clear display of this is found in the crucifixion of Christ. The people who put Christ to death were (and are) morally responsibly, yet it was also God’s will for Christ to go to the cross. Indeed, in Acts 2:23 Peter pokes his finger right into the heart of this tension when he says, “this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” Apparently the biblical writers, from Old Testament to New, were comfortable affirming human responsibility and God’s sovereignty at the same time.
Shella T. Keiter, “Outsmarting God: Egyptian Slavery and the Tower of Babel,” Jewish Bible Quarterly 41 no. 3 (2013), 201.
Ibid. Note also the parallel phrases between pharaoh and Babel’s residents: “Come let us…” (Ex. 1:10; Gen. 11:4).