Author : Keith Sharp
Bible Survey : Lesson Seven (Genesis 12-50)
After people had been scattered across the world of Genesis ten and ancient nations had been formed, the Lord appeared to a man named Abram in far off Ur of the Chaldees (modern Kuwait) and gave him one command and three promises which together outline the development of the divine plan for the salvation of mankind from sin.
Now the Lord had said to Abram: ‘Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ (Genesis 12:1-3).
Abram obeyed the Lord, left Ur with his wife Sarai, his father Terah, and his nephew Lot, and traveled north to Haran, where Terah died. After this the pilgrims crossed Syria and the Jordan River, and came into Canaan, stopping at Shechem in the hills of Central Palestine. “Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your descendants I will give this land.’ And there he built an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.” (Genesis 12:7).
In all the Lord made seven specific pledges to Abram, but the seven boil down to three great promises: “I will make you a great nation” (The Nation Promise), “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (The Seed Promise), and “to your descendants I will give this land” (The Land Promise). The divine fulfillment of these three promises outlines the entire Old Testament and connect the Old and New Testaments. All that came before in the Genesis story laid the background for them. All that follows in the Bible show their fulfillment.
There are many stories in Genesis chapters 12-50 that are important to know because they contain lessons that help us understand God and how we can please him. We will have to study these when we study the book of Genesis in more detail. For now we will simply concentrate on the Lord’s promises to Abraham.
When Abram was concerned because he did not have a son to be his heir, the Lord repeated to him the Nation and Land promises. When Abram asked for assurance, the Lord turned the promise into a covenant with Abram, told him it would be four hundred years before his descendants inherited the land, and specified the extent of the land, “from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates.”
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord once more revealed Himself to him. He renewed the covenant with Abram by changing his name to Abraham and giving him the command to circumcise all the males of his household then and his descendants thereafter as a sign of the covenant. At this time the Lord God also changed the name of Sarai, Abraham’s wife, to Sarah and promised that she, though barren, would have a son, whom Abraham was to name Isaac and who would be the heir through whom the promises would be fulfilled.
When Abraham was one hundred and Sarah ninety, Isaac, the child of promise was born.
When Isaac was a lad old enough to carry the wood for a sacrifice up Mount Moriah, the Lord God tested Abraham by commanding him to offer this darling son, the object of all his hope and the dearest thing on earth to him, as a burnt offering. (The Lord demanded no more of Abraham than He Himself later did for you and me.) When Abraham obeyed, the Angel of the Lord stopped the aged, faithful patriarch just as he was poised to plunge the knife into that dear boy. Then God added His oath by His own Name, the highest name by which He could swear, to the promise and covenant, and repeated the Nation and Seed promises. The three-fold promise now had three-fold divine assurance: the Promise, Covenant, and Oath of the Lord God Who cannot lie.
Eventually Ham’s family traveled west and south. The descendants of Canaan, Ham’s son whom Noah cursed, settled along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, including Palestine. Other descendants of Ham traveled to Southern Arabia or Africa.
Isaac
The Lord repeated all three promises to Isaac. Isaac and his wife Rebekah had twin sons, Esau and Jacob. Though Jacob was the younger, the Lord chose him even before he was born to be the heir of the promises.
Jacob
The Lord revealed Himself to Jacob at Bethel in a dream and gave to him all three of the divine promises, as Jacob was fleeing for his life from Esau, who was very angry with him. Jacob went to Haran, where he met and married sisters, Leah and Rachel. Twenty years later the Lord appeared to Jacob in Haran and commanded him to return to Canaan, promising He would “deal well” with him and make his “descendants as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.” Jacob obeyed the Lord at the risk of his life, both from his father-in-law Laban and his brother Esau. As Jacob approached Canaan the Lord changed his name to Israel.
Israel had twelve sons through his wives Leah and Rachel and their servant women, Bilhah and Zilpah. He loved Joseph, the elder son of his favorite wife Rachel, more than the sons of the other women. This led te other sons to hate Joseph. They sold him into Egyptian slavery, but by the providence of God Joseph became the ruler of Egypt under Pharaoh.
Thus when a famine later arose, when Israel was one hundred thirty years of age the Lord used Joseph to bring Israel and his family into Egypt. At the time Israel began his sojourn in Egypt, his family was comprised of seventy-five people. With the death of Israel (Jacob) and Joseph, the book of Genesis and the age of the patriarchs closes.
