Table of Contents Gen. Overview Egypt to Canaan Monarchy to Return OT Map Integration of OT Books Alan's Gleanings
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Book of Beginnings

#1b Genesis 12-38
Part of the series on the Flow of OT History
Gen. 12-38 tells the story of the four great patriarchs – Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph.
  1. ABRAM - Until now God had dealt with the humankind as a whole but He now chose Abram out of all these families. He commanded Abram to leave his country and relatives to go to a land that He will show him. God promised to bless Abram with many descendants and through him to bless all the families of the earth (Gen. 12:1-3). So Sarai, Abram, Lot and Terah (SALT) left Ur of the Chaldees to go to the Promised Land (Gen. 12:4-5 cf. 11:31) .

    Abraham’s descendants: In Gen. 17:5, God reaffirmed His promise to Abram and changed his name to ABRAHAM which means “father of many”.
  2. God kept His promise and ISAAC was born in Abraham’s old age (Gen. 17:17-19; 21:1-7). To Isaac was born Esau and Jacob (Gen. 25:19-26).
  3. God chose JACOB through whom He will fulfil His promises to Abraham. And to Jacob was born 12 sons and Dinah, a daughter (Gen. 27:41-30:24).  
  4. All was not well in Jacob’s family. The brothers were jealous of JOSEPH, the second youngest and Jacob’s favourite son. They sold him to Ishmaelite traders who in turn brought him to Egypt and sold him as a slave. But God was with Joseph and he rose to become the second-in-command of Egypt (Gen. 37).  

    Joseph was reunited with his family when a famine ravaged Canaan and his brothers came to Egypt to buy grains (Gen. 39-45). Jacob and his family of 70 came and settled in Egypt (Gen. 46:26-27). Thus God protected them from the famine.

Before his death, Jacob adopted Joseph’s two sons (Ephraim and Manasseh) as his own (Gen. 48:5). Later, Ephraim and Manasseh would each receive an allotment of the land and thus Joseph received a double portion, the birthright of the firstborn (Deut. 21:15-17). Reuben, the firstborn would be stripped of his birthright due to his sin of laying with Bilhah, Jacob’s concubine (Gen. 35:22 cf. 49:4).

© April 2018 by Alan S.L. WONG