Rooting Path · Old Testament Survey · Lesson 2 of 7 · One Family Receives the Promise · about 20 min
Genesis 12–50. On the timeline this is ‘The Patriarchs’: eight events, four generations—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. From one man called to set out, to a family of seventy going down to Egypt.
After Babel, people were scattered over the earth. God speaks to one man:
1Now the LORD said to Abram, “Leave your country, and your relatives, and your father’s house, and go to the land that I will show you. 2I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. You will be a blessing. 3I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who treats you with contempt. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you.”
Gen 12:1–3 · WEB
Many years have passed, and Abram still has no child:
5The LORD brought him outside, and said, “Look now toward the sky, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” He said to Abram, “So your offspring will be.” 6He believed in the LORD, who credited it to him for righteousness.
Gen 15:5–6 · WEB
Near the end of Genesis, Joseph speaks to the brothers who once sold him:
19Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid, for am I in the place of God? 20As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to save many people alive, as is happening today.
Gen 50:19–20 · WEB
The last lesson ended with people scattered over the earth after Babel. This lesson looks at what God did next—it looks very small, yet it is the starting point of the whole Old Testament.
God did not change the whole earth at once; he spoke to one man: “Leave your country, and your relatives, and your father’s house, and go to the land that I will show you.” (Gen 12:1) Then came a series of promises: a land—“I will give this land to your offspring” (Gen 12:7); a great people—“I will make of you a great nation” (Gen 12:2); and the most far-reaching of all—“All the families of the earth will be blessed through you.” (Gen 12:3) Almost every story in the rest of the Old Testament is about how these three promises move forward.
The promises were huge; the people were small. When Abram left Haran, “Abram was seventy-five years old” (Gen 12:4), and “Sarai was barren. She had no child” (Gen 11:30). A great people was to begin with a childless old man. God led him out to look at the stars: “So your offspring will be.” (Gen 15:5) Then comes one of the most important sentences in the whole Bible: “He believed in the LORD, who credited it to him for righteousness.” (Gen 15:6) He had not yet seen anything; he simply trusted the one who spoke.
The waiting lasted many years. “When Abram was ninety-nine years old” (Gen 17:1), the son had still not been born; only later was Isaac born “at the set time of which God had spoken to him” (Gen 21:2). Later still, God asked him to offer up even this son of the promise (Gen 22)—a very hard passage to read, which the Abraham lessons take slowly over a whole lesson.
This family was far from perfect. Afraid of being killed, Abram told his wife to say, “Please say that you are my sister” (Gen 12:13); Jacob deceived his father whose eyes were dim, saying, “I am Esau your firstborn” (Gen 27:19); Joseph’s brothers “sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites” (Gen 37:28). The Bible records it all honestly, without covering for them, and recording it does not mean approving it. The promise moved forward not because this family was good, but because the God who spoke kept his word: he said it again to Isaac (Gen 26:3–4); and at Bethel he said to Jacob, who was running from home: “Behold, I am with you… For I will not leave you until I have done that which I have spoken of to you” (Gen 28:15). Later God renamed Jacob: “Your name will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel” (Gen 32:28)—and that is where this family’s later name comes from.
Joseph was sold into Egypt, falsely accused and imprisoned, then forgotten; later he became ruler over Egypt and saved his whole family in a famine. After their father died, his brothers feared he would take revenge, but Joseph said: “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to save many people alive.” (Gen 50:20) This does not mean what the brothers did was good—Joseph says plainly that they meant to harm him; it means that God can use even human evil to fulfill his promise.
When Genesis ends, “All the souls of the house of Jacob, who came into Egypt, were seventy” (Gen 46:27). A family is about to become a nation, but they are in Egypt, not in the promised land. Long before, God had told Abram: “your offspring will live as foreigners in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them. They will afflict them four hundred years” (Gen 15:13). As he was dying, Joseph also said: “God will surely visit you, and bring you up out of this land” (Gen 50:24). The next lesson is about how God brought them out.
The New Testament says that the most far-reaching line of the promise, “All the families of the earth will be blessed through you,” (Gen 12:3) was the gospel announced to Abraham in advance: “The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the Good News beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you all the nations will be blessed’” (Gal 3:8). Paul also takes special note that the promise speaks of one person: “He doesn’t say, ‘To descendants’, as of many, but as of one, ‘To your offspring’, which is Christ” (Gal 3:16).
Of the sentence “He believed in the LORD, who credited it to him for righteousness,” (Gen 15:6) the New Testament says: “Now it was not written that it was accounted to him for his sake alone… but for our sake also, to whom it will be accounted, who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead” (Rom 4:23–24). So all who belong to Christ—“If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring and heirs according to promise” (Gal 3:29). The promise to this family has come to those who believe in Christ today.
Open the ‘Patriarchs’ section of the timeline and click through its eight events in order. For each, look at what danger the promise ran into—no child? about to lose the child? someone in the family out to kill? a famine?—and then see how God kept the promise safe.
For reference: No child—Isaac was born at the time God had said; Isaac to be offered up—God provided a ram in his place; Esau wanted to kill Jacob—Jacob fled to his uncle’s house, and at Bethel God promised never to leave him; Joseph sold, then a famine—through Joseph God kept the whole family alive. In almost every generation the promise looked about to break; every time, it was God who joined it up again.
As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to save many people alive.
Gen 50:20 · WEB
This week read the story of Joseph: Genesis 37 and 39–45, a chapter or two a day. When you reach chapter 45, notice how Joseph speaks to his brothers about being sold.
Just this one thing. When you do it, tap that day below; if you don’t, that’s all right—try again next week.
Good. Tap each day you do it this week:
Putting down roots is not something you do alone. Find a brother or sister you trust (ideally of the same sex) and talk this question over this week:
Does your family have a history that is imperfect, or even painful for you? What does it mean to you that God works through an imperfect family?