Israel has a history of thousands of years, but it is far more than just one of the many nations that have existed on the earth. God called a man named Abram about four thousand years ago and told him that God would bless ‘all the families of the earth’ through him. That promise would come through the ‘Seed’ God promised Eve in the Garden of Eden centuries before (Genesis 3:15).

Judah

Judah was one of Jacob’s 12 sons. Even though Jacob preferred Rachel, God brought Judah into the world through Jacob’s first wife Leah. Judah was her fourth son, then ‘ she stopped bearing’ (Genesis 29:35). Jacob fathered many other sons and one daughter through two wives and their two maidservants – for a total of 12 sons and one daughter.

 Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age. Genesis 37:3

Jospeh’s brothers envied him because their father preferred him. As we saw with Cain, envy and jealousy often lead to murder.

Then they said to one another, ‘Look, this dreamer is coming! Come therefore, let us now kill him and cast him into some pit; and we shall say, ‘Some wild beast has devoured him.’ We shall see what will become of his dreams! Genesis 37:19-20

Though some of Jospeh’s brothers wanted to murder him, Reuben talked his brothers out of killing Jospeh. So, they threw Joseph into an empty pit. Judah, the fourth oldest brother ended up saving Joseph’s life by suggesting they sell Joseph as a slave to a passing company of Ishmaelites. The brothers sold Joseph for twenty shekels of silver. The Ishmaelite traders laid Joseph in irons, hurt his feet with fetters, and took him to Egypt to sell him as a slave (Psalm 106:18).

The brothers had gotten rid of their brother, but what would they tell their father? Jacob was the one who had sent Joseph to check on his brothers (Genesis 37:13), so the brothers had to come up with a convincing story about what had happened to him. They decided to take Joseph’s tunic, kill a kid of the goats, and drip the tunic in the blood. They showed the tunic to Jacob and told him that a wild beast had ‘devoured him.’

It is my son’s tunic. A wild beast has devoured him. Without doubt Joseph is torn to pieces.’ Then Jacob tore his clothes, put sackcloth on his waist, and mourned for his son many days. And all his sons and all his daughters arose to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted, and he said, ‘For I shall go down into the grave to my son in mourning.’ Thus his father wept for him. Genesis 37:33-35

Israel’s Salvation

Even though the sons of Jacob thought they had solved their problem with Joseph, they didn’t realize that God would use their treachery to prepare a people for His Name and move the ‘Seed’ forward toward blessing all the families of the world. God blessed Joseph in Egypt to the point that the young man became second in power only to the Pharaoh himself. The reason that happened was because God revealed to Joseph that He was going to bring a great famine on the land in seven years, giving the Egyptians seven years to prepare for it. Pharaoh placed Joseph in the position of running the government program to store the massive amounts of grain that God would give Egypt.

When the seven years of plenty ended and the seven years of famine began, people in Egypt and across the world came to Joseph for food.

So all countries came to Joseph in Egypt to buy grain, because the famine was severe in all lands. Genesis 41:57

One of the families that came to Joseph for food was his own. Joseph eventually revealed his identity to his brothers and they were afraid that he would kill them because of what they had done to him. However, this is what Joseph revealed to them –

And God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt. Genesis 45:7-8

Since five years of famine remained at the time, Joseph invited his brothers to return back to Canaan to bring Jacob and the rest of his family to Egypt. What did Pharaoh think of that plan?

Bring your father and your households and come to me; I will give you the best of the land of Egypt, and you will eat the fat of the land. Now you are commanded—do this: Take carts out of the land of Egypt for your little ones and your wives; bring your father and come. Also do not be concerned about your goods, for the best of all the land of Egypt is yours.’ Genesis 45:18-20

God had prepared the way for Israel to begin a new life in Egypt. Jacob was so excited to hear that his son Joseph was alive – ‘Joseph my son is still alive. I will go and see him before I die’ (Genesis 45:28). Jacob lived in Egypt for several years, but he was old and the time of his death was coming closer. He called all of his sons to his sick bed so that he might bless them and prophesy over them.

What I’d like you to see is what Jacob (Israel) prophesied over Judah because God would use the lineage of Judah to bring forward the ‘Seed’ of the woman that would destroy the ‘seed’ of the serpent –

Judah, you are he whom your brothers shall praise; Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; Your father’s children shall bow down before you. Judah is a lion’s whelp; From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He bows down, he lies down as a lion; And as a lion, who shall rouse him? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, Nor a lawgiver from between his feet, Until Shiloh comes; And to Him shall be the obedience of the people. Binding his donkey to the vine, And his donkey’s colt to the choice vine, He washed his garments in wine, And his clothes in the blood of grapes. His eyes are darker than wine, And his teeth whiter than milk. Genesis 49:8-12

Compare that prophesy to these words about Jesus Christ, the ‘Seed’ –

Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals. ‘And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent out into all the earth. Revelation 5:5-6

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Next Time

Jacob died and was buried in Canaan in the same cave as his father and grandfather, but his sons continued their lives in Egypt. However, that was not the end of God’s plan for them. The children of Israel still had much to learn so that they might ‘subdue and have dominion.’ We’ll see what they learned in Egypt in the next part of our series – Train to Reign.

“Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.”

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