Welcome to lesson 5. There is a lot to unpack in this lesson. We are literally blazing through the remaining 45 chapters of Genesis in this lesson alone. It feels like an impossible task, but with God all things are possible.! The people from Deaf Missions who created this Basic Bible Study have done superb job in condensing the lesson and creating the charts for us in each lesson. They really manage to help up us see the story visually and simply.
Let us begin. In Lesson 4 we learned that Abraham and Sarah had a son named Isaac. Before they had Isaac, Sarah believed that the only way Abraham could have a son was if he slept with her servant maid. This servant was named Hagar. She become Abraham’s second wife, and through her, Ishmael was born. God told Abraham that Ishmael was not the child He promised, but that Isaac was the child through whom His promises would be fulfilled. Ishmael later became a great nation as well, but they did not follow God. See the chart and note that Jesus’s family line begins with Noah, then Abraham, and continues through Isaac.
Isaac had twin fraternal boys with his wife Rebekah. The oldest is Esau and the youngest is Jacob. There is a wonderfully rich story related to these brothers. Please read Genesis chapters 27-36 for more on this story. You can also watch my sermons from February 17 and 24 in 2019 located in the Sermon Archive section of this website for more about this story. What is important to know is that God had chosen that the youngest boy, Jacob, would become the greatest. God planned for Jesus to come from Jacob’s family. Look at the chart. Note that Jesus’s family line continues through Jacob’s son, Judah.
Jacob has twelve sons who later become the twelve tribes of Israel. Jacob’s favorite son was Joseph. In fact, Jacob gave Joseph a special gift: a multicolored coat. This caused his other brothers to become jealous of Joseph. Joseph also had dreams from God that his brothers, father, and mother would eventually bow down to him. This angered his family. His brothers decided they wanted to kill him, but at the last minute, decided to sell him as a slave to Ishmaelite traders headed to Egypt. Eventually, Joseph will become the prince of Egypt, second only to the King or Pharaoh. God gave Joseph the plan to store food to prepare for a 7 year famine that would impact the world. Once the famine hit, people all around the world came to buy food from Egypt. They eventually ran out of money and sold all of their livestock. When they ran out of livestock, they willingly became slaves to Egypt. When Jacob’s family went to buy food from Egypt, his brothers bowed down to him just like in his dreams! Joseph recognized them and eventually forgave his brothers. He convinced his father and the rest of his family to move to Egypt so he could take care of them there. For more on this story, see my sermons on March 3, 10, and 17 of 2019. You can also click here to see 9 videos I made concerning the story of Joseph. https://vimeo.com/manage/albums/5800322
Joseph has two sons, named Ephraim and Manasseh. Jacob adopts these two sons as his own. For the next 400 years, Jacob’s family will live in Egypt and become the nation of Israel. Eventually, from the tribe of Levi, Moses will be born and he will free Israel from Egypt. We will discuss this in Lesson 6.