Last week, we learnt that through Joseph as a representative of Pharaoh, God saved Jacob's family and brought them out of famine into provision in Goshen. In doing so, God kept his covenant promise to Jacob. In this study, we study this in greater detail, through the genealogy in Genesis 46.
Who are these people corporately? These are the sons of Jacob (also known as Israel when he was renamed in Gen 32).
(A) Jacob’s sons remind us of the faithfulness of God’s promise (Gen 46:1-27)
Gen 46:8-27 is a list of names. These are the sons of Jacob (who was also renamed as "Israel" in Gen 32). The list only has the names of his sons, and are grouped according to the wives (and concubines) of Jacob. Why is this significant? It is important because of what we have seen so far in Genesis. Right in the beginning in Genesis 1-2, we learnt of a God who made the world and everything in it, including the first man and woman. The world was good, and Adam and Eve enjoyed the goodness of this world and community with this good God. Yet in Genesis 3, we learnt of the fall, where the first man and woman disobeyed and rejected God, choosing instead to trust in themselves. Sin entered the world, and cursed it. From that moment on, the rest of Genesis has been a revelation of God's plan to undo this curse. God chose Jacob's grandfather, Abraham, and made a promise to him that he will have many descendants and the world will be blessed through them. Genesis 46 is significant, because it helps us see how this promise is being fulfilled slowly but surely.
Some of us might get confused with the math and numbers in Gen 46:26-27. What's this whole business about "66" and "70"? Beyond mere number games, the writer of Genesis has the bigger storyline of Genesis and the rest of the Bible in mind. The number 70 conveys the idea of completion and fullness. These verses are meant to help us see the faithful God of the Bible. All of Israel went down to Egypt. From one man, Abraham, God gave a son, Isaac. From Isaac, God gave two sons, Jacob and Esau, and from Jacob, God's chosen people grew to a larger family of 12 sons.
Genesis 46 reminds us that we we say that "God is faithful", His faithfulness is tied to a specific promise.
Do you know God’s faithfulness? Do you actually know His promises as He has said it? Sometimes we do get discouraged, because we believe lies about the Christian faith that God Himself has never actually promised. Some have mistakenly believed that the Christian life is one without suffering, that believing in Jesus means all our problems will be solved, that God intends for us to have our best life now. In fact, the Bible says something else completely different – our best life is yet to come. So how do we know God’s promises? Read the Bible, the very words of God that He has graciously granted us. Read and see that it is full of His promises!
(B) Jacob’s sons point us to the fullness of God’s people (c.f. Exo 1:1-7, Num 1:1-46, 1 Chron 2:1-5, Ruth 4:18-21)
If we skip to the next book, in Exo 1:1-7, we read of how Israel started out as a family (the names in Gen 46!) but developed into a nation in Egypt. Academicians like Benedict Anderson claim that a nation is defined as "a unifying idea or identity of a people that is culturally constructed". But, the Bible holds a different definition of nation. A nation is not a social construct and is not an idea. Rather, the nation of Israel is a family bound by blood (and law).
As we trace the development of this nation, we learn of how it is made up of 12 tribes from each son of Jacob (c.f. Numbers 1). Each tribe is a family group, from a specific bloodline. The subsequent genealogies in passages like 1 Chron 2:1-5 and Ruth 4:18-21 help us to see the continuity of this bloodline throughout the nation's history. The writers of the Old Testament continued to point their readers back to this ancestry.
Why this continual emphasis? What role does Israel play in God’s big picture? Why has He chosen Israel? Take some time to read Isa 41-44. A quick scan of the verses reveal that God has a specific purpose for Israel, and He has specific words for them.
Isa 41:8-10 – God promises His presence to Israel
Isa 41:14 – (same as above)
Isa 41:15 – Israel is a part of God’s judgment
Isa 41:17 – Provision and protection for the poor and needy
Isa 41:20 – The Holy One of Israel promises something for the people
Isa 42:24 – God gave them up because they sinned.
Isa 43:1 – Israel formed and redeemed by the Lord.
Isa 43:3 – Egypt given as ransom for Israel to be saved
Isa 43:14 – The Chaldeans will be exchanged for the Israelites
Isa 43:15 – Israel is His creation.
Isa 43:22 – Israel did not call upon Him, an unfaithful nation
Isa 43:28 – Israel will be judged for her sins
Isa 44:1 – Back to the language of Israel, the chosen.
Isa 44:5 – Israel is an identity. What does it mean to be Israel? It means to be the Lord’s.
These verses help us see that Israel was God's people, and He had a specific purpose for them. He chose them (Isa 44:1-3) for a specific purpose -- to be a blessing, when His Spirit comes to His people and are empowered by Him. Genesis 46 gives us the beginnings of their growth into this nation in Isaiah. God blesses their growth not because He loves productivity, but because they were meant to be a channel through which He could pour out His blessings into the world. They were meant to participate in His plan to undo the curse brought about in Genesis 3.
Is there an application for us here? Yes! Genesis 46 reminds us that if we are God’s people, we are also meant to be a blessing to the world. What do we mean by that? It is not just to do good things when the occasion calls for it, like helping an old person cross the road. How can we live in a way that can seek to undo the curse in our family, our workplaces, our community, our country? How do we point each other and the world to Christ in the way we live, talk, breathe, think and work?
Genesis 46 reminds us that God's people exist for His purpose.
(C) Jacob’s sons point us to the family of God’s priests
By this point in Genesis, we have covered a number of genealogies. Why does the Bible give us genealogies? Genealogies help us see how God preserves His people from generation to generation. And each individual written in the genealogies was used by God to accomplish His purposes. In Matthew 1, we see how the genealogy of God's people ended up with Christ. More than just a census of God's people, genealogies really form the backbone of the OT and helps us see the climax of the history of Israel is not in the battles or their exiles etc, but leads to Jesus, the promised seed of the woman in Genesis 3, the true Son, the true Savior.
What then, does this mean for us today? Peter's words in 1 Pet 2:9-11 are helpful for us. Take some time to read these verses. How does he refer to the Christians in these verses? Peter addresses the Christians as:
“chosen race” -- Notice the irony. How can one choose their race? Here, Peter reminds the Christians that they have a redefined identity, not one linked to their bloodline, but in becoming Christians, God has chosen and remade their race and blood.
“royal priesthood” -- The irony would not be missed by the readers of this text. A priest was from the line of Levi, and royalty was tied to Judah's line. These were two separate offices and in combining them, Peter was saying that they were "Judah-Levites" or "priest-kings". Once more, as Christians, they now had a redefined mission.
“holy nation” -- They were a kingdom set apart with a different purpose.
“a people for his own possession” -- Why did God choose them? Why did God call them out of darkness into his marvelous light? He wanted them, He wants us, because He does.
Peter wrote this to Christian Jews, yet he never referred to their ethnicity. Instead, he continued to point them to their new identity in Christ, as these verses help us to see. What about you and me today? Do we recognise our redefined identity and mission?
The book of Revelation has something to say about this identity and mission. It has significance not only in the past, to Jacob's family and the nation of Israel, not only in the present, for us as the Christian church, but also for the future. Rev 21:9-14 is a description of the New Jerusalem, God's final city. It is awash with symbolism, as the bride of Christ (i.e. the church) is described as a city coming down from heaven with 12 gates names after the sons of Israel. This city also has its foundation as the 12 apostles of the Lamb. This city was shaped as a cube, with a length of 12000 stadia, and other given measurements. Revelation 21 reminds us that God is still not done. He is still at work, growing His people, bringing His people back to this final city, the true Promised Land.
Wow.
Truly, this is a God who makes and keeps His promises. This has been a repeated theme in the book of Genesis. Today's passage in Genesis 46 is a partial fulfilment of the promise made in Genesis 12. It offers us an encouragement, and reminds us to continue to study, read and dig deeper into His Word, to discover the many promises that He has made, which ultimately find their fulfilment in the Savior.
Genesis 46 also points us to this promise-making, promise-keeping God that continues to work with a community of people, and is concerned about the fullness of the people that He is growing. It reminds us that as Christians, we are not lone rangers and individuals, but are brought into God’s family meant to be God’s priests wherever God has placed us to -- in our family, our workplace, our lives. We exist for a larger purpose, in a bigger story beyond what we dream for ourselves. We are participants in the story of God’s family going out into the world to unmake the curse that has broken this world. For everyday we have on earth, is given by the King, not for us to while away our time and to make ourselves feel good, but to declare the excellencies of this Savior to a world that needs to hear Him.
This has been His purpose for His people all throughout history, right from Jacob's family, to the nation of Israel, now to the church and all the way till the promise made in Rev 21 is fulfilled, when finally, all things will be made new.