I Will Take You as My People

God sent Moses to deliver his people from slavery in Egypt and to bring them into the land that He had promised to Abraham. Moses, with Aaron as his spokesman, went into Pharaoh and demanded that Pharaoh allow the children of Israel to go and worship God. I don’t know what Aaron and Moses expected, but Pharaoh not only refused to allow the children of Israel to go worship God, he made the conditions of their slavery even worse! When Moses went to God asking why this happened, God assured Moses that it was all in His plan and everything was now set up for God to deliver His people.

 

The King Did Not Know Joseph

While Joseph lived and ruled under Pharaoh, the Hebrew people lived safely and prosperously in the region of Goshen in Egypt. But after Joseph died, things changed drastically. Joseph’s deeds were forgotten or dismissed. Instead of seeing the Hebrew people as those who brought deliverance in the time of famine, they were seen as threats. God had prospered the children of Israel as He had promised and the Egyptians are both jealous and afraid. This pattern has been repeated throughout history and continues today. It is the pattern of the future and the fulfillment of prophecy.

 

May God Make You Like Ephraim and Manasseh

At the end of Jacob’s life, he called his son Joseph to bring his grandsons Ephraim and Manasseh to his side so he could bless them before he died. As Jacob blessed them, he prophesied over them with these words.

Genesis 48:20 NKJV 20 So he blessed them that day, saying, "By you Israel will bless, saying, 'May God make you as Ephraim and as Manasseh!'" And thus he set Ephraim before Manasseh.

Why did Jacob single out Joseph’s two sons? What is the significance of this blessing and prophecy? Why is the younger son, Ephraim, listed first?

 

Joseph Wept

We are all familiar with the shortest verse in the Bible, John 11:35, “Jesus wept.” Children in Sunday School classes like to memorize this verse to earn their gold star for memorizing a Bible verse. And it is a good verse for children to memorize demonstrating that Jesus experienced the depths of grief at the death of His good friend Lazarus, and compassion for the grief that Mary and Martha experienced at the death of their brother. In this teaching, we look at the five times that the Bible records that Joseph wept.