I've recently been reading through Genesis and reaching the end, I was suddenly left asking a question - "If Joseph brought his father Jacob and all his family down to Egypt from Cannan (the land that God had promised to Abraham) to escape the famine that Joseph had predicted when he interpreted Pharaoh's dream. Why didn't they go back to the 'promised land' once the famine was over?" If they'd gone back after the famine, then they wouldn't have been in Egypt for hundreds of years, eventually becoming slaves and therefore the whole need for God to lead them out of slavery, across the Red Sea and through the wilderness for 40 years wouldn't have happened!
Let's go back a little in the story, to when Joseph meets up with his brothers in Egypt, when they had come down to buy grain. After he'd eventually revealed his identity to them, he sends them to go back to Cannan, with grain, but also with carts to bring their father Jacob and all his household back down to Egypt to live under his protection. The brothers eventually convince Jacob to go down to Egypt with them, so they pack up everything they have and set off on the return journey, but when the whole group reached Beersheba, Jacob stops so that he can offer a sacrifice to God. That night God speaks to Jacob in a vision (Genesis 46:3-4) “I am God, the God of your father,” he said. “Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you into a great nation there. I will go down to Egypt with you, and I will surely bring you back again. And Joseph’s own hand will close your eyes.” So, it appears that God is promising to make Jacob's family, which at this stage numbers about 70, into a great nation - not something that is likely to happen in less than 7 years (the length of the famine, and don't forget that they'd been living in the famine for a time before Jacob had originally sent his sons down to Egypt to buy food).
Joseph was highly favoured by Pharaoh, because under his expert control he had not only ensured that Egypt survived the famine, but in so doing, Pharaoh's personal wealth and power within Egypt had increased (the Egyptian people had used all their money to buy food and when this ran out, they handed over their land, properties, animals and eventually even sold themselves into slavery in exchange for grain). In addition, Pharaoh's might and power within the known world at the time was greatly increased, as the peoples of all the surrounding nations were also suffering from the famine and had to come and purchase food from Egypt. As a result, he was more than happy to welcome Joseph's family and to give them a regular supply of food, together with a fertile area of land, called Goshen, in which to live, it was obviously much better for him to give away food and land to them than to possibly lose the wisdom and counsel of Joseph.
Let's just take a little detour for a minute. If they were in the midst of 7 years of famine, why was Goshen classed as fertile land? If it had been excluded from the famine, then everyone who lived there would have become rich and powerful already and would have objected to these new comers moving in. So we can assume that it was gripped by the famine as well, therefore this offer of 'fertile' land was based on both it's history and it's potential in the future. As we've all probably seen many times, when a financial services company advertises a product, the advert always has to contain the caveat about 'past performance is no indicator of future returns', so though history can imply future prosperity it's not a guarantee. So Joseph's family were taking an educated gamble when settling in Goshen, but the odds were stacked in their favour, they had the trump card of Joseph that they could play, if the land failed to provide - he could always go back to Pharaoh and arrange to swap the land. It started me thinking about implications for us, how this could apply to our lives or situations? I'm sure that we've all known of churches or organisations with a great history, who for whatever reason are currently in a time of famine, but who insist on ploughing on, continuing to do it how they've always done it! Is their determination not to change an act of faithfulness or should they have read the caveat about past performance and cut their losses and moved on to something new? I think that the simple answer would be to ask them 'What is God saying?' If we earnestly seek him, he will give direction, right? But what about the journey that we're on with Time2, when there are periods of silence? All we can do is to hang on to the last promise that God gave us and keep looking for the occasional encouraging sign - we still keep having camels cropping up in the strangest of places and we’ve now had the new series of Call The Midwife using the song ‘Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)’ as part of the soundtrack!
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