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Exodus 1:1–6
“These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his household” (v. 1).
Exodus gives not a brand-new story but a continuation of the history of God’s people that began long before the events described in the book. That much is clear from today’s passage, which begins by listing “the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob.” These sons of Israel and their families numbered seventy in all (Ex. 1:1–5), taking us back to the record in Genesis 46 and connecting Exodus with the history of God’s people as given by Moses in the book of Genesis. By this, Moses tells us that what we are about to read in Exodus is the continuing story of Israel.
Israel, of course, was the new name that God gave to Jacob, the son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham, after Jacob had “striven with God and with men, and [had] prevailed” (Gen. 32:22–32). From Jacob, through his twelve sons named in Exodus 1:1–6, came the nation of Israel in fulfillment of God’s original promise to Abraham to give him many offspring (Gen. 15:1–6). Original readers of the book of Exodus who knew the history of Abraham’s family no doubt began to recall the stories of God’s promises to the patriarchs as they first heard or read this genealogy given by Moses in the opening verses of Exodus. They would have remembered the Lord’s word to Abraham that they would be “sojourners in a land that is not theirs,” creating in them a longing to return to the country that God had promised (Gen. 15:13; see 12:1–3). At the same time, those of faith would have been encouraged by this that the Lord had kept His pledge to Abraham, for if He had placed Abraham’s descendants in Egypt just as He had promised, then He could be trusted to keep His pledge to Abraham that He would bring them out of Egypt and back to Canaan (15:13–14). Moreover, this genealogy served to instruct original readers of Exodus who were not descendants of Abraham according to the flesh. When Israel left Egypt, a “mixed multitude” of other peoples joined the nation (Ex. 12:38), and they needed to be reminded that the people of God originated not in the exodus from Egypt but hundreds of years before with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
The sons of Israel and their descendants were in Egypt at the time of the exodus on account of the work of Joseph. God had raised up Joseph, one of the sons of Israel/Jacob, to a high position in Egypt to save the world from a famine, and Joseph settled his brothers and their families in the Egyptian region of Goshen under the sovereign providence of God (Gen. 46–47; 50:20).
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
God, who works out all things according to the counsel of His will (Eph. 1:11), ordained that Israel would be in Egypt on the eve of the exodus. In fact, He ordains the positions of all people. Where we find ourselves today has been ordained by God, though not in a way that invalidates our own choices. We can trust that God has us where He wants us and that He will use our choices to take us where He wants us to go.
For Further Study
- Genesis 29:1–30:24
- Genesis 35:16–26
- Acts 7:1–16
- Revelation 21:9–14