Knowing the History of Israel - Part 2
"And the children of Israel bare fruit, increased greatly, and multiplied, and were greatly strengthened; so that the earth was filled with them. "(Exodus 1: 7)
The sons of Jacob - who received the name of Israel from God - grew and multiplied greatly in the land of Egypt. And their permanence there had definite purposes, which were attained. Thus, once these purposes were fulfilled, the people should leave Egypt. The problem was that the promise had been forgotten in their hearts and no one wanted to leave for the land that had been promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Then God once again moves in the history of the people He created for Himself. A new king arose over Egypt and this king did not know Joseph. Then, seeing the Israelites as a threat, they began to persecute them, to mistreat them and even to kill all the children who were born of the Israelites.
And then we see the next step, given by God in the preparation of this nation: to raise a leader capable of leading him to his inheritance. God raised up Moses, who was miraculously preserved by Him and did not perish by one of Pharaoh's repressive laws, being raised in the very palace of those who wanted to destroy him. Moses was educated throughout the Egyptian culture and prepared to one day be one of the pharaohs, a privilege which he refused because of his people (Heb 11: 24-29).
Moses, in discovering his true history, revolts and ends up killing an Egyptian soldier, at the moment when the man beat an Israelite. So he fled to the land of Midian, where he married Zipporah and had children. For many years Moses lived there until God, hearing the cry of His people, who was enslaved in Egypt, and remembering His promise, sends Moses back, to be the deliverer of the Israelites and finally to lead them to the earth of the promise.
The people have grown and multiplied enough and now it was a great nation. Then began the birth of a people. But before that, 10 plagues were sent against Egypt, which wanted at all costs to kill the new nation, preventing it from being born. But at midnight on the 14th of Abib (Jewish calendar) the nation was finally being born, and an exodus of approximately 3,000,000 people began to occur, from Egypt to Canaan. The Earth was waiting and the people were big and strong. And they went forth in a great march toward the promise which the Lord had promised them from Abraham of a pleasant land flowing with milk and honey. The people encamped before Mount Sinai, and Moses was called to the mountain and there, God gave him the Law. The base of the law given by God to Israel were the ten commandments. The Law regulated three specific areas of national life: moral, civil and religious. In it were all the rules for the people to live in peace and prosperity.
The central purpose of the Law was to preserve the people and teach them to live differently from other peoples, preparing them for a time to come, when the Messiah, foreseen by the same law, would come to fulfill God's redemptive plan. But the story does not end here.
Get ready for the next exciting episodes.
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