And God promised the Jewish people; “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” Genesis 12:2-3
Every year at Passover, Jewish people all over the world celebrate the liberation of the Children of Israel from their bondage in Egypt. The story of the Exodus encompasses 430 years of history, beginning with the above promise that God made to Abraham. What a fantastic promise! Or was it? It’s all good until we get to the part about whoever curses you. Basically, we understand from this that there will be people who will curse Israel, but at least, God will deal with them. Only three chapters later God tells Abraham: “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions” Gen. 15:13-14.
Depiction of Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers.
Let’s start about 237 years prior to the Exodus. Joseph was sold into Egyptian slavery by his brothers. Through many years of hardship, mistreatment & slander against him, Joseph ends up becoming the second in command to the Pharaoh. Eventually, his whole family, including his father, Jacob, re-settled into the land of Egypt and they prospered. The Israelites continued to be fruitful for generations, even after the death of Joseph.
So what happened that the Israelites needed to be rescued from the Egyptians? When we look into the beginning of the book of Exodus, we see the foundation for what we’ll refer to as The Jewish Problem: A leader who despises the Jews for no substantiated reason and vows to deal with them harshly.
“Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, but the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful; they multiplied greatly, increased in numbers and became so numerous that the land was filled with them. Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.” So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly. They made their lives bitter with harsh labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their harsh labor the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly.” Exodus 1:6-14
Then Moses came on the scene about 64 years after the death of Joseph. He was adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter and raised in the Pharaoh’s home. Eighty more years of Jewish slavery ensued and finally, God told Moses to tell Pharaoh those famous words “Let my people go.” And after a set of 10 plagues on Egypt and broken promises by Pharaoh and the first Passover, the Exodus to the Promised Land began. It is hard to believe that a man could come into power to rule a country, disregard the history of a people that had been peacefully living in the land for hundreds of years, and out of sheer, unsubstantiated fear order an entire people group to become slaves. Wait! IS it so hard to believe? And here begins the Jewish Problem. Time and time again throughout history, the Jews have faced similar foes. A leader comes into power and for some unfounded reason, the Jews are either forced into slavery or forced to flee. The Babylonians took them captive and destroyed their Temple. The Greeks made them 2nd class citizens and desecrated their holy sites. The Romans destroyed their Temple, killed and captured them, and caused them to flee from their lands.
The Jewish Problem continues to exist. There are still leaders in the world who want to see the Jews destroyed or exiled from their lands. In spite of it though, the Jewish Nation has been fruitful and multiplied throughout the world. Adolph Hitler tried to annihilate every Jew in Europe. While, yes, he was able to kill six million, his failure to kill them all actually helped to contribute in the rebuilding of the land they had lost nearly 2,000 years earlier, subsequently becoming the State of Israel. And in the 73 years since the Holocaust, the Jewish nation has continued to be fruitful and multiply and nearly regain those six million in numbers lost.
The Jews say “never again”. They choose not to live in the past, they don’t blame the descendants of those who have tried to destroy them, and they don’t let their past cripple their future. They learn from the past and do their best to walk forward. The God of Israel gave a promise many millennia ago…and He always keeps His promises: “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
May all the peoples of the earth be blessed!
