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Song: O For A Faith That Will Not Shrink
Scripture: Genesis 46:1-3
It was at Beersheba that Abraham dug a well and made a covenant with Abimelech as witness that he had rights to the well and to the land. Isaac too had established a covenant at Beersheba with the Philistine king and dwelt there most of his days. The building and naming of wells by the patriarchs was not just an act of necessity, but an act of faith that God would someday give them this land.
Now the aged Israel came to Beersheba and offered sacrifices to Jehovah. Years earlier he had fled Beersheba to Haran in the North. Now famine and news that Joseph lived carried him South to Egypt. In three generations, Abraham’s seed owned but a cave in Machpelah and a plot in Shechem. And now all of Israel was on its way to Egypt.
God’s promise to Israel here was not unlike the promise He made when Jacob fled to Haran. “I will go with you, and I will bring you back.” Israel’s fears were allayed. God had brought him back from Haran, He would bring him back from Egypt too. In moving to Egypt, Jacob not only got Joseph back. He got all his boys back. A family long divided, was at last united. And Judah, who had first sold his brother South, now pointed the way to Egypt at his father’s request.
So Israel left “without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance” (Heb. 11:13). They call that faith.
Jason Moore
