COVENANT

COVENANT

Abraham's descendent Jacob and all 72 of his family ended up in Egypt during a time of famine, befriended by the Pharaoh because of the wisdom and work of Joseph.

After the Pharaoh and the generation of Joseph died, the Israelites were treated as captives for some 400 years from approximately 1700BC to 1275BC.

After the time of captivity God raised up a new leader, albeit initially unwillingly on Moses part.

With this new, hugely increased generation, for the family had grown into a nation, God provided another covenant appropriate to the situation in which the people now found themselves.

As the people had gained the skills of settled agriculture and a written language while in Egypt, God was now able to give far more detailed instructions as to His requirements than had been possible in the days of the nomadic Abraham.

Giving of the Law.

Release of the Jewish nation from Egypt and entry into the Holy Land.

The people would be released from their captivity in Egypt.

As seen in our look at the Abrahamic Covenant, God promised Abraham that future generations of his family would inherit a land called Canaan.

As a nomad, he would not have been able to conceive how large his 'family' would become!

However, they would first have experience pain and suffering in a foreign land (Egypt) for 400 years.

It is a principle of God that we need to 'go out', to leave our comfort zone, moving in faith, before we will come into the promises God has for us.

We have the wrong idea that because salvation is a free gift, that everything else in God should be free also. This is not the case. We must walk in faith into the promises God has for us. On the way we will be tried and tested!

Abraham had to leave the comforts of home.

Now that their enslavement was coming to an end, God gave Moses positive encouragement, which he really needed at the time, both for himself and to pass on to the people.

Seven (the number of completion) promises were given.

******* I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.

****** I will free you from being slaves to them

***** I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.

**** I will take you as my own people

*** I will be your God

** I will bring you to the land

* I will give it to you as a possession.

As mentioned above, there is always a cost to obtaining our inheritance. For the Israelites to receive their full inheritance, it was to obey ALL the law which God gave Moses in Horeb on Mount Sinai.

Firstly there was the 10 Commandments:

As mentioned ALL God's laws and statutes had to be kept in order for the people to inherit all the land promised to them.

with a look at the sacrifice and the seal of this important covenant that God made with His people at the time of their escape from Egyptian captivity.

God sets out in the Old Testament (Covenant) principles that are fulfilled by Jesus in the New.

The concept of obedience to the father's will, so brilliantly modeled by Jesus, is one of these.

This is an area most of us choose to ignore and we pay the cost of not fulfilling our potential in Jesus because of it.

PERSIAN RULERS OF BABYLONIA

Little is known about events during the early centuries of the first millennium BC because of the continual invasions by the Aramaeans. Though these people caused much disruption they eventually settled down and became part of Babylonian society. Because of them some changes did occur, for example the Aramaic language soon replaced Babylonian as a common language. Babylonian continued to be written and spoken by the educated classes.

Conclusion

Babylonian cultural achievements left a major mark upon the entire ancient world, and particularly on the Hebrews and the Greeks. Even present-day civilization is indebted culturally to Babylonian civilization to some extent. Babylonian influence is pervasive throughout the works of such Greek poets as Homer and Hesiod, in the geometry of the Greek mathematician Euclid, in astronomy, in astrology, and in heraldry. Most of the Jews in the world today study from the Babylonian Talmud which was written by Jewish rabbi’s in ancient Babylon. Yet it is amazing that such a powerful kingdom and such a culturally developed city should perish from the face of the earth as foretold in the Bible.

Note: Hanging Gardens pictured.