God, the Bible and Political Justice: Chapter 14

Part Three: Political Lessons from Jewish History

Chapter 14

Abraham to Moses

The vast majority of the Old Testament focuses on political leadership.  From Genesis to the prophet Isaiah, 15 of the 22 books are primarily telling the story of what was happening in Israel in the political realm.  In the prescriptive Laws God tells us what He wants from political leaders and the people. In the historical events God tells us what they did and the prophets add the consequences of those choices.

As we fly over this vast two thousand year landscape of political leadership we are looking for God’s emphasis.  What is He telling us?  Why does He include these details?  What are we to take from this selected history of Israel into our lives and work today?  We are looking for the meaning of the history God gives us in the form of eternal values and principles of the Kingdom.

The Tribal Beginnings

Abraham 2166-1991 B.C.*

Abraham is born in Ur, modern day Iraq, near the Euphrates river and near the location considered the likely sight of the Garden of Eden.  Abraham’s family is Chaldean. His father had begun to move west to Canaan but stopped in Haran, South East Turkey today, where he died at 205 years of age.

Abraham is called of God to leave his extended family and tribe in Haran and set off again for Canaan.  God promises him that he will father a new nation and that all the peoples of the earth will be blessed through him.  At 75 years of age he sets out with his wife Sarai, their servants, workers and nephew Lot, arriving in Shechem, what we now call the West Bank, near Mt. Ebal and Mt. Gerizim.

Abram is a good man.  He builds alters and worships the Most High God, he gives the better land to his selfish nephew Lot when they part.  He fights to free Lot from his political enemies and refuses any blunder from the war. He believes God will give him an heir late in life and is willing to offer this same child as a sacrifice if that is what God is saying.  At 99, before he has had his miracle son, Abraham believes God and performs the first rite of circumcision on all the males of his clan including himself.  This patient man rescues his nephew a second time from the violence of Sodom and Gomorrah.  He understands God’s heart to bless nations and pleads for all the mercy God is able to extend to its villainous people.

And yet, in his 170 years on earth, this same man lies to two national leaders in order to protect himself and his wealth, the Pharaoh of Egypt and King Abimilech of the Philistines.  He laughs at the promise of God for a child in old age.  It is Abraham that gives us the concubine solution, which produces his heir Ishmael who will also be promised by God of the blessing of a great nation through his sons.  And these tribes will be at war with their cousins, the tribes of Isaac, all through human history.

The geography of God promised lands to Abraham that extend from the river of Egypt, probably the Nile, to the great river Euphrates an area that stretches possibly from the Red Sea east through Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Israel and possibly parts of northern Saudi Arabia and much of north and south west Iraq today.  This land, which comprises most of what Genesis chapter two describes as the Garden of Eden, will never all belong to the heirs of Isaac but most of it will be inhabited by the ancestors of Abraham through Isaac and Ishmaels sons and later the heirs of Jacob and Esau.  In the late 1940’s the King of Jordan will be quoted as saying, “let the Jews come back, they are our cousins and they will bless us.”

Abraham dies at 175 years of age.

Isaac 2066-1886 B.C.*

Isaac is a miracle child born to parents over 100 years old.  He inherits Abraham’s promise from God that his ancestors will become a great nation and that nation will bless all the nations of the world. He grows up among the Hittite people from whom his father has bought land.  He settles in what would now be the southern most boarder of Israel.  God miraculously provides the wife from his fathers’ people near Haran, now southeast Turkey, in the land of the Amorites.  Rebekah is Aramean and she is promised that she will give birth to two nations and the younger, Jacob will serve the older, Esau.

In spite of all this great blessing Isaac lies, as his father did, to Abimilech King of the Philistines.  He breaks the treaty his father has made with Abimilech and then makes a new one, fearing God is unable to protect him.  His beautiful wife proceeds to poison their son Jacob with the need to lie, manipulate and deceive their father in order to get the blessing God had already promised to him.  On the other hand, Isaac was going to give Esau the blessing God had promised to Jacob in spite of what God had already told them about Jacob’s leadership. The ancestors of these two great tribes will feud through all of history.

Isaac dies at 180 years of age.

Jacob 2005-1859 B.C.*

Jacob has an impressive beginning.  While still in his mother’s womb God chooses him to lead his tribe.  He gets a double blessing from his father, Isaac.  On his way to his mother’s family in Haran, God sends Angels in a dream to promise that his ancestors will multiply greatly and through them God will bless all the peoples of the earth.  Jacob works very hard for 14 years to obtain his Uncle Laban’s daughters in marriage and God blesses them both with children.  Jacob’s business prospers as well as the uncle he serves.  When Jacob returns to Canaan with his family God sends an Angel for a second time to wrestle with and bless Him.  He is crippled in the encounter but he is also changed and God gives him the name Israel.  He reconciles with Esau on his return and buys land from the Philistines in Shechem and settles there.

As blessed and called of God as Jacob is there are areas of his life that are a disaster.  He lies to his father and steals his brother’s birthright and blessing.  He tries magic to multiply his flock when God has already told him that He will bless him.  His wife, seemingly following in the family line, lies to her father and steals his idols, hiding them and taking them to Canaan.  His first two wives fight their entire life and his sons are a mess.  They are jealous, selfish, treacherous and violent.  They think to murder their little brother Joseph but decide selling him would be more profitable.  They lie to the Shecimites and then commit genocide of the male population in order to build their own wealth.  Jacob astutely understands this will turn all the tribes in Canaan against them and flees to Bethel the place where God first spoke to him.

Jacob dies at 146 years of age.

Joseph 1914-1805 B.C.*

God singles out Joseph early on to lead his tribe.  He is adored by his father as the son of his first love, Rachel.  He is a diligent and honest worker.  Although sold by his brothers into slavery, he keeps His trust in God and God exalts him in his work.  He is honorable when solicited by his boss’s wife but thrown in prison anyway.  He keeps serving God and is blessed again in his work in prison.  Because of his relationship with God and the blessing of fellow prisoners he is singled out by the Pharaoh to interpret a dream.  Not only does God tell him the dream and the meaning, Joseph is successful in saving the lives of all the other pagan magicians.  Pharaoh makes him second in State and puts him over all of His affairs including disaster relief.

Joseph is used by God to save the nations of Egypt and Israel from financial ruin and starvation.  Because of Joseph, his people are protected and blessed in Egypt for more than 100 years.  His two sons are given equal status with his brothers and founded two of Israel’s 12 tribal nations, Manasseh and Ephraim.

Joseph does not lie, cheat, steal or dishonor for personal gain until his brothers come to Egypt for financial help.  Joseph becomes unrecognizable with displays of emotion that alert the whole Palace.  He lies and manipulates to get his brothers and father back to Egypt even when he has all the power of Egypt to make that happen. He leads Israel into the situation that will turn into more than 400 years of slavery. Joseph is a convicted sex offender who has spent 13 years in prison. And like his father he nearly rejects God’s chosen leader in Ephraim his younger son, preferring the older son Manasseh.

Joseph died at 180 years of age.

Moses 1526-1406 B.C.*

Toward the end of Israel’s slavery in Egypt God miraculously spares Moses from the genocide of his generation and raises him up as political liberator and leader.  Pharaoh’s daughter rescues him from a basket in the Nile and raises him in Pharaoh’s Palace.  He is a natural leader.  He brings all of Israel and other slaves out of Egypt to freedom with no army or formal government to back him.  He receives the Laws from God and builds the foundations for discipling nations.  He forms Israel’s first government and priesthood.  He builds the Tabernacle.  He sees God face to face and performs dramatic miracles that provide food and water for more than 3,000,000 refugees in the wilderness.  Beginning at 80 years of age he leads his people for 40 years in the wilderness with no outside support system. And in Matthew five Jesus says that He lays the foundation for His message.

Before he accomplishes all of this he commits murder, flees to political asylum, and marries a Midianite whose father is a pagan priest.  He nearly dies because he has failed to circumcise his sons.  His stepbrother Pharaoh and the elders of Israel reject him as the leader for years.  Millions of lives are lost and billions in property value will be devestated in Egypt under his leadership.  He fears failure, fears public speaking and sees Israel build a Golden Calf under his brother Aaron’s leadership.  He responds in such anger and frustration, taking credit for a miracle God performed that God forbids him to enter the promise land.

Moses dies at 120 years of age.

As we finish this chapter in Israel’s political history what stands out?

*They are all chosen and called.

*They all have great feats of faith and personal commitment.

*They all have formidable faults and make grave errors.

*The all have major family issues.

*They all bring very difficult times to their nations history.

*They all have skeletons in the closet.

Is it possible they would all have a hard time being elected to office today?  And yet God uses them.

It is also interesting to note that the land strategy in Canaan up to this point in history has been purchasing.

Now we look at the history of Joshua and the Judges.

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