As we have already seen, God had a plan to redeem the world and to accomplish this he would send his Messiah Savior, but first, he chose a people through whom he would work out his plan. He called this people Israel.Israel is the nation that God chose to bring forth the Messiah. In Deuteronomy 14:1-2 it says,”…you are a holy people to the LORD your God, and the LORD has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples who are on the face of the earth”. Actually the word chosen is a little misleading. It suggests that there were ‘x’ number of nations before God and He just picked one. Actually it is not so. God didn’t pick the people of Israel He formed them by divine intervention.
First, God called out a man, Abram, and made him the father of Israel. Abram was directly descended from Shem, and was a man who was found righteous in God’s eyes because he believed God (Genesis 15:6; 26:5). Abram lived in Ur of the Chaldees (situated in modern day Iraq). Abram’s father Terah took Abram, Abram’s wife Sarai, and his grandson Lot, and they set out to go to the land that God would show them. They reached Haran and there,Terah died (Genesis 11:31-32).
While Abram remained in Haran, God appeared to him and said, “Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12: 1-3).
Abram, Sarai and Lot left Haran and came to the land of Canaan, to Shechem and the terebinth tree at Moreh. There God appeared again to Abram and said “To your descendants I will give this land” (Genesis 12:6). Some time later God told Abram that He had brought him out of Ur in order to give him “this land”, that is, Canaan, to inherit it (Genesis 15:7). At this time God made a binding covenant with Abram, saying, “…to your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates – the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgasites, and the Jebusites” (Genesis 15:18).
There was only one problem. Abram had no son. Sarai was barren (Genesis 11:30) and they both were very old. There was no way in the natural that their descendants could inherit the promises of God. Abram and Sarai despaired and they took matters into their own hands, instead of waiting on the LORD to do it His way. Sarai gave her Egyptian maid Hagar to Abram and as a result Ishmael was born.
This failure of faith was to have serious consequences. Hagar, while pregnant with Ishmael, fled into the wilderness but the Angel of the Lord found her there and not only said that she should return to her mistress, Sarai, but also that He would multiply her (Hagar’s) descendants exceedingly. He went on to say of Ishmael, “He shall be a wild man; His hand shall be against every man, and every man’s hand against him and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren” (Genesis 16:12).God rejected Ishmael, born out of disobedience and lack of faith, from the chosen line, and as a result jealousy would eat into him, turning him into a man consumed with anger and hatred, who would lift his hand against everyone, causing everyone to be against him. Nevertheless he would remain near his brothers, a constant thorn in their sides. When Abram later pleaded with God to consider Ishmael, God blessed Ishmael and said he would “make him fruitful”, “multiply him exceedingly” and “make him a great nation” (Genesis 17:18, 20), but God did not give him the inheritance of the Land of Canaan or of the Covenant. When he was a grown man, Ishmael went to the east and settled in the Arabian Peninsula (Genesis 25:18). He was the father of the Arab people.
A third time, God appeared to Abram and repeated his promise saying,
I am Almighty God, walk before Me and be blameless. And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly… As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be father of many nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram (exalted father), but your name shall be Abraham (father of a multitude); for I have made you a father of many nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you and kings shall come from you. And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you. Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession and I will be their God (Genesis 17:1-8).
God therefore not only called out a nation holy unto Him, but he gave this people a land, the land extending from the River Euphrates to the River of Egypt, as an everlasting possession.
God at this time too changed Abram’s name to Abraham and Sarai’s (she that strives) name to Sarah (princess) (Genesis 17:5,15) and God said,
Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac: I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard you. Behold I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall beget twelve princes and I will make him a great nation. But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this set time next year (Genesis 17:18-21).
Abraham was 99 years old and Sarah 90, and well past the age of childbearing (Genesis 17:1,17). Not only that, Sarah had always been barren. Little wonder therefore that both Abraham and Sarah laughed (Genesis 17:17, 18:12). There was no natural way Sarah could conceive a child, but God intervened and in due course she gave birth to Isaac (which name means ‘he laughs’), Abraham’s true heir and the heir of God’s covenant promises.
The people of Israel, then, were not only established by the decree and covenant of God, but also by a divine act of God, a miracle, in that an old, barren woman conceived and gave birth to a son. As if this were not enough, when Isaac grew and took a wife, Rebekah, it was found that she too was barren. But Isaac had faith, and prayed to God. The LORD granted his prayer and Rebekah conceived (Genesis 25:21) and gave birth to twins, Esau and Jacob. Again, God had performed a miracle in order to establish His people.
Before Esau and Jacob were born the LORD spoke to Rebekah saying,
“Two nations are in your womb, Two peoples shall be separated from your body; One people shall be stronger than the other, And the older shall serve the younger” (Genesis 25:23).
Sometime later, when they were grown men, Esau who was a hunter came in from the field, very weary, and asked Jacob to feed him some of the red lentil stew that Jacob had prepared. But Jacob said, ” Sell me your birthright as of this day” (Genesis 25:31). Esau was so hungry and tired that he agreed and made an oath selling his birthright to Jacob – for the prince of a bowl of lentil stew (Genesis 25: 32-34).
Many years later, when Isaac was old and blind and approaching death, Rebekah and Jacob tricked him into giving the blessing belonging to the first born to Jacob instead of Esau. Isaac blessed Jacob saying,
“…may God give you
Of the dew of heaven,
Of the fatness of the earth.
And plenty of grain and wine.
Let peoples serve you,
And nations bow down to you.
Be master over your brethren,
And let your mother’s sons bow down to you.
Cursed be everyone who curses you,
And blessed be those who bless you” (Genesis 27:28-29).
Thus Jacob, whose name means ‘supplanter’, took not only Esau’s birthright but also his blessing. Jacob inherited Isaac’s land and possessions and became the patriarch of the family. But did he also inherit the covenant promises of God?
Before Isaac died he called Jacob to him and blessed him saying,
May God Almighty bless you,
And make you fruitful and multiply you,
That you may be an assembly of peoples;
And give you the blessing of Abraham,
To you and your descendants with you,
That you may inherit the land
In which you are a stranger,
which God gave to Abraham
(Genesis 28:3-4)
The covenant promise therefore passed from Isaac to Jacob. God confirmed this later coming to Jacob in a dream saying,
I am the LORD God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants.
Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
Behold I am with you and will keep you wherever you go. And will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you (Genesis 28:13-15).
Jacob took Leah and Rachel, the daughters of Laban his uncle, as wives. God opened Leah’s womb and she gave birth to Jacob’s first four sons, Reuven, Simeon, Levi and Judah. Jacob loved Rachel but she was barren, so she gave Jacob her maid, Bilhah, and Bilhah gave birth to two more sons, Dan and Napthali. Leah, when she saw that she had stopped bearing, gave Jacob her maid, Zilpah who bore two more sons, Gad and Asher. Following which Leah again conceived and bore two more sons to Jacob, Issachar and Zebulun. Meanwhile God had not forgotten Rachel and at last he opened her womb so that she bore Jacob two more sons, Joseph and Benjamin (Genesis 29:31-30:24, Genesis 35:22-26). These twelve sons are the twelve patriarchs of the nation of Israel. The royal line of David and the Messiah-King, Yeshua, originated in Abraham, and passed through Isaac, Jacob and Judah (Matthew 1:1-17, Luke 3:23-38).
It is interesting to note that here too God had a third time to supernaturally open the womb of a barren woman in order to establish the people of Israel. It is for this reason I say that they were not simply a people picked out of the nations by God, but rather a people specially formed and supernaturally created by God for his purposes.
As we trace these earliest steps of the Messianic descent it is also perhaps significant that the line does not always pass down through the eldest sons. Cain, the eldest son of Adam was rejected because of he murdered his brother Esau. Abraham’s eldest son, Ishmael, was the child of unbelief and an Egyptian maidservant, illegitimate and therefore he was also rejected. Isaac’s eldest son, Esau, sold his birthright for a bowl of lentil stew. Furthermore, Jesus was descended from Judah, the fourth son of Jacob, not the eldest, Reuben. The Messianic line of descent therefore is determined by spiritual principles not merely those of physical biology or social tradition.
God called this special people, Israel. The word ‘Israel’ can literally be translated as ‘he who has struggled with God’. This name was granted to Jacob after he had wrestled with the Angel of God and prevailed (Genesis 32: 22-30). This name has proved to be descriptive and prophetic. Israel throughout her history has constantly wrestled with God but has prevailed, even through great struggle and suffering.
Israel is therefore a nation made by God for a specific purpose, namely to be God’s prophetic vessel of revelation through history, to record and protect his written Word, the Bible, and in due course and most importantly, to bring forth the Messiah, Jesus. In Deuteronomy 14:1-2 it says of Israel,”…you are a holy people to the LORD your God, and the LORD has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples who are on the face of the earth”.
Is it any wonder then that the little nation of Israel, throughout its whole history, has been targeted for destruction by the enemies of God, those being used by Satan, to prevent the redemption of the world and its salvation. Here lies the most fundamental root of the enmity against Israel.
In Deuteronomy 14:1-2 it says,”…you are a holy people to the LORD your God, and the LORD has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples who are on the face of the earth”.