Tag: Israel
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The Story Is Not Over – Genesis 49:27
Genesis 49:27 “Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf: in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil.” Benjamin speaks of a victorious remnant. Jacob closes with a strong image. Benjamin is not pictured as weak, cornered, or barely surviving. He is pictured as a wolf, ravenous, forceful, and…
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Strength Under Oppression – Genesis 49:14-15
Genesis 49:14-15 “Issachar is a strong ass couching down between two burdens: And he saw that rest was good, and the land that it was pleasant; and bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant unto tribute.” In Issachar, we see an exploited people. Jacob describes him as strong, like a donkey able to…
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Scattered to the Shores – Genesis 49:13
Genesis 49:13 “Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea; and he shall be for an haven of ships; and his border shall be unto Zidon.” With Zebulun, the picture changes again. Here we see an exiled people. The scene is one of borders, coastlands, ships, and distance. It carries the sense of a…
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Scattered by Wrath – Genesis 49:5-7
Genesis 49:5–7Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations. O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united: for in their anger they slew a man, and in their selfwill they digged down a wall. Cursed be their anger, for it was…
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A Missed Birthright – Genesis 49:3-4
Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power: Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel; because thou wentest up to thy father’s bed; then defiledst thou it: he went up to my couch. Jacob begins with Reuben, the firstborn, the one…
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Around the Bedside – Genesis 49:1-2
Genesis 49:1-2 And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days.Gather yourselves together, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken unto Israel your father. Jacob knows his time is short, so he gathers his sons around him. All…
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Bread for Every Family – Genesis 47:12
Genesis 47:12 And Joseph nourished his father, and his brethren, and all his father’s household, with bread, according to their families. This is a tender verse. Joseph did not merely place his family in the land. He nourished them there. He did not bring them in and then leave them to fend for themselves. He…
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Placed in the Best of the Land – Genesis 47:11
Genesis 47:11 And Joseph placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded. There is so much comfort in that opening phrase. Joseph placed his father and his brethren. They did not place…
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Fear Not to Go Down – Genesis 46:1-4
Genesis 46:1-4 And Israel took his journey with all that he had, and came to Beer-sheba, and offered sacrifices unto the God of his father Isaac. And God spake unto Israel in the visions of the night, and said, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, Here am I. And he said, I am God, the God…
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The Wagons Are On Their Way – Genesis 45:25-28
Genesis 45:25, 28 And they went up out of Egypt, and came into the land of Canaan unto Jacob their father, And told him, saying, Joseph is yet alive, and he is governor over all the land of Egypt. And Jacob’s heart fainted, for he believed them not. And they told him all the words…
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The Test of Another Man’s Blessing – Genesis 43:34
Genesis 43:34 And he took and sent messes unto them from before him: but Benjamin’s mess was five times so much as any of theirs… And they drank, and were merry with him. Joseph gave Benjamin five times more than the rest. That was not random. I think Joseph was watching them. Years earlier, when…
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A Table Prepared Before They Knew Him – Genesis 43:15-16
Genesis 43:15-16 And the men took that present, and they took double money in their hand, and Benjamin; and rose up, and went down to Egypt, and stood before Joseph. And when Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the ruler of his house, Bring these men home, and slay, and make ready; for…
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Mercy for the Road Ahead – Genesis 43:11-14
Genesis 43:11-14 And their father Israel said unto them, If it must be so now, do this; take of the best fruits in the land in your vessels, and carry down the man a present, a little balm, and a little honey, spices, and myrrh, nuts, and almonds: And take double money in your hand;…
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When Jacob Talks Instead of Israel – Genesis 42:36
Genesis 42:36 And Jacob their father said unto them, Me have ye bereaved of my children: Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away: all these things are against me. This is one of those painfully honest verses in Scripture. Jacob looks at the whole situation and says, “All these…
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Grace Put Back in the Sack – Genesis 42:25-28
Genesis 42:25 Then Joseph commanded to fill their sacks with corn, and to restore every man’s money into his sack, and to give them provision for the way: and thus did he unto them. I love this scene because Joseph does not just feed his brothers. He overwhelms them with undeserved kindness. He fills their…
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The King Who Still Wept – Genesis 42:24
Genesis 42:24 And he turned himself about from them, and wept… That gets me every time. Joseph is standing there before the very men who betrayed him, sold him, and acted like his pain meant nothing, and now he has to turn away because the emotion is too much. He wept. Under all the testing,…
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The One Listening All Along – Genesis 42:22-23
Genesis 42:22 And Reuben answered them, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child; and ye would not hear? therefore, behold, also his blood is required. Reuben finally says what had been hanging in the air all along. “His blood is required.” That is the language of guilt. Not inconvenience.…
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The Man They Could Not Read – Genesis 42:17
Genesis 42:17 And he put them all together into ward three days. Joseph shut his brothers up for three days. That was not random. In the Bible, the third day is often the day when something changes, the day when God begins to turn the corner, the day when what looked dark starts to break…
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The Brother They Did Not Recognize – Genesis 42:7-9
Genesis 42:7-9 And Joseph saw his brethren, and he knew them, but made himself strange unto them, and spake roughly unto them and he said unto them, Whence come ye? And they said, From the land of Canaan to buy food. And Joseph knew his brethren, but they knew not him. And Joseph remembered the…
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Unlimited Riches, Certain Fulfillment – Genesis 42:4-6
Genesis 42:4 But Benjamin, Joseph’s brother, Jacob sent not with his brethren; for he said, Lest peradventure mischief befall him. Benjamin was Joseph’s full brother, and Jacob would not let him go. That says a lot without saying everything. It makes me think Jacob never fully settled the story he had been told years earlier.…
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The Plenty That Cannot Last – Genesis 41:17-31
Genesis 41:17-31 And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, In my dream, behold, I stood upon the bank of the river: And, behold, there came up out of the river seven kine, fatfleshed and well favoured; and they fed in a meadow: And, behold, seven other kine came up after them, poor and very ill favoured and…
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When Israel Heard – Genesis 35:22-29
Genesis 35:22-29“And it came to pass, when Israel dwelt in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine: and Israel heard it.Now the sons of Jacob were twelve: The sons of Leah; Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn, and Simeon, and Levi, and Judah, and Issachar, and Zebulun: The sons of Rachel; Joseph, and…
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Named Again by God – Genesis 35:9-11
Genesis 35:9-11And God appeared unto Jacob again, when he came out of Padanaram, and blessed him. And God said unto him, Thy name is Jacob: thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name: and he called his name Israel.And God said unto him, I am God Almighty: be…
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When Jacob Finally Told the Truth – Genesis 32:27-28
Genesis 32:27-28And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. This is one of the holiest moments in Jacob’s life. The Lord asks…
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He Sees Us Coming – Genesis 24:63-67
Genesis 24:63-67 And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the eventide; and he lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, behold, the camels were coming.And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she lighted off the camel.For she had said unto the servant, What man is this that walketh…
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A Picture of Israel in the Wilderness – Genesis 21:18-21
Genesis 21:18-21Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand; for I will make him a great nation. And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink. And God was with the lad; and he grew,…
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An Everlasting Covenant – Genesis 17:7-8
Genesis 17:7-8And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all…
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Blessed to Be a Blessing – Genesis 12:2-3
Genesis 12:2-3 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. What a contrast…
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The Third Sending – Genesis 8:10-12
Genesis 8:10-12 And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark; And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth. And he…
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Shining Foundations – Revelation 21:19-20
Revelation 21:19, 20And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald; the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprasus;…
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Gates of Grace – Revelation 21:12-13
Revelation 21:12, 13 And had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel:On the east three gates; on the north three gates; on the south three gates; and on the west…
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Where the World Converges – Revelation 16:16
Revelation 16:16 And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. Armageddon is not just a dramatic sounding word. It is a real place on a real map. About sixty miles north of Jerusalem lies the Jezreel Valley, the plain of Megiddo, a place soaked in the memory of war.…
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Not One Missing – Revelation 14:1
Revelation 14:1 And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father’s name written in their foreheads. What a contrast this is. At the end of chapter 13, men are marked by the beast. In chapter 14, John looks again and…
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Swallowed by the God of Israel – Revelation 12:16-17
Revelation 12:16, 17 And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have…
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The Flood That Could Not Drown the Promise – Revelation 12:15
Revelation 12:15 And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. The picture is fierce. The serpent cannot stop the plan of God, so he tries to overwhelm the people of God. He comes like a flood.…
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Kept for the Wilderness – Revelation 12:5-6
Revelation 12:5 And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. Revelation 12:6 And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there…
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The Dragon’s Ancient Hatred – Revelation 12:4
Revelation 12:4 And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. This verse pulls the curtain back and lets us see…
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The Woman and the Child – Revelation 12:1-2
Revelation 12:1-2 And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. Revelation 12 is a remarkable chapter. Right away John starts…
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The Tribe That Disappeared and Returned – Revelation 7:5-8
Revelation 7:5-8 Of the tribe of Juda were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Reuben were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Gad were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Aser were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Nepthalim were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Manasses were sealed twelve…
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Marked for the Master – Revelation 7:2-4
Revelation 7:2-4 And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea,Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed…
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Not Through With Israel – Revelation 3:9
Revelation 3:9 Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee. This is a strong verse, and it is one we need to…
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Under the Spout – Jude 5
Jude 5 I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. Jude is beginning to press a truth he does not want us to miss. He says, in essence, “I know you…