The Culture of Hope Founded on Faith
God’s Individual Direction
Genesis 46 records the journey of Jacob to Egypt after he learned that Joseph, his son whom he had not seen in more than twenty years, was not only alive but also second in command to Pharoah. On his way to Egypt, Jacob stopped at Beersheba. Since it was on the ancient trade route that passed through Canaan at the time, anyone traveling south from Canaan would have arrived at some point in Beersheba. It was natural that he would travel that way.
Located in the foothills of what would later be southeast Judea (Israel’s southern kingdom), Beersheba was situated on a waterway which made it a good place to stock up and rest before the lengthy, hot, and dry journey through the Negev desert. Its importance to Jacob’s story, however, is not connected to its strategic position on the road to all points south for travelers from all over the known world. Not only had Jacob been to Beersheba before, but it was the site of a great deal of his family history.
Jacob’s grandfather, Abraham, is first recorded as having built an altar to and calling upon the name of the Lord near Bethel (Gen. 12:8-9) on his first journey into Canaan. And yet when Abraham went to Egypt because of the famine of his time (Genesis 12), he didn’t stop to ask God for direction. In fact it was only after he fled Egypt in disgrace with his family back to Canaan that he returned to the place of his original alter and sacrificed, waiting for a word from God.
After the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham, moved to Kadesh which is south of Beersheba, Philistine country at the time (Gen. 20). The place where he made a covenant with Abimilech to satisfy a tribal dispute about local wells was thereafter called Beersheba. It was to Beersheba that Abraham went after his journey with Isaac to sacrifice on the mount and to, by faith, tell his son that God would provide a lamb for the burnt offering (Gen. 22:8). However, when Sarah died, the family lived north of Beersheba, in Hebron.
Isaac, Jacob’s father, lived southwest of Beersheba near the well Beer Lahairoi when Rebeccah became his wife. The well was named by Hagar when she and Ishmael took refuge there. When a famine again happened, God told Isaac to not go to Egypt. Instead he stayed in the same area and eventually settled in Beersheba. “And the LORD appeared unto him the same night and said, ‘I am the God of Abraham thy father. Fear not for I am with you and will bless you and multiply your seed for my servant Abraham’s sake.’ And he built an altar there and called upon the name of the LORD and pitched his tent there. And there Isaac’s servants dug a well” (Gen. 16:24-26).
Gen 46:1-4 records the activities of Jacob in Beersheba: “And [Jacob] took his journey with all that he had, and came to Beersheba, 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 of thy father. Fear not to go down into Egypt for I will there make of you a great nation. I will go down with you into Egypt and I will also surely bring you up again. And Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes [to close them when you die].’”
Jacob had been raised on the history of Creation, his great (X10) grandfather, Noah, during the flood, the Tower of Babel, and the faith journeys of Abraham and Isaac. When he found himself invited to Egypt by Pharoah and Joseph, his Prime Minister, no wonder Jacob felt he needed to ask God first. In Egypt, there without God’s consent in the first place, his grandfather had lied about his wife to the Pharoah of his time so that the Egyptians faced God’s wrath on Sarah’s account. The Egyptians were only too glad to send Abraham and his family back to Canaan. In similar circumstances, a famine in the land, Isaac listened to God’s voice and followed His direction to not go to Egypt. Jacob’s experience at Beersheba was very different from that of his forefathers. God told him to go to Egypt and reiterated His Abrahamic promise of a nation of many people and their eventual return to the promised land.
In the same way that Jacob’s journey was not his predecessors’ journeys, my journey is not that of my parents. While my family history is important for me to learn from, how I experience God’s grace in my life is not the same way my parents, my husband, or my children experience God’s grace. When I was a child I knew my parents’ salvation would not transfer to me like a genetic characteristic. I accepted Jesus as my Savior by faith that did not come from my parents. What God calls me to endure, what spiritual gifts He exercises in me, and how He calls me to serve Him is what I am accountable to Him for.
Romans 14:12 tells us “For it is written, ‘As I live,’ saith the Lord, ‘every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God.’ So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. Let us not therefore judge one another anymore, but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way.” As Christians, our focus needs to be on God’s glory, compassion for one another, and God’s call on our individual lives, not what our parents or any other people would have done or did in response to God’s specific direction for their lives.
