Delve Into Covenant History Sample

 DAY 5 – GENESIS

The book of Genesis explains why and how one nation came to have a special role in God’s plans for all of humanity. It first describes how God created a world of order and harmony, but then tells how this order and harmony were shattered when people turned away from God. The book traces the destructive consequences of human rebellion and pride, showing how these filled the world with violence, injustice, and suffering. These in turn led God to condemn and restrain human wickedness through the judgment of the great flood. 

The book then narrows its focus down to one family. God promises to make a man named Abraham the ancestor of a great nation, and to use him and his descendants to bring people of all nations back to himself. God renews this promise or “covenant” with Abraham’s son Isaac and with Isaac’s son Jacob. Jacob has twelve sons, and one of them, Joseph, saves his entire extended family from perishing in a famine. He brings them to Egypt, where God has already preserved and protected him through many difficulties. 

As Genesis ends, a sequel is clearly in view. Abraham’s descendants have rapidly grown into a league of large tribes, and they must somehow make their way back to the land that God has promised to them. And so this book leads naturally into the story that’s told in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers about how the nation of Israel was formed. 

Genesis is divided into twelve parts by eleven repetitions of the phrase this is the account of [person X], meaning “this is what came from X.” These phrases each introduce natural divisions in the book that describe the descendants of the person named. In some sections these descendants are simply listed, but in others their exploits are traced in detail. The general pattern is that Genesis focuses on the individuals in each generation whom God is working through to fulfill his promises, after briefly considering their siblings. This form of the book suits its storytelling function, since sibling rivalries drive much of the plot forward. 

The book of Genesis has been assembled from ancient materials that have been preserved in a variety of forms. It contains several family lists, as well as poetic passages of varying lengths. It also includes explanations of how people and places got their names, such as Beer-sheba (“the well of the oath”) and Israel (“he struggles with God”). It incorporates the records of legal proceedings, such as Abraham’s purchase of a burial cave, and of military campaigns. The book also includes many stories that tell how particular things came to be (for example, “Why is there a bow in the sky after it rains?”). It weaves all of these materials together to document the origins of humanity, the cause of its distress, and the beginnings of the plan that God set in motion to restore the order and harmony of the world he created. 

Genesis is traditionally attributed to Moses, the leader who brought the people of Israel out of Egypt. He would have had the opportunity and a good reason to assemble a record of his people’s origins and an explanation of their special role in God’s plan. Genesis and the other “books of Moses” (Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) were eventually worked into the continuous story that runs through the first quarter of the Bible. 

PRAYER: Lord, thank You for sharing Your story with the world – and for inviting me to play a role in it.