"God's Majestic Plan"

Scripture Passage for Today

GENESIS 45:16-47:27

Scripture Focus

“So altogether, there were seventy members of Jacob’s family in the land of Egypt.” (Genesis 46:27 NLT)

Observation

I confess: I wouldn’t have noticed this had someone not pointed it out to me—“Seventy” is the number of nations in the “Table of Nations” supplied in Genesis 10 (immediately following the account of Noah and the flood). Now “seventy” is the number of identified descendents of Abraham in Egypt. So in Genesis 10, “seventy” is the number of the whole of humanity. In Genesis 46, “seventy” is the number of the whole of the redemptive linage for all nations—the number of the linage through which “all peoples on earth will be blessed” (Genesis 12:3).

You don’t have to wait for Revelation, then—or even the Gospels—to discover that God both *has* a plan and is working His plan. Already in the first book of Scripture, God is making it clear that He will redeem a people as His very own. In the blood sacrifice of an animal to provide a covering for Adam and Eve (Gen 3:21), in the deliverance of Noah, who “found grace in the eyes of the Lord” (Gen 6:8 KJV), in the promises to Abraham, who “believed God, and it was credited unto him as righteousness” (Rom 4:3 NIV), and now—in the deliverance of Abraham’s descendents through the life of Joseph, and even in the number of descendents of Abraham who went down into Egypt—equal to the number of nations God would redeem, as it were (*all* of them!)—God has launched His redemptive process…and it will not be halted.

It’s majestic—this work of God. Bigger than I ever understand…and more intimate and personal, as well. Why should I imagine that the events of my day are any less orchestrated by the God of Heaven? Help me, God, to trust that my life—my days—are in your hands!