This is the fourth chapter of six of the series. Since I’m finding more to expound upon than I had planned, we may have to go to chapter eight. These are not written out in advance.
As revealed last time, many of the “seventy souls” had not been born yet when the house of Jacob moved to Egypt. Since Joseph was born in 2068 BC, and Jacob was 130 when Joseph introduced him to pharaoh, and Joseph was forty at the time, Jacob was 90 when Joseph was born, and the rest of the family moved to Goshen in 2028 BC. About 24 of the named “souls” were born in Egypt before Jacob died in 2011 BC, at the age of 147. Thirteen years after that, the children of Israel would be enslaved.
It was promised that a “savior of mankind” would come through the bloodline of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Keep in mind that Yehovah never spoke to Ishmael. Those that claim that Ishmael was the “first Muslim” are either liars, or are easily deceived. In Genesis 17:20-21, God says that He will make Ishmael fruitful, “but my covenant will I establish with Isaac”. When Jacob knew that he was going to die, it was time to pass on the family blessing. By default, it would go to the eldest son, unless it was forfeited, as was the case with Esau. Reuben slept with Rachel’s handmaiden, a concubine of his father. Simeon and Levi had blood on their hands when they killed all the males of the city which had taken in Dinah.
There was nothing substantial to keep the blessing from falling on Judah, but Joseph had always been the favorite son, since the only woman Jacob loved and wanted was Rachel. So Jacob split the family birthright in two, giving part to Judah, and the other to Joseph, which would later fall to Joseph’s younger son Ephraim. Take note from Genesis chapter 49, that Judah and Joseph get five verses each of endowment, while the only ones to get as much as three are shared by Simeon and Levi., 1 ½ each. But Yehovah wanted to build a nation unto Himself, and would start with twelve foundations. The way to do that was for Jacob to have sons by multiple wives, so that there would not be any brother/sister marriages. They would start with half-brother/half-sister, uncles and nieces, and then cousins on down the line.
Jacob was the head of Israel, and the nation started with the twelve tribes. Jesus is the head of (true) Christianity, and it is founded upon the twelve apostles. There are no other tribes of Israel, and there are no other apostles of Christianity. Those that call themselves apostles now I think are looking for “a title”, without having the qualifications, one being to have seen Jesus.
In 1998 BC, when Joseph was 70 years old, Upper (southern) Egypt conquered Lower (northern) Egypt. Ahmose I, the new pharaoh and probably a teenager, and his mother, Queen Ashotep, decided to enslave Israel (maybe 200 souls at the time) after defeating the Hyksos regime. Some tribes had as many as thirteen generations before the Exodus. But Yehovah promised Abraham (Gen 15:13-16) that his seed would come out of slavery in the fourth generation. The first generation was Jacob, the second was Levi, the third was Jochebed (Levi’s daughter), and the fourth was Moses, the “deliverer of Israel”, the third child of Jochebed. Amram, the son of Kohath, married Jochebed (his much older paternal aunt), and she gave birth to Moses at the age of 256, in 1678 BC. The birth of Moses was much more miraculous than that of Isaac.
Mary, the mother of Jesus, was the daughter of a man named Joseph, who was of the monarchal line of Judah. Her mother, a Levite, was of the lineage of Moses and Aaron. Mary’s virgin birth made Jesus both of royal (Judean) and priestly (Levite) ancestry. The King James Version of Matthew 1:16 is a mistranslation. Jacob begat Joseph the FATHER of Mary (the thirteenth generation), and Jesus was the fourteenth generation from the carrying away into Babylon. The book of Luke gives the lineage of Joseph, the HUSBAND of Mary, for legal purposes. We know Mary’s mother was a Levite, because scripture tells us that John the Baptist’s mother (Elisabeth) was of the lineage of Aaron (Luke 1:5), and her mother and Mary’s mother were sisters. That’s how Elisabeth became Mary’s older cousin.
The Hebrew roots of Christianity begin to unfold fifteen days before the Exodus. The new day starts at sundown for the Jews because Yehovah assigned the cycle of the Moon to mark the feasts (moadim) of the Lord, given to Israel. Each month begins with the visual sighting of the renewed Mood (first sliver, lower crescent) at sundown. The cycle is 29.53+ days. If there is cloud cover and the renewed Moon can’t be seen, the new month begins by default on the 30th day.
The new year begins with the next renewed Moon after the barley in Israel is ripe enough (aviv) to be roasted for the “first fruits” offering after Passover. If the barley is not aviv yet, a second twelfth month is observed, to give the barley time to ripen. The first month of the year, as determined by Yehovah, is called the “month of the Aviv”. On the tenth day of that month, the “perfect” lamb is chosen, and inspected for four days. On the afternoon of the fourteenth day of the month, the sacrificial lamb is put in the oven, and eaten after sundown. This starts the seven days of eating unleavened bread. The first Sabbath following the end of Passover (1 to 7 days), is the first fruits offering of barley. Forty-nine days later is the Day of Pentecost. These are the four Spring feasts
(moadim) Yehovah required of Israel.
The first day of the seventh month (Tishri) is the Day of Trumpets, commemorating when God first spoke to all of Israel from Mt. Sinai, and gave them “a new tongue”. The tenth day of that month is the Day of Atonement, when the High Priest uses animal sacrifices to sprinkle blood on the East end of the Arc of the Covenant (when it became available) once a year for forgiveness of the sins of the people. The fifteenth through the twenty-first is the moadim of Tabernacles (sukkahs) where grown men build temporary small shelters to live in for one week. The twenty-second day is called “the last great day”. These are the three Autumn feasts (moadim) Yehovah required of Israel.
After 400 years of slavery in Egypt, Israel crossed the Red Sea in 1598 BC, and journeyed to Mt. Sinai in Saudi Arabia. The first day of Pentecost occurred when Yehovah spoke to all of Israel from the top of the mountain (scaring them half to death), and God gave all of Israel a new language…, Hebrew. It was in addition to the Egyptian and Canaanite languages which they previously spoke. That is why no interpreter was needed when the spies “cased out” Jericho.
In the next chapter, the broken covenant and the promise of a Prophet.
Herman Cummings
ephraim7@aol.com