I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 45-47.

    When Jacob’s family arrived in Egypt, they numbered 70 persons total (including Joseph, his wife, and two sons). They were not a people. They were a small clan. When they left some 400 years later, they numbered approximately 1 million. In the land of Canaan, the people kept trying to have Jacob and his family become one with them and assimilate, losing their distinctive identity as the people of God. The Egyptians rejected the idea of allowing Jacob’s descendants to assimilate and become Egyptians. The end result was that, in Egypt, Jacob’s descendants became a distinct people who worshiped and served God. If they had remained in Canaan they would have been assimilated into the people around them.