Abraham
Genesis 12, Hebrews 11
Fast forward to around 1800 BC. Abraham (originally Abram, renamed by God to Abraham) was a devout follower of God. God promised Abraham that He would make a great nation from his decedents. By this time Abraham and his wife Sarah were very old and past the child bearing age, but God performed a miracle and Abraham and Sarah had a son and named him Isaac. Isaac would later have a son named Jacob who God later renamed to Israel, which is where the name for the nation came from.
Joseph
Genesis 37-50
Jacob had twelve sons. One these sons, Joseph, who was Jacob’s favorite, was sold into slavery to the Egyptians by his jealous brothers. Joseph continued to follow and obey God through very difficult circumstances, including being imprisoned for being accused (falsely) of rape. Through miraculous circumstances, the king of Egypt, Pharaoh, summoned Joseph from prison to interpret a dream he had been plagued with, which no one else in his council could properly interpret. Joseph was able to interpret the dream correctly which turned out to be a prophecy from God about a coming famine in the land.
Because of Joseph’s wisdom, and God given abilities, Pharaoh put Joseph in charge of all the land of Egypt second only to Pharaoh himself in authority. Pharaoh charged Joseph with mitigating the coming famine, which he did by storing a portion of all the food in the land for seven years.
When the famine finally hit, people from distant lands all over came to Egypt to buy food because Joseph had stored up so much. Joseph’s own brothers came to Egypt to buy food to bring back to their father. His brothers didn’t recognize him at first because they assumed he was dead. Joseph and his brothers reconciled and Joseph eventually moved his father Jacob and all the rest of his family to Egypt and let them settle in the land of Goshen where they were well taken care of.
The decedents of Jacob grew in numbers greatly in the land of Egypt. After Joseph and the Pharaoh died, a new Pharaoh arose who was not familiar with the backstory of why the decedents of Jacob, the Hebrews, were there. He grew fearful of the Hebrews and eventually enslaved them and made them work for the kingdom of Egypt building their cities.
The Hebrews, or descendants of Jacob, were enslaved by Egypt for 400 years. At this time God, who had already foretold all this to Abraham, said it was time to free the Hebrews from bondage and make them a nation of their own.
Moses
The Book of Exodus – Old Testament
God raised up Moses, a Hebrew who was adopted as a baby by one of Pharaoh’s daughters, to be the instrument through which the people of Israel would be freed. Moses had fled Egypt because he had killed an Egyptian soldier who he saw mistreating a Hebrew man. Moses became a shepherd for 40 years. His sheep herding skills would later become useful when leading the people of Israel, as God often refers to His people as His sheep in His flock.
God spoke to Moses and charged him and his brother Aaron with returning to Egypt and demanding Pharaoh free the people of Israel. When Pharaoh refused to let the people go, God unleashed a fury of plagues one at a time on Egypt. Each time, the Pharaoh refused to let the people go, until the final plague.
The first plague God unleashed through Moses was to turn all the water in Egypt into blood. Please make note of this because many events in what Christians call the Old Testament portion of the Bible symbolically point to Jesus in the New Testament. Turning the water into blood is significant because the first miracle recorded that Jesus performed in what Christians call the New Testament portion of the bible, was to turn water into wine. Wine is symbolic of Jesus’ blood, a fact that I’ll expound on later.
The ten plagues God unleashes on Egypt were each meant to be a slap in the face to one of the false Egyptian gods at the time. For instance, the frog plague was meant as a slap in the face to Hapi the frog goddess to Egypt, the darkness blotted out Ra, the sun god etc…:
Before each plague, Pharaoh promised to let the people go, then he hardened his heart afterword and broke his promises until the tenth plague. This is the one we want to get to.
Moses had told Pharaoh that if he didn’t let the people go, God would kill all the firstborn of Egypt including humans and animals. If a child was the firstborn child of the family that child was doomed to die in the last plague.
God made a provision for His people, the Hebrews to survive this plague. He told Moses to have each family sacrifice a first year lamb without blemish (make note of this) and take some of the blood and put it on the doorposts and lintel of each house. They were to cook and eat the lamb during the time that the spirit of death was destroying the firstborn of Egypt. The spirit of death would “Passover” a house which had the blood on the doorposts. This is where the Jewish festival of Passover comes from. Please make note that the spirit of death did not look inside each house to see who was worthy to live, he simply looked at the blood on the door and passed over if it was there.
After the tenth plague Pharaoh finally relented and let the people go. They fled to Red Sea, where God had told Moses He wanted them to go, and they camped there. The king of Egypt had a change of heart and decided to chase after the Hebrews. Being trapped against the water, God miraculously parted the water of the Red Sea and allowed the Hebrews to pass to the other side on dry land. Make a note of this as this is symbolic of water baptism in the Christian faith.
After the Hebrews passed through the Red Sea the Egyptians followed them, but soon perished because God allowed the sea to close together over top of them drowning the entire Egyptian army.