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Context No. 541 of 4322 · Genesis

Context · Reflection

Genesis 46:8-23: in context

8These are the names of the children of Israel, who came into Egypt, Jacob and his sons: Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn. 9The sons of Reuben: Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi. 10The sons of Simeon: Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jachin, Zohar, and Shaul the son of a Canaanite woman. 11The sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. 12The sons of Judah: Er, Onan, Shelah, Perez, and Zerah; but Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan. The sons of Perez were Hezron and Hamul. 13The sons of Issachar: Tola, Puvah, Iob, and Shimron. 14The sons of Zebulun: Sered, Elon, and Jahleel. 15These are the sons of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob in Paddan Aram, with his daughter Dinah. All the souls of his sons and his daughters were thirty-three. 16The sons of Gad: Ziphion, Haggi, Shuni, Ezbon, Eri, Arodi, and Areli. 17The sons of Asher: Imnah, Ishvah, Ishvi, Beriah, and Serah their sister. The sons of Beriah: Heber and Malchiel. 18These are the sons of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to Leah, his daughter, and these she bore to Jacob, even sixteen souls. 19The sons of Rachel, Jacob’s wife: Joseph and Benjamin. 20To Joseph in the land of Egypt were born Manasseh and Ephraim, whom Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera, priest of On, bore to him. 21The sons of Benjamin: Bela, Becher, Ashbel, Gera, Naaman, Ehi, Rosh, Muppim, Huppim, and Ard. 22These are the sons of Rachel, who were born to Jacob: all the souls were fourteen. 23The son of Dan: Hushim.

This is a roll of names, the household of Jacob listed tribe by tribe as they go down into Egypt: the sons of Reuben, of Simeon, of Levi, of Judah, and on through the family, with the daughters and grandsons, adding up to seventy souls in all. Like other such lists it is easy to skip. But to feel its weight you have to set it beside two things. First, the promise God had just made to Jacob on the way down: do not be afraid to go to Egypt, for there I will make you a great nation, and I will go down with you, and I will surely bring you up again. And second, what this seventy would become: the six hundred thousand fighting men, and far more besides, who would march out of Egypt at the exodus.

Seen that way, this little list is the seed of a nation. Seventy people, each one named and countable, walking down into a foreign land under a promise that they would become a multitude no one could number. At the moment of the list, the promise must have seemed almost absurd against the smallness of the reality; you could count the whole future nation on your fingers and toes. But that countable handful was exactly the seed God intended to multiply beyond counting, and he told Jacob plainly that he would go with them into Egypt and bring them out again. The great thing began as something small enough to fit on a single page, and named.

That reframes how I regard the small beginnings of what God has promised. I tend to despise the countable handful, the tiny start, the seed that looks far too small to become anything, and to take its smallness as evidence the promise will not come. This list says God builds nations out of seventy named people, and that he goes down with his own into the hard, uncertain place and brings them up again. Where am I looking at some small, countable beginning of what God has promised and despising it for its smallness, when it may be exactly the seed he means to multiply?

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