(Gen. 11:26-31) Abram was a Chaldean man who married a Chaldean woman named Sarai. (Gen. 12:1&7) God told Abram to go to Canaan; Abram went. (Gen. 13:14-18) God told Abram to settle in Hebron; Abram settled there. (Gen. 15:4-18) Abram had no heirs; God said his heirs would outnumber the stars.
Abram offered up a blood sacrifice; God honored it and promised Abram the land from the Nile River to the Euphrates River (Gen. 15:4 & 13-18) for Abram’s heirs who are identified as the Hebrews because (V.13) they are the people who were in bondage in Egypt. Abram believed God and waited. (Gen. 17:1-5) God said Abram would be a father of many nations and changed Abram’s name to Abraham, which means (Father of a multitude).
(Gen. 17:7-8) God made an everlasting covenant with Abraham and his seed after him in their generations to be a God unto them, He “promised” them the land of Canaan and (Gen. 17:10-11) (See note #3) the token of the covenant throughout their generations was the circumcision of their foreskins, made by cutting by passing between flesh.
(Gen. 16:1-16) Abraham’s first son, Ishmael, was by an Egyptian slave named Hagar. (Gen. 21:9-21) Ishmael was not the covenant son but God promised a nation would come from Ishmael because he was Abraham’s son and Ishmael took an Egyptian wife. (Gen. 21:1-5) Abraham’s second son Isaac was (Gen. 17:19 & 21:12) the son of God’s covenant.
(Gen.24:15 & 25:20) Isaac married a woman named Rebekah who was the granddaughter of Abraham’s brother. Their twin sons were named Esau, who was firstborn, and Jacob whom, even though he was second born, was the son of covenant because (Gen. 25:23-26) God said Esau, the elder son, would serve Jacob, the younger son, and that was completely contrary to the custom of the time.
(Gen. 29:12-28) Jacob married two sisters. (Gen. 32:24-30) God changed Jacob’s name to Israel which means (he will rule as God). (Gen. 29:29-35; 30:1-25; & 35:16-18) Israel was the father of twelve sons of covenant by his two wives and their two female servants.
Abraham’s son Ishmael and Isaac’s son Esau were jealous of the covenant sons Isaac and Israel (Jacob). Ishmael, (Gen 16:15-16) Abraham’s one-half Egyptian son, (Gen. 21:21) married an Egyptian and (Gen. 28:9) Esau married Ma’ha-lath the daughter of Ishmael. (Gen. 32:3 & Gen. 26:34-35) Esau also took wives from the Canaanites and their descendants mixed with the Canaanite nations while the Children of Israel were in bondage to their blood-kin in Egypt. The non-covenant side (Canaanites) did not know it but they were preparing for the “family fight” which would escalate into a war between nations.
(Gen. 30:24 to Ex. 1:6) Israel’s son Joseph became a power in Egypt and invited his family to leave their home in Canaan and come to Egypt to escape a famine. (Gen. 46:26-27) The family numbered seventy people who were blood kin to Jacob/Israel, plus his son’s wives.
(Ex. 1:8-13) A later Pharaoh who did not know Joseph enslaved the Israelites and they remained slaves four hundred years. Israel’s twelve sons (Ex 1:1-22) founded the twelve covenant tribes of Israel while they were in bondage in Egypt. These twelve tribes were called the Children of Israel and were actually a nation without a true homeland.
(Ex. 12:40-41) Israel the nation had lived thirty years in Egypt while Joseph was in power, then they were in bondage four hundred years and then (Num. 14:1-35) they had wandered in the wilderness forty years; so four hundred and seventy years had passed from the time these covenant people, Israel, had left their Promised Land of Canaan because of a famine until they returned to Canaan (Gen. 15:4-18 esp. V.4 & 13-18) to take their promised land away from the Canaanites.
(Book of Exodus) God directed Moses to lead the covenant Children of Israel back to Canaan the “Promised Land”. And while these “covenant people” made the trip (Gal. 3:6-24) they received (Ex. 25:9 thru 40:38) the tabernacle and Ark of the Covenant, (Ex. 24:12) the Ten Commandments and (Lev. 1:1 through 8:5) the law of blood sacrifice from God. Israel established the Jewish Religion based on that law.
(Luke 2:27) Much of Jewish Custom and (Mark 7:5) Tradition has been adopted due to (Rom. 10:2-3) the Jew’s zeal for Jewish Law. The covenant side (Israelites) also did not know they were also preparing for the “family fight” that would escalate into a war between nations.
(Josh. 1:1-9) Moses died before they entered the Promised land and, at God’s direction, Joshua led the Israelites, the “covenant” people, to begin taking the “promised” land away, (Deut. 7:17-26 esp. V.22) little by little, from the various Canaanite nations who lived there. These nations were blood relatives to Israel through Esau and they were blood enemies against Israel because Israel was in blood covenant with God.
Remember that Ishmael (Gen. 16:1-16 esp. V.16 & 17:1-22 esp. V.1 & 21) the son of Abraham by Hagar the Egyptian was 14 years old when Isaac/Israel was born and (Gen. 17:18-22) Ishmael had a physical covenant with God but his brother (half-brother) Isaac was the blood covenant son of Abraham. The Egyptians were also blood kin to the Israelites through Ishmael even though they had kept the Israelites in bondage.
The Canaanite tribes were defending their homeland and they refused to acknowledge Israel’s covenant. In the rest of the Old Testament the Israelites partially conquered the Promised Land which became the country (homeland) called Israel and they lived under various judges, prophets, and kings and these “covenant” people of God failed because they asserted their free will and disobeyed God. Many people think King David “conquered” all the promised land and he did but he did it the wrong way!
(Num. 33:51-56) The original commandment from God was to drive out all the inhabitants of the Promised Land. In other words; “You and the Israelites do it through My power and blessing.” All through the books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles are instances where King David made peace deals with the inhabitants of the Promised Land and enlisted them as allies thus permitting them to stay in Israel which went against what God had instructed. EXAMPLE:
(2Sam. 11:3 thru 12:10) Please note that Bathsheba’s husband was Uriah the Hittite (a Canaanite) who was a captain in King David’s army. Uriah the Hittite was blood kin to the Israelites BECAUSE: (Gen. 26:34-35) “And Esau was forty years old when he took to wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashe-math the daughter of Elon the Hittite: Which were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah.“
SO: These sworn enemies are actually blood-kin and the “family fight” is still going on today in the Middle East (Ezek. 37:1-28 esp. V.11 keywords: whole house of Israel, V.21 keywords: from among the heathen & V.25 keywords: And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant,) after Israel was reborn as a nation in 1948 as a result of WW2. You might call this chapter of Ezekiel a prophesy of the book THE REVELATION TO JOHN (The Apocalypse) which would be written by John, one of Jesus’ original disciples.
(Rom. 8:2) A few faithful Israelites wrote prophesies, kept records and wrote the history of Israel (The Old Testament) by the inspiration of God and waited for the Promised Seed who would lead them to conquer the Promised Land that had been promised to Abraham.
During these centuries of waiting; Israel, because of sin, was very nearly destroyed by (2 Kings 18:11-12) the Assyrians, (Dan. 1:1-2) the Babylonians, (Dan. 5:31 to 6:28) the Medes/Persians, (Dan. 8:21) Greece and was finally subjected by (Luke 3:1) the Roman Empire.
(Psa. 106: 40-47) Millions of Israelites had been killed and disbursed as slaves throughout various nations by these five conquering nations and, at the time of Jesus, only a remnant of the Israelites still lived in Israel, now (Matt. 2:1) now named Judah (Judaea) (1Ki. 12:1-20 then 2Ki. 17:13-33) because the northern ten tribes had rebelled, named themselves Israel and had been overrun and absorbed into the Hittite empire. Now they were under Roman domination. Wherever they lived (Dan. 3:12-18 & Acts 2:5) the Israelites held tenaciously and desperately to their Jewish Law, custom, and tradition and they waited for deliverance by the promised seed.
If you wish to read the above Biblical process of the progression of time and the people involved in exacting detail please read certain articles in the commentary GOD SATAN AND MAN: THE RELATIONSHIP. The article titles will tell you where to look BUT be sure and read the INTRODUCTION and Part 1 THE BEGINNING because they explain the sources, the scripture, the reasoning and purpose of that commentary and the life lived, semi-story, novelistic style of writing.
GOD BLESS YOU.