Reason for Going into Egypt

The Covenant-keeping God remembered His promise to Abraham that He would make of him a great nation. To save His Covenant people from destruction during the famine that was sweeping the land of Canaan, the Covenant God brought them into Egypt, there to thrive and multiply. Genesis 45:6, 7, “For these two years hath the famine been in the land; and there are yet five years, in which there shall be neither plowing or harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve you a remnant in the earth, and to save you alive by a great deliverance.” God used Joseph to preserve His people. He overruled the work of Satan. He has brought good out of evil throughout the ages.

Genesis 45:8, “So now it was not you that sent me hither but God: and He hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and Lord of all his house, and ruler of the land of Egypt.”
What a picture it gives to us of the faithfulness and loving care of the God who said when He entered into the Covenant with Abraham, “By myself have I sworn.”
The children of Israel thrived among the ease and abundance and balmy brightness of that land. They were favored settlers. The best of the land had been bestowed upon them. They held honorable and well-paid positions under the Egyptian kings (Genesis 47:1-12, 27).

Above all, the favour of God was upon them. He was keeping His Covenant with Abraham and the word that He spake saying that his seed should be a multitude as the stars of heaven, and as the sand upon the sea shore. Their increase was marvelous. God was making of them a great nation which would be His witness upon the earth.
The Scripture in repeated statements directs our attention to the marvelous growth of God’s Covenant people. Exodus 1:7, “And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them.”

In the 210 years in which the children of Israel were in Egypt, their number increased from seventy to over three million. The chronology shows that 210 years were spent in Egypt. This seems on the surface at first to present a difficulty with other passages of Scripture, such as Exodus 12:40, which would seem to give the period of their sojourn in Egypt as 430 years. However, the Septuagint translation of this reads: “The sojourning of the children and of their fathers which they sojourned in the land of Canaan and in the land of Egypt.” Galatians 3:16-17 throws light upon it as showing the period began to be reckoned from the date of the promise to Abraham to the deliverance of the children, which makes precisely 430 years. There passed between the entering of Canaan and the birth of Isaac, twenty-five years.

From the birth of Isaac until the birth of Jacob, there were sixty years. Jacob was 130 years old when he entered Egypt. This whole interval amounts to 220 years, 210 years added to this number makes the 430 years – the 430 years of sojourning from Abraham to the deliverance from Egypt.