Abraham God spoke to Abraham Significance Abrahams family
Abraham • God spoke to Abraham • Significance: Abraham’s family lived in a polytheistic society, yet Abraham acknowledged God as the one true God • This is the beginning of the monotheistic Hebrew faith
God’s request • That Abraham take his wife and all of their belongings out of Mesopotamia • God said that he would bring Abraham’s descendants to a land set aside for them This is where the belief of the Jewish people being a CHOSEN PEOPLE and having a PROMISED LAND stems from
God’s promise In response to Abraham’s obedience God told him that He would bless Abraham with as many descendants as there are stars in the sky
Flaw in the Plan? • Abraham questioned this because both he and his wife were elderly and his wife wasn’t able to have children • God told them to trust Him, that nothing was impossible to God
• Abraham and Sarah eventually got anxious and impatient and so Sarah suggested that Abraham have a son by her maid Hagaar • Haggar gave birth to a son, Ishamael • God later gave Abraham and Sarah a son named Isaac
Covenant • The ideas of a chosen people and a promised land are the foundation of the covenant that God made with Abraham • This covenant is the key to the Jewish faith 1. God is the creator and governor of all things 2. The Chosen People who will honor His covenant
Abraham and his family eventually settled in Canaan
• Centuries later, severe drought caused Abraham’s descendants to move to Egypt where they remained enslaved for hundreds of years
• The King of Egypt (the Pharaoh) was afraid that the Jewish people were getting to be too many and so he had all new baby boys killed
• Moses’ mother hid him in a basket and sent him down the Nile river • Pharaoh's wife found him in the water and adopted him
• One day, when Moses grew up, he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave • He became angry and killed the Egyptian man • Moses ran away to a village in Midian
• There, he was welcomed in to the family of a priest of Midian • Moses married one of the priest’s daughters and became a shepherd for his sheep
Meanwhile… • The old Pharaoh of Egypt had died but the Jewish people there were as mistreated as they had been before • They cried to God to save them and He chose Moses to the be the one
• God spoke to Moses out of a bush that was burning, but was not destroyed by the fire • Moses went back to Egypt to ask the Pharaoh to let the Israelites (the Jewish people) be set free • The Pharaoh refused, even though Moses showed him miracles to show that this was a request from God
• When Pharaoh would not let the Israelites go, God sent plagues upon Egypt to convince him to release them • The Pharaoh still refused and so God sent the final plague
Passover • God sent an angel to come to Egypt and kill every first born son • God told the Jewish people to take the blood of a newly sacrificed lamb and put it on their door • If they did this then the angel would pass over their house
• When Pharaoh’s son was killed, he finally let the Jewish people go • There were 600 000 Jewish people (not including children) along with all of their animals and household goods leaving Egypt at the end of four hundred years of slavery
God gave His people food and water while He led them to the Promised Land (Israel)
- Slides: 18