Bible Prophecy and the End Times

By Charles H. Evans

Here’s an Interesting book for you!
It has over 500 Bible references and quotations compiled and discussed, and it shows that all prophecies found in the Bible have been fulfilled, except those whose time has not yet come. Nearly 200 Old Testament prophecies refer to events that will occur after the resurrection of Christ. For about 2000 years, none were fulfilled. Yet some have been fulfilled just in the last century! Is Judgment Day just over the horizon? Do you see signs of the end?
Read about them in this book!

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 21, 2017
• ISBN: 9781483592206

Book preview

Appendix

1

HISTORY OF GOD’S PEOPLE

To understand Bible prophecy and reflect on the end times, the entire plan of God for the world should be reviewed, starting at the beginning. Can we know what God’s plan is? Yes, he tells us in scripture, if we read it! By studying this book, which takes the Bible literally, you will find out. Let’s start at the very beginning, and see what led to his plan for purifying us and making a perfect world for us to live in.

Apparent conditions at the beginning of Time

These conditions are just a theory of course, but they appear to be consistent with Bible teachings. The Bible passages are quoted on pages close to or on the pages they are mentioned or discussed. That is the way this entire book is laid out. Some information in this chapter is gleaned from a book, The Flood, by Alfred Rehwinkle, copyright 1964. Otherwise, this is all just my opinion.

In the beginning, the earth was surrounded by a canopy of moisture-laden air which diffused the direct rays of the sun. The heat that penetrated the canopy was diffused so equally over all latitudes, that a subtropical climate existed at all latitudes. The temperature was probably in the 70’s. Extremes of cold and heat were not possible. Rays of the sun actively cause shortening of life, but they were filtered by the canopy, so men and animals lived to great ages.

God created everything, even microbes, bacteria, bugs and all. They were harmless and actually contributed to life. Each had its function for overall life systems. Plants were meant to be the source of food for all of God’s creatures. No one died. There was a balance between creatures and plants. Plants fed creatures, and the waste products of creatures fed and nourished the plants (Gen 1:30¹). There was no rain. Water existed on the earth and under the earth, and in the air. The earth was in perfect alignment with the sun. The earth’s axis was perfectly perpendicular to the plane of its orbit, the sunlight always extended from pole to pole and the days and nights were always the same length. Every portion of the earth’s surface in the same latitude received the same amount of heat and light, filtered by the canopy. There was no change of seasons. The original environment can be inferred from Genesis 2:5-6.²

God created all the creatures of the earth, and instilled in them a way to grow and multiply. They were made to completely follow a strict routine of life, without any direction from God. Their decisions for sustaining and propagating life in the world were built into their nature, and they never deviated from that nature throughout their lives. What was right and what was wrong was completely established and controlled by God. They were like puppets on a string, always doing what God wanted them to do, and never doing what God did not want them to do. All animals ate plants for food. Plants used animal waste as food to grow. Every living thing depended on each other, and there was perfect harmony.

God created man and woman on the earth, after creating all the plants and animals of the world (Gen 1:27). Man was a special creation. He made man much different than animals in many ways, and gave man dominion over all the earth. The intelligence of mankind is astronomically greater than that of any animal. Man is no puppet or robot. Man is able to make decisions independent of God, and even defy him. God made man in his own image, which meant many characteristics of man were also characteristics of God (Gen 1:26). Throughout the old testament, God appears to be jealous about man loving anyone more than him. He wanted his creations to observe complete worship of him and obedience to him. I have heard it said that if God wanted man to only worship him, maybe he should have made man differently. A conflict was sure to happen, because man also wanted to be worshipped as God. In fact, many Pagan religions are based on man yearning to be worshipped as God or a god. It was inevitable that man would eventually disobey God.

God named the first man and woman, Adam and Eve. He told them that they could eat anything in the garden where they lived, but must not eat fruit from the tree in the center of the garden. They both disobeyed that direct command from God, which angered him. That is discussed all through Gen 2 and 3. Disobedience to God is called sin. A curse was pronounced upon them and the earth on which they lived. (Gen 3:17³) Death was the result. The natural balance of nature became disturbed. Some animals became meat-eaters. They began to kill and eat each other and develop an appetite for flesh. People also became meat-eaters, and killed and ate animals for food and for clothing, when they felt naked and cold. The microscopic organisms began to infect and consume one another. Sickness became prevalent among mankind. God no longer maintained the quality of his creations. He apparently was always going to be doing that, before the disobedience of Adam and Eve. Animals and plants began to develop mutations. The genes became corrupted, and the DNAs became defective as time went on. Adam and Eve bore many sons and many daughters. As men and women produced their young, brothers married sisters, and the intermarriages caused the defects to magnify and become concentrated in individuals. They lost their resistance to disease as defects became more numerous.

At first, since all had been created perfectly, life went on for a long time. Plants and animals lived a very long time. Reptiles are creatures that always continue to grow. They still do. Reptiles never completely reach a final adult size, causing some of them to be enormous, such as the brontosaurus. It took many generations before the defects multiplied enough to affect the length of life, but gradually they did. There were also life limiting habits that man developed. For example, man learned how to smelt metals, like lead. Cooking utensils were made of lead, and lead poisoning was rampant. In Genesis 6:3,⁴ God said that his spirit would not contend with man forever, for he is now mortal. He will live about 120 years.

Adam and Eve had many descendants, but they all inherited the same sinful nature. The first murder was committed in the first family by Adam’s son Cain against his brother Abel, according to Gen 4:8.⁵ Since there was a curse upon Adam’s family for their sinfulness, offerings were made to God, hopefully to appease him. Abel had offered fat portions of the firstborn of his flock, while Cain offered up specimens of plant life to him. God viewed Abel’s offering more favorably than Cain’s offering. That caused a rift between Abel and Cain, and Cain killed his brother in anger. Because God was seemingly more pleased with a bloody animal sacrifice than the plant offering of Cain, the concept originated among believers that the blood sacrifice of a lamb or other innocent creature might best appease an angry God. People in some of the ancient cultures practiced blood sacrifice of animals or humans to appease their concept of God. Aztecs used human sacrifice to appease a supposedly angry god. Corpses of sacrificed children have been found in a number of ancient worship sites in Crete. The God of the Bible did not condone human sacrifice, but followers of pagan gods did. Animal sacrifice was practiced early in history by followers of God. That may have spawned the practice of human sacrifice in pagan religions. Actually, God wants obedience rather than sacrifice (1 Samuel 15:22⁶), but mankind apparently has a greater problem obeying him than offering up a bloody gift to him. Rather than accepting sacrifice of some precious animal, he would rather his people obey him, meaning that they should act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with their God (Micah 6:8⁷), which is also expressed by Psalm 51:16-17,⁸ Prov 21:3,⁹ and Hosea 6:6.¹⁰ Maimonides, a respected 12th Century Jewish theologian, argued that God always held sacrifice inferior to prayer and obedience to his commandments. Probably for that reason, ritual sacrifice has ceased among Jewish worshippers. Maimonides said that God’s decision to allow sacrifices was a concession to early worshippers because they were accustomed to pagan rituals using blood sacrifice of animals and humans alike. God allowed them to use sacrifices to please him, but he set up ritual procedures for animal sacrifice as described in Leviticus, making it a solemn, dignified ceremony, not just a wanton slaughter of the animals. He embraced the concept enough that he eventually sent his only begotten son, Jesus, to substitute as a sacrificial lamb to forgive the sins of his people. More about that later.

As time went on, the human population expanded greatly, into the millions. Unfortunately, they all inherited the tendency to disobey God. Ritual sacrifices don’t change hearts. God saw that the wickedness of man was so great, his heart was grieved. (Genesis 6:57¹¹). His plan for the world was modified by causing a worldwide flood, so that he could wipe out everything away across the earth and begin all over again.

Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time (6:9). So God chose Noah and his family, 8 in all, to be the only people to survive. He had Noah build an ark (6:13-14). Then the great flood covered the earth, drowning all earth-living creatures, except Noah and his family and animals on the ark (6:17-19, 7:17-19¹²).

He probably caused the flood by changing the axis of the earth. Instead of the initial perfect alignment between the sun and the moon, he tilted the axis of the earth by 23 ½ degrees, causing a change in the relationship between the sun and the earth. That created the climatic zones as they now exist. It caused cold arctic and antarctic regions of the two poles and created the seasons of the year. It caused violent cosmic revolutions on the earth, affecting the relationship with the entire universe. Extremes of heat and cold occurred. The original moisture laden canopy collapsed and was a chief source of the flood waters.

The flood re-arranged the entire landscape of the earth, causing the continents and oceans to be located where they now are. With the advent of the seasons and the wide variation of temperatures around the globe, the earth’s ability to support and lengthen life is vastly different than it was before the flood.

After the flood receded, God told Noah and his family to release the animals and be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth (Gen 9:1¹³).

However, Noah’s descendants also inherited the sinful nature of Adam and Eve. Out of a sinful sense of pride, they stayed together and decided to build the tower of Babel. God was displeased with them. He wanted them to fill the earth, not just build a city and tower and make a name for themselves. So he caused them to not understand each other and confuse the languages so that they were unintelligible to one another, so they would begin to separate and not be able to work together. In this way they would scatter and relocate and build their families all around the world, instead of the one place where they began. And so they did (See Gen 11:5-9¹⁴). Eventually they were scattered all over the earth. One of Noah’s sons, Shem, stayed close by and built his family where he was. One descendant of Shem was Abraham.

Abraham and his wife Sara were barren, impatiently waiting for a son that God promised he would have (Gen 18:10¹⁵). They finally bore their son Isaac when Abraham was 100, and his wife 99. (Gen 21:5¹⁶) Sometime later, his son grew up and God tested Abraham’s faith and love for him. God told Abraham to offer up his son Isaac as a sacrificial offering. (Gen 22:2) He was about to use his knife on Isaac, when God stopped him and produced a ram for Abraham to use as a sacrifice instead. By doing this, God established a principle of substituting one life for another as a sacrifice to him. (Gen 22:1213¹⁷) This principle was put into practice by God many years later, when he offered up his only begotten son Jesus as a blood sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin among his people. This will be discussed further in the next chapter, when we define the supernatural characters in the drama of God’s overall plan for the world.

Abraham and his family were the forebears of the Jewish people. His earliest descendants were just a few families, and each family multiplied and became a tribe. To stick with the history of the Jewish people, we will follow the tribe of Jacob. He lived in the land of Canaan. The other tribes made their homes elsewhere.

One of his sons, Joseph, was sold into slavery in Egypt by his brothers. Joseph was freed from slavery and became a leader in Egypt, reporting to the Pharaoh. There was a famine in Canaan, and Jacob could find no food for his family there. While his family was small, they emigrated to Egypt when invited by the kindly ruler who employed Joseph. (Gen 45:16-18¹⁸) However, they became much more numerous as the years went by. Later rulers were not so kindly, and they became slaves of the native Egyptians. They were now called Israelites, named after the leader of the twelve tribes descended from their leader, Jacob. (Jacob’s name was changed to Israel.) His descendant, Moses, led the Israelites out of Egypt. This is referred to as the Exodus, in the book of Exodus.

As they traveled, the Egyptians decided to recapture them and sent soldiers after them, in chariots. Moses reached the Red Sea, and God parted the waters and allowed the Israelites to cross over. According to Exodus 14:21-23¹⁹, the Egyptian army followed them into the sea, and as the Israelites left the dry sea bed, the waters came back over the soldiers and drowned them. Historically, there is evidence that this occurred. There are several paths that the Israelites could have taken after they left Egypt. One of the more likely ones is in the Gulf of Aqaba, which is an eastern gulf at the north end of the Red Sea, at a shallow crossing marked by a wide beach, near the city of Nureiba. In 1987, amateur explorer Ron Wyatt found remains of ancient chariots at depths between 60 and 200 feet at this crossing, as well as other evidence. See map at end of the chapter.

People have wondered why there is no other archeological or recorded evidence of the Red Sea crossing or the wanderings of a large group of people, numbered in hundreds of thousands. Bear in mind that this occurred thousands of years ago, over a large territory, long before written records were commonplace. The Israelites were nomads, wandering around for 40 years, staying in tents and living hand-to-mouth. They didn’t construct buildings and wouldn’t have left much behind them in the shifting sands of the desert regions they inhabited, as they moved from place to place.

In those early times, only a few people could read or write. They served the royal court as administrators and keepers of historical records. When the Pharaoh lost most of his army in the Red Sea crossing, any information about the Jewish multitudes had to be kept out of the records. It was more than a humiliating defeat. A defenseless ruler does not keep his kingdom long. It stands to reason, that the loyal historians would not report such an event. In fact, the rulers may very well have done away with any witnesses to it. The only people who kept any such records were the Israelites themselves, who only left their records in the Bible. So it’s all we have to go on.

After the Israelites left Egypt, God spoke directly to Moses and gave him ten commandments that his people were to obey. (Exodus 20:1-21²⁰) He established a covenant with them: Moses was told by God that if the people kept his commandments and obeyed them, they would be blessed with their own land, and they would be prosperous. If they did not obey them, they would be cursed and punished for their sins. As usual, they inherited the sinful nature of their forebears, and they immediately began to disobey God.

The ten commandments and other rules he told them to follow were meant for their own good. Since they were now not under a government or single ruler, they needed to govern themselves. God helped them to do so. Many rules were made to be followed for sanitation or for health reasons or for reasons known only to God. (Notice Deut 23:12²¹) They had regulations for treating disease, moldy tents, body discharges and the like (referring to the five verses preceding Leviticus 13:59²²). Sexual relations between close relatives or the same sex was forbidden. (Lev 18:6, 22²³).

Moses was told by God that his people were to enter a land he had promised to them. The land promised to them was bordered by the Mediterranean Sea on the West to the Euphrates River on the East. The north border was in Lebanon just north of Damascus, and the south border was in the desert just south of the Dead Sea (Joshua 1:4,²⁴ Deut 1:7-8²⁵) Refer to the map. Moses sent 12 men to scope out the land (Numbers 13:17-18²⁶), and they did but came back and ten of them said they would have to fight giants to take over the land, and were afraid. Only 2 of them were willing to fight for the land: Joshua and Caleb. Read about Caleb in Numbers 30-31. Disobedience again! God disciplined them. Their punishment was to wander in the wilderness for 40 years. After the 40 years, God had compassion on his people, and told them they would then take over the land he had promised them. (Deut 30:5-6²⁷)

By then the only two people of the original 12 still alive were Joshua and Caleb. (Numbers 32:13²⁸). Those two were still healthy enough to lead armies into the promised land to drive out the people living there. The other 10 mysteriously died of a plague, sent by God shortly after they returned from their exploratory trip.

Moses died before they got to the promised land, but Joshua led them afterwards as they crossed the Jordan River into their promised land, called Canaan. (See Joshua 1:2-3.²⁹)

Moses had followed God’s will and divided the land among the 12 tribes of Israel, the families descended from the sons of Jacob. The individual parcels of land are described in Joshua, chapters 13-19, as seen on the second map. There are actually 13 parcels. The tribe of Levi was not allowed to possess any land because its people were designated to always be the priests who served God directly by leading rituals of worship. The sons of Joseph were given three parcels: One to the family of Ephraim and two to the families of Manasseh (Manasseh East and Manasseh West)

God told Joshua to conquer the land from all those who lived there, and wipe out all the people in the lands they conquered. For example, when Joshua and his army conquered Jericho, the entire population was slaughtered. This included men, women, children, and even their livestock. (Joshua 6:20-21³⁰) That seems cruel to us, but God’s plan was to have a civilization that was totally faithful to him and his people, and would not allow pollution by pagan religions. The Israelites didn’t always do this, and they paid for it. Because they disobeyed God, and did not completely annihilate the population, the Israelites gradually become more Canaanite than Israelite in their culture and religion. They lost the blessing of the Lord as a result. They lived in the land of Canaan for hundreds of years, but had to fight off many invasions. The Israelites organized into two separate nations, Israel to the north and Judah to the South. See the third map.

There were many battles fought between the Israelites and the original residents of their promised land. The first king of Judah was Saul, anointed in 1050 BC. Then a succession of kings ruled, including David, a forebear of the line leading to Jesus. Although Judah and Israel were separate states, and conflicts arose, they became more or less integrated under the kings. At times, one king governed both Judah and Israel, but usually there were two kings, one for each state. At times they fought one another, and with neighboring nations, including Egypt. Jerusalem was in the southern, most dominant kingdom of Judah.

A son of David was King Solomon, who built a magnificent temple, the first temple built and used by the Israelites to worship their God. The temple was completed in 966 BC.

The kingdom of Judah was most dominant because the northern kingdom, Israel, was always being subjected to invasions from nations to the north, and being sacked. Again refer to the three maps. In 738 BC, the king of Assyria, Tiglath-pileser, made war on the nations to the south. The northern kingdom of Israel formed a coalition with the southern nations (the area now known as Syria, or modern Iran), against the Assyrians. Judah refused to join that coalition, wanting to maintain peace between their nation and the warlike tribes to the north. This angered the northern kings and they marched on Judah to replace the Judean king, Ahaz, by force in 735 BC. They did not succeed. Ahaz, against the advice of his advisors (the prophet Isaiah among them), then allied his kingdom with the Assyrians, who eventually caused the destruction of the northern kingdom. Isaiah revealed to Ahaz a command from God that he should not do that, but he defied God and did it anyway. (Isaiah 7:4-9³¹) The northern kingdom was made up of their distant relatives, who were among the original 12 tribes of Israel. As might be expected, in about 700 BC, the Assyrians became aggressors, and tried to conquer Judah by force. They did not succeed but by 670 BC, the Assyrians settled their people into the northern kingdom of Israel and their intermarriage with Israelites resulted in the hated group of people described in the New Testament as Samaritans. The Jews considered them pagans or apostates towards the Jewish faith. Isaiah in his verse 7:8 prophesied that this would take 65 years, which it did. (735 - 670 = 65) Eventually, Babylonians overcame the Assyrians and became the dominant force in the northern area. Now the remaining kingdom of Judah was threatened by the Babylonians as expected, without the buffer of the northern kingdom. This was an almost immediate fulfillment of one of Isaiah’s prophecies, happening within his lifetime, establishing him as a prophet to be respected.

The conquest of Jerusalem began in 605 BC with the Babylonian Army attacking from the North. Raids by Babylonian allies attacked from the South and East across the Jordan River. The most talented young men of Judah were captured and taken to work as slaves in the capital, Babylon. By 586 BC, the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar had invaded and destroyed Jerusalem and Solomon’s temple. (View the locations in the maps.)

The kingdoms of Judah and Israel now have both lost their sovereignty. From this point on Jews were all ruled by other nations, and have remained so throughout ancient history, until modern times. The Babylonians were eventually overcome by a coalition of Medes and Persians, who governed the complete land of Canaan. Alexander the Great then led Greek forces and conquered the lands of the Medo-Persians. The Greek empire split up on Alexander’s death, and the eastern and western protagonists continually fought over the territory in which Jerusalem was located, to the detriment of the Jewish residents. The Roman empire became ever more powerful and conquered both of the feuding sides. They took over Jerusalem and the land of Judah about 40 BC.

In later chapters, these conflicts will be discussed in more detail. This brings us to the environment in which the Jews lived until the birth of Jesus.

Most of the information in this chapter comes from the Bible: Isaiah, Joshua, Deuteronomy, Numbers, Genesis, 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles. The historical accounts in the Bible agree with most reports by ancient historians. These historians lived under the rulers of various kingdoms, and sometimes were members of the royal courts. So their narratives had to pass muster with the rulers, and they could not say anything bad about their kings, or they would lose their heads, literally. Otherwise they are considered fairly accurate. The history in this and other chapters of this book was compiled by respected secular historians like Josephus, Herodotus, Xenophon, Thucydites, Plutarch, Livy, Diodorus, Quintus Curtius Rufus, Polybius, Tacitus, Suetonius, Eusebius, and reported in Susan Bauer’s book, The History of the Ancient World. She is unbiased and lends equal credence to the Bible as well as these other accounts, pointing out differences where they occur.

The Ancient Middle East

Canaan Divided by the Twelve Tribes

The Northern and Southern Kingdoms, Israel and Judah

¹      Gen 1:26-27, 30. 26 Then God said, Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them….30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground--everything that has the breath of life in it--I give every green plant for food. And it was so.

²      Gen 2:5-6. When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens—5 and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, 6 but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground—

³      Gen 3:17. To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.

⁴      Gen 6:3. Then the LORD said, My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.

⁵      Gen 4:8. Now Cain said to his brother Abel, Let’s go out to the field. And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

⁶      1 Samuel 15:22. But Samuel replied: Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.

⁷      Micah 6:8. He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

⁸      Psalm 51:16-17. 16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

⁹      Prov 21:3. To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.

¹⁰      Hosea 6:6. For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.

¹¹      Gen 6:5-10, 13-14, 17-19. 5 The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. 7 So the LORD said, I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth--men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air-for I am grieved that I have made them. 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD. 9 This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. 10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth….13 So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. 14 So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out….17 I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. 18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark--you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. 19 You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you.

¹²      Gen 7:17-19. 17 For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. 18 The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. 19 They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered.

¹³      Gen 9:1. Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.

¹⁴      Gen 11:5-9. 5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. 6 The LORD said, If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other. 8 So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.

¹⁵      Gen 18:10. Then the LORD said, "I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.

¹⁶      Gen 21:5. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.

¹⁷      Gen 22:2, 12-13. 2 Then God said, Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.…12 Do not lay a hand on the boy, he said. Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son. 13 Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son.

¹⁸      Gen 45:16-18. 16 When the news reached Pharaoh’s palace that Joseph’s brothers had come, Pharaoh and all his officials were pleased. 17 Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Tell your brothers, ‘Do this: Load your animals and return to the land of Canaan, 18 and bring your father and your families back to me. I will give you the best of the land of Egypt and you can enjoy the fat of the land.’

¹⁹      Exodus 14:21-23. 21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the LORD drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, 22 and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left. 23 The Egyptians pursued them, and all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and horsemen followed them into the sea.

²⁰      Exodus 20:1-21, the ten commandments paraphrased:

1st (vs 3) You shall have no other gods before me.

2nd(vs 4) You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.

3rd (vs 7) You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God.

4th (vs 9) Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

5th(vs 12) Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.

6th (vs 13) You shall not murder.

7th (vs 14) You shall not commit adultery.

8th (vs 15) You shall not steal.

9th (vs 16) You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

10th(vs 17) You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor.

²¹      Deut 23:12-13. 12 Designate a place outside the camp where you can go to relieve yourself. 13 As part of your equipment have something to dig with, and when you relieve yourself, dig a hole and cover up your excrement.

²²      Leviticus 13:59. These are the regulations concerning contamination by mildew in woolen or linen clothing, woven or knitted material, or any leather article, for pronouncing them clean or unclean.

²³      Leviticus 18:6, 22. 6 No one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations. I am the LORD.. . . 22 Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.

²⁴      Joshua 1:4. Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates--all the Hittite country--to the Great Sea on the west.

²⁵      Deut 1:7-8. 7 Break camp and advance into the hill country of the Amorites; go to all the neighboring peoples in the Arabah, in the mountains, in the western foothills, in the Negev and along the coast, to the land of the Canaanites and to Lebanon, as far as the great river, the Euphrates. 8 See, I have given you this land. Go in and take possession of the land that the LORD swore he would give to your fathers--to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob--and to their descendants after them.

²⁶      Numbers 13:17-18, 30-32. 17 When Moses sent them to explore Canaan, he said, Go up through the Negev and on into the hill country. 18 See what the land is like and whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many.…30 Then Caleb silenced the people before