Acts 7:1-20  The Patriarchs Moved with Envy Sold Joseph into Egypt

[Study Aired January 22, 2023]

Act 7:1  Then said the high priest, Are these things so?
Act 7:2  And he said, Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken; The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran,
Act 7:3  And said unto him, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall shew thee.
Act 7:4  Then came he out of the land of the Chaldaeans, and dwelt in Charran: and from thence, when his father was dead, he removed him into this land, wherein ye now dwell.
Act 7:5  And he gave him none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on: yet he promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him, when as yet he had no child.
Act 7:6  And God spake on this wise, That his seed should sojourn in a strange land; and that they should bring them into bondage, and entreat them evil four hundred years.
Act 7:7  And the nation to whom they shall be in bondage will I judge, said God: and after that shall they come forth, and serve me in this place.
Act 7:8  And he gave him the covenant of circumcision: and so Abraham begat Isaac, and circumcised him the eighth day; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat the twelve patriarchs.
Act 7:9  And the patriarchs, moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt: but God was with him,
Act 7:10  And delivered him out of all his afflictions, and gave him favour and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh king of Egypt; and he made him governor over Egypt and all his house.
Act 7:11  Now there came a dearth over all the land of Egypt and Chanaan, and great affliction: and our fathers found no sustenance.
Act 7:12  But when Jacob heard that there was corn in Egypt, he sent out our fathers first.
Act 7:13  And at the second time Joseph was made known to his brethren; and Joseph’s kindred was made known unto Pharaoh.
Act 7:14  Then sent Joseph, and called his father Jacob to him, and all his kindred, threescore and fifteen souls.
Act 7:15  So Jacob went down into Egypt, and died, he, and our fathers,
Act 7:16  And were carried over into Sychem, and laid in the sepulchre that Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of Emmor the father of Sychem.
Act 7:17  But when the time of the promise drew nigh, which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt,
Act 7:18  Till another king arose, which knew not Joseph.
Act 7:19  The same dealt subtilly with our kindred, and evil entreated our fathers, so that they cast out their young children, to the end they might not live.
Act 7:20  In which time Moses was born, and was exceeding fair, and nourished up in his father’s house three months:

Our last study ended with Stephen being dragged before the Sanhedrin on the same trumped-up charges the Sanhedrin used to condemn the Lord. Stephen ends up being the first person to literally lay down His life in defense of the gospel of Christ. Stephen was so persuasive that his opponents had to falsely accuse him of saying that Christ said He would destroy the temple:

Mat 26:59  Now the chief priests, and elders, and all the council, sought false witness against Jesus, to put him to death;
Mat 26:60  But found none: yea, though many false witnesses came, yet found they none. At the last came two false witnesses,
Mat 26:61  And said, This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days.

Of course, there was not one word of Truth in that accusation. Here is what Christ had really said:

Joh 2:18  Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? [Christ had just cleansed the temple]
Joh 2:19  Jesus answered and said unto them, [You] Destroy this temple [speaking of His own body], and in three days I will raise it up.

How objective was the Sanhedrin when they heard this ludicrous accusation against Christ? This was the response of the high priest:

Mat 26:62  And the high priest arose, and said unto him, Answerest thou nothing? what is it which these witness against thee?

Stephen’s false accusers had very little choice but to run with the same exact lie and same exact false accusation:

Act 6:12  And they stirred up the people, and the elders, and the scribes, and came upon him, and caught him, and brought him to the council,
Act 6:13  And set up false witnesses, which said, This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place, and the law:
Act 6:14  For we have heard him say, that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us.
Act 6:15  And all that sat in the council, looking stedfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel.

Of course, it was all a lie. Christ had said no such thing, and Stephen certainly had said no such thing. His life was centered around that physical temple because he had not yet been shown that the reformation of Christ would indeed eventually make the physical temple obsolete and unnecessary. It took the destruction of the temple to make that point clear for many Jewish Christians.

Nevertheless, the same High priest, Caiaphas, asked Stephen the exact same question He had asked Christ.

Act 7:1  Then said the high priest, Are these things so?

The high priest knew this accusation against Christ was not true when they suborned the two false witnesses. He therefore knew that Stephen was not putting these same false words into Christ’s mouth.

It was a fabricated lie then, when they pinned it on Christ, and it is simply being repeated by the false witnesses who are testifying that Stephen is teaching that Christ had said that He would destroy the temple. Here is how that false accusation played out with Christ:

Mat 26:59  Now the chief priests, and elders, and all the council, sought false witness against Jesus, to put him to death;
Mat 26:60  But found none: yea, though many false witnesses came, yet found they none. At the last came two false witnesses,
Mat 26:61  And said, This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days.
Mat 26:62  And the high priest arose, and said unto him, Answerest thou nothing? what is it which these witness against thee?
Mat 26:63  But Jesus held his peace. And the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God.
Mat 26:64  Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.
Mat 26:65  Then the high priest rent his clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy.
Mat 26:66  What think ye? They answered and said, He is guilty of death.
Mat 26:67  Then did they spit in his face, and buffeted him; and others smote him with the palms of their hands,
Mat 26:68  Saying, Prophesy unto us, thou Christ, Who is he that smote thee?

When we read these words we just naturally think, “Wow, I certainly would not want to be those guys who spit in Jesus’ face and who smote Him with the palms of their hands and said Prophesy unto us, thou Christ, Who smote thee!” However, according to Christ, that is exactly what we ourselves do to the Lord every time we mistreat our brother in any way:

Mat 25:31  When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
Mat 25:32  And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:
Mat 25:33  And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
Mat 25:34  Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
Mat 25:35  For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
Mat 25:36  Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Mat 25:37  Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
Mat 25:38  When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
Mat 25:39  Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
Mat 25:40  And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Mat 25:41  Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
Mat 25:42  For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
Mat 25:43  I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
Mat 25:44  Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
Mat 25:45  Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.

We are Christ’s spiritual body whether we fully realize that or not. If we as a ‘good Samaritan’ are granted to treat our “least… brother”, a total stranger, with love and sincere concern we are doing that to Christ. If we ‘pass by on the other side’ (Luk 10:31) and fail to minister to the needs of “the least of these [our] brothers”, we have failed to do so to Christ Himself. It is Christ Himself who informs us that if we follow in His steps we are “Jesus of Nazareth”, and when we mistreat our brother, we are persecuting Christ Himself:

Act 22:8  And I [Saul of Tarsus… signifying our own old man] answered, Who art thou, Lord? And he said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest.

Col 1:24  Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church:

If Christ is within us, we will have the same reaction to our persecution the apostles had when they were beaten with “forty stripes save one” and ordered not to speak at all in the name of Christ:

Act 5:40  And to him [Gamaliel] they agreed: and when they had called the apostles, and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.
Act 5:41  And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.

Christ refused to answer His false accusers simply because His time to be offered up had come, and He would never work against what His Father’s hand and what His Father’s foreknowledge had determined before to be done as we learned earlier in this same book:

Act 4:26  The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ.
Act 4:27  For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together,
Act 4:28  For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.

Christ’s witness against His accusers was the life He lived among His accusers. It was a life of healing the blind and the lame and the sick of the very people who were now calling for His crucifixion. Christ was condemned by a kangaroo court in which He was already condemned before He was even apprehended. When the apostles were arrested shortly before Stephen was apprehended, they had told the Sanhedrin and the elders of the Jews that they had crucified the innocent Son of God. It was only on the advice of Gamaliel and because of the undeniable miracles surrounding their arrest, they were simply beaten in hopes that would deter them from continuing to accuse the Sanhedrin and the elders of Israel of murdering their own Messiah.

This discourse by Stephen will demonstrate to the leaders of the Lord’s own people that they have a long history of rejecting and killing the Lord’s prophets out of nothing more than envy.

Stephen, just like the Lord, had done nothing but heal the sick among the people and ‘serve tables’. Yet he is now the first person who will suffer the same fate His Lord suffered, and it proved the accuracy of the Lord’s own words:

Mat 10:16  Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.
Mat 10:17  But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues;
Mat 10:18  And ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles.
Mat 10:19  But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak.
Mat 10:20  For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.

Mat 10:24  The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord.
Mat 10:25  It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?

Joh 16:1  These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended.
Joh 16:2  They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.
Joh 16:3  And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me.

How true those words are! Especially since Stephen is granted the opportunity to show us all how our entire history, the life of every man, is a life of rebellion against the Lord and His Christ. Even the Lord’s Christ is rebellious before being processed through fiery judgments to become pliable in His hands. Rebellion against the Lord and His prophets is the essence of Israel’s [and our] history which Stephen recounts to the people who He considers to be the Lord’s chosen people. Remember, the gospel has never yet gone to the Gentiles, and Stephen considers physical Israel, the people before whom he is making his defense to be the Lord’s saints and His chosen nation.

With absolutely no time to prepare a defense, the holy spirit inspired Stephen to show the church council of his day exactly how much like their envious and rebellious fathers they are.

Act 7:2  And he said, Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken; The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran,
Act 7:3  And said unto him, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall shew thee.
Act 7:4  Then came he out of the land of the Chaldaeans, and dwelt in Charran: and from thence, when his father [signifying the dying of our old man] was dead, he removed him into this land, wherein ye now dwell.

Stephen is telling the Sanhedrin and us that we all must come out of Babylon, which is what ‘Ur of the Chaldeans’ symbolizes. The Sanhedrin, just like the religious leaders of our day, think they have already come out of Ur and out of Egypt. They certainly do not see themselves as that “great city where also our Lord was crucified”:

Rev 11:7  And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.
Rev 11:8  And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified [The religious system of His day].

Isa 1:1  The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

Isa 1:9  Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.
Isa 1:10  Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah.

Isa 1:21  How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers.

Here we have revealed to us who the great whore of Revelation 17 and 18 is. It is not physical “Judah and Jerusalem” alone, rather it is the religious systems of the whole world through whose offences Christ was offered up and through whose justification He was raised up:

Rom 4:25  Who was delivered [to be crucified] for [G1223, ‘dia’, through] our offences, and was raised again for [G1223: ‘dia’, through] our justification.

Act 7:5  And he gave him none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on: yet he promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him, when as yet he had no child.
Act 7:6  And God spake on this wise, That his seed should sojourn in a strange land; and that they should bring them into bondage, and entreat them evil four hundred years.

The churches of our day are as spiritually deaf and as spiritually blind as the Sanhedrin in the days of Christ and Stephen, and to them Stephen was giving them nothing more than a summary of Israel’s history. However, to those who have been given to ‘compare spiritual [types and shadows] with spiritual [realities]’ Abraham’s calling out of Ur of the Chaldeans signifies our being called out of spiritual Babylon, “the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified” (Rev 11:8).

Typifying each of us, Abraham did not immediately obey the Lord’s commandment to leave his father’s house and the country in which he lived. The fact is that we are told that it was Abraham’s father, signifying his own flesh, that took him out of Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan:

Gen 12:1  Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:

Instead of leaving his father’s house, it was “[his] father’s house” which took him out of Ur of the Chaldeans to go into Canaan:

Gen 11:31  And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.
Gen 11:32  And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran.

“Terah died in Haran” tells us that we do not begin to enter into our own calling until after our old man begins to die, while still in the land of the Chaldeans, while still in Babylon. When our old man dies, then we immediately begin to come out of Babylon and into the land of promise:

Gen 12:5  And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.

Like Abraham, as Stephen pointed out, we are not given a possession in this present world, but as the spiritual seed of Abraham we, too, are promised “the [whole] world [G2889: kosmos]”:

Rom 4:13  For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

This promise of ruling all the nations of the whole world is one of the “many things” to which Christ referred when He told His apostles:

Joh 16:12  I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.

According to the letter of the promise, Abraham was only to inherit from the River of Egypt to the Euphrates River:

Gen 15:18  In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:
Gen 15:19  The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites,
Gen 15:20  And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims,
Gen 15:21  And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.

Looking at the letter of those words you do not see the words “the world”. All you see is a very small country stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates rivers. Nevertheless, all flesh, the flesh of “the world,” is signified by listing ten nations in those verses.

The number ‘ten’ signifies the bankruptcy of the flesh of all men in its negative connotation:

 The Number Ten

The number four signifies the whole of whatever is under consideration:

The Number Four

The four hundred years of servitude in Egypt (4x10x10) signify the whole of our spiritual indebtedness because of the sins of our flesh:

Mat 18:23 Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants.
Mat 18:24 And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents.

It is only after the Lord begins to drag us out of this world that He also begins to give us the dominion over our flesh which we never had before:

Rom 6:14  For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

1Pe 2:11  Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;
1Pe 2:12  Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.

Act 7:7  And the nation to whom they shall be in bondage will I judge, said God: and after that shall they come forth, and serve me in this place.

We will miss the fact that Stephen thought he was witnessing to the Lord’s chosen people if we do not realize and remember that at this time the apostles were all still living with the doctrine that one must be physically circumcised and become a part of the physical nation of Israel to be saved. That doctrine prevailed all the way up to Acts 15:

Act 15:1  And certain men which came down from Judaea taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved.
Act 15:2  When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question.

By the time this conference took place in Jerusalem, Peter had already been sent to the house of the Gentile Roman centurion, Cornelius, and had been told that he was not to call any man common or unclean (Act 10:15). To the apostles who heard what the Lord told Peter, that was still not a commandment for the Jews to forsake the law of Moses, and they continued to be circumcised and to offer blood offerings at the temple.

Therefore, even after this Jerusalem conference, the conclusion was that Gentile Christians need not be circumcised or offer offerings in the temple, but the Jewish Christians were still expected to do so:

Act 15:23  And they wrote letters by them after this manner; The [Jewish] apostles and elders and brethren send greeting unto the brethren which are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia:
Act 15:24  Forasmuch as we have heard, that certain which went out from us have troubled you with words, subverting your souls, saying, Ye must be circumcised, and keep the law: to whom we gave no such commandment:
Act 15:25  It seemed good unto us, being assembled with one accord, to send chosen men unto you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul,
Act 15:26  Men that have hazarded their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Act 15:27  We have sent therefore Judas and Silas, who shall also tell you the same things by mouth.
Act 15:28  For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things;
Act 15:29  That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well.

Acts 15 is years in the future at this point, and even after it was agreed at this conference that the Gentiles did not need to be circumcised or keep the law of Moses, it was also agreed that the Jews must continue to do so:

Act 21:24  Them take, and purify thyself with them, and be at charges with them, that they may shave their heads: and all may know that those things, whereof they were informed concerning thee, are nothing; but that thou thyself also walkest orderly, and keepest the law.
Act 21:25  As touching the Gentiles which believe, we have written and concluded that they observe no such thing, save only that they keep themselves from things offered to idols, and from blood, and from strangled, and from fornication.
Act 21:26  Then Paul took the men, and the next day purifying himself with them entered into the temple, to signify the accomplishment of the days of purification, until that an offering should be offered for every one of them.

This trial of Stephen was very soon after the death and resurrection of Christ. It was under the same high priest, Caiaphas (Act 4:6). It was long before Peter went into the house of the Gentile Roman centurion, Cornelius, where Peter admitted to Cornelius that it was ‘unlawful’ for a circumcised man to go into the house of a Gentile:

Act 10:28  And he said unto them, Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another nation; but God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean.

Stephen’s trial was long before there was yet any hint to the apostles that the gospel would ever be preached to the Gentiles. The point being that at this time the physical nation of Israel was still considered by Stephen and the apostles to be the chosen people of God, and Stephen is witnessing to his own people just as Christ had done before him:

Joh 1:10  He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
Joh 1:11  He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

Stephen was circumcised, and still believed it was essential for salvation:

Act 15:1  And certain men which came down from Judaea taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved.

Stephen is identifying with ‘his own’ nation while making his defense and showing them their own “envy” and rebellion against their own Messiah:

Act 7:8  And he gave him the covenant of circumcision: and so Abraham begat Isaac, and circumcised him the eighth day; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat the twelve patriarchs.
Act 7:9  And the patriarchs, moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt: but God was with him,
Act 7:10  And delivered him out of all his afflictions, and gave him favour and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh king of Egypt; and he made him governor over Egypt and all his house.

Stephen simply could not possibly have seen the spiritual significance of Joseph saving the Egyptians from starvation before he, through the Egyptians, saved his brothers from starvation, just as the Lord will use His elect to save apostate physical Israel and apostate Christians who claim to be spiritual Israel:

Rom 11:30  For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief:
Rom 11:31  Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.
Rom 11:32  For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.

Stephen obviously saw the “envy” which motivated Joseph’s brothers to sell him into Egypt. Stephen knew the high priest and the Pharisees had delivered the Lord up to be crucified out of envy:

Mat 27:17  Therefore when they were gathered together, Pilate said unto them, Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ?
Mat 27:18  For he knew that for envy they had delivered him.

Mar 15:9  But Pilate answered them, saying, Will ye that I release unto you the King of the Jews?
Mar 15:10  For he knew that the chief priests had delivered him for envy.
Mar 15:11  But the chief priests moved the people, that he should rather release Barabbas unto them.

Those with whom God works are always envied and persecuted by those who envy their relationship with God. Joseph’s brothers envied his close relationship with their father Jacob. Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses out of envy over the close relationship Moses had with the Lord:

Num 12:1  And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married: for he had married an Ethiopian woman.
Num 12:2  And they said, Hath the LORD indeed spoken only by Moses? hath he not spoken also by us? And the LORD heard it.
Num 12:3  (Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.)

The Lord chastened Miriam and Aaron by making Miriam leprous for a week. She was healed only after Moses prayed for her.

Just a few weeks afterward, Korah and Dathan and Abiram, a man named ‘On’ and two hundred and fifty princes of the congregation, famous men of renown, all envied Moses’ and Aaron’s close relationship with God and falsely accused them of ‘lifting [themselves] up above the congregation’:

Num 16:1  Now Korah, the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and On, the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men:
Num 16:2  And they rose up before Moses, with certain of the children of Israel, two hundred and fifty princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown:
Num 16:3  And they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said unto them, Ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is among them: wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the LORD?

This was a work of the Lord to demonstrate who those were whom He approved as Moses told Korah and his company of envious rebels:

Num 16:4  And when Moses heard it, he fell upon his face:
Num 16:5  And he spake unto Korah and unto all his company, saying, Even to morrow the LORD will shew who are his, and who is holy; and will cause him to come near unto him: even him whom he hath chosen will he cause to come near unto him.

Paul had read these words and knew the purpose for heresies and schisms within the body of Christ:

1Co 11:18  For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it.
1Co 11:19  For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.

While the Lord’s emphasis is on “they which are approved [being] made manifest” that manifestation also reveals those who are heretics.

Stephen continues to witness against the envy of those who are falsely accusing him:

Act 7:11  Now there came a dearth over all the land of Egypt and Chanaan, and great affliction: and our fathers found no sustenance.
Act 7:12  But when Jacob heard that there was corn in Egypt, he sent out our fathers first.

In this story, Jacob signifies our old man who must begin to die before we can embrace the Lord’s promised salvation.

Gen 50:15  And when Joseph’s brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, Joseph will peradventure hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him.
Gen 50:16  And they sent a messenger unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying,
Gen 50:17  So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin; for they did unto thee evil: and now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him.
Gen 50:18  And his brethren also went and fell down before his face; and they said, Behold, we be thy servants.
Gen 50:19  And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God?
Gen 50:20  But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.
Gen 50:21  Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them.

Joseph had told them when he first revealed himself to them seventeen years earlier that He had already forgiven them and he would nourish them, but they were not given faith in his words:

Gen 45:10  And thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be near unto me, thou, and thy children, and thy children’s children, and thy flocks, and thy herds, and all that thou hast:
Gen 45:11  And there will I nourish thee; for yet there are five years of famine; lest thou, and thy household, and all that thou hast, come to poverty.

Jacob did not believe that he and Rachel or Joseph’s brothers would ever bow down to Joseph any more than his other sons believed that they would bow down to him:

Gen 37:8  And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words.
Gen 37:9  And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me.
Gen 37:10  And he told it to his father, and to his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?
Gen 37:11  And his brethren envied him; but his father observed the saying.

Act 7:13  And at the second time Joseph was made known to his brethren; and Joseph’s kindred was made known unto Pharaoh.
Act 7:14  Then sent Joseph, and called his father Jacob to him, and all his kindred, threescore and fifteen souls.
Act 7:15  So Jacob went down into Egypt, and died, he, and our fathers,

While we are in this world, signified by Egypt, we are all as spiritually dead as Jacob and his sons who all died in Egypt. In that spiritual state, we live outwardly, but we are dead spiritually.

Luk 9:59  And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.
Luk 9:60  Jesus said unto him, Let the [spiritually] dead bury their [physically] dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.

1Ti 5:6  But she that liveth in pleasure is [spiritually] dead while she liveth.

Act 7:16  And were carried over into Sychem, and laid in the sepulchre that Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of Emmor the father of Sychem.

We are told the Lord did not give Abraham an inheritance in Canaan, and we are told that he was a stranger and a pilgrim in the land he was promised as an inheritance:

Act 7:5 And he gave him none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on: yet he promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him, when as yet he had no child.

Heb 11:13  These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

At the same time, we are told that Abraham did own a place to bury his dead there in Canaan where he was a stranger and a pilgrim. That is all we have in this world, a place for our old man to die and be buried.

Act 7:17  But when the time of the promise drew nigh, which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt,
Act 7:18  Till another king arose, which knew not Joseph.
Act 7:19  The same dealt subtilly with our kindred, and evil entreated our fathers, so that they cast out their young children, to the end they might not live.
Act 7:20  In which time Moses was born, and was exceeding fair, and nourished up in his father’s house three months:

We are all being born into the kingdom of God at a time of great growth in our unchosen family which is still in Egypt. When the time arrives to ‘come out of her’, then the Lord begins to send trials into our lives, and we are caused to cry out to him to deliver us from Egypt.

It is important we understand that it is while we are still in Egypt, still serving the gods of Egypt, that the Lord begins His work of deliverance in our lives. His choice of calling us is entirely of Himself and has nothing to do with us or our falsely labeled ‘free will’. Being brought out of Egypt is just an earlier stage and a less mature type of coming out of Babylon. It is also while we are in Babylon that the Lord comes to us and begins His work of salvation within us:

Mic 4:10  Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail: for now shalt thou go forth out of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the field, and thou shalt go even to Babylon; there shalt thou be delivered; there the LORD shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies.

The Lord’s people “come out of [Babylon]”, but it is only while we are there in Babylon that He begins the process of delivering us out of her power over us:

Our deliverance out of Babylon is the seventh and last of the seven plagues which we must begin to fulfill before we will be given to begin to enter the temple of God in heaven:

Rev 15:7  And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever.
Rev 15:8  And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power; and no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled.

Rev 16:17  And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done.
Rev 16:18  And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.
Rev 16:19  And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.
Rev 16:20  And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.
Rev 16:21  And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great.

A “great earthquake [and] a great hail” are both an integral part of the destruction of “great Babylon”, the pillar and ground of all the false doctrines of this world. This is what that ‘great earthquake and great hail’ accomplish:

Isa 28:17  Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.

We ‘grow and multiply’ in false doctrines while we are in Egypt and while we are in Babylon:

Jer 29:4  Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, unto all that are carried away captives, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem unto Babylon;
Jer 29:5  Build ye houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them;
Jer 29:6  Take ye wives, and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; that ye may be increased there, and not diminished.
Jer 29:7  And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the LORD for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.

We are not commanded to pray for Babylon or this world to be saved at this time, but we are to pray that we can live in peace while we are in this world:

1Ti 2:1  I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;
1Ti 2:2  For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. [Not that the Lord will save the world in this present time]

Joh 17:9  I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.