Study Desk

"Then he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. And from there, after his father died, God sent him to this country in which you now live.

"And this is, in effect, what God spoke [to him]: That his DESCENDANTS WOULD BE ALIENS (strangers) IN A FOREIGN LAND, AND THAT THEY WOULD BE ENSLAVED AND MISTREATED FOR FOUR HUNDRED YEARS.

"'AND I WILL JUDGE ANY NATION TO WHOM THEY WILL BE IN BONDAGE,' said God, 'AND AFTER THAT THEY WILL COME OUT AND SERVE ME [in worship] IN THIS PLACE.'

"And God gave Abraham a covenant [a formal agreement to be strictly observed] of [which] circumcision [was the sign]; and so [under these circumstances] Abraham became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him on the eighth day; and Isaac [became the father] of Jacob, and Jacob [became the father] of the twelve patriarchs.

"The [ten elder] patriarchs, overwhelmed with jealousy, sold [their younger brother] Joseph into [slavery in] Egypt; but God was with him,

"But as the time [for the fulfillment] of the promise which God had made to Abraham was approaching, the [Hebrew] people increased and multiplied in Egypt,

"It was at this [critical] time that Moses was born; and he was lovely in the sight of God, and for three months he was nourished in his father's house.

"He expected his countrymen to understand that God was granting them freedom through him [assuming that they would accept him], but they did not understand.

'I AM THE GOD OF YOUR FATHERS, THE GOD OF ABRAHAM AND OF ISAAC AND OF JACOB.' Moses trembled with fear and did not dare to look.

"This Moses whom they rejected, saying, 'WHO MADE YOU A RULER AND A JUDGE?' is the very one whom God sent to be both a ruler and a deliverer, with the [protecting and helping] hand of the Angel who appeared to him in the thorn bush.

"This is the Moses who said to the children of Israel, 'GOD WILL RAISE UP FOR YOU A PROPHET LIKE ME FROM YOUR COUNTRYMEN.'

"But God turned away [from them] and handed them over to serve the host of heaven. As it is written and forever remains written in the book of the prophets, 'IT WAS NOT [really] TO ME THAT YOU OFFERED VICTIMS AND SACRIFICES FOR FORTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS, WAS IT, O HOUSE OF ISRAEL?

'YOU ALSO TOOK ALONG THE TABERNACLE (portable temple) OF MOLOCH AND THE STAR OF THE GOD ROMPHA, THE IMAGES WHICH YOU MADE TO WORSHIP; AND I WILL REMOVE YOU BEYOND BABYLON [carrying you away into exile].'

"Our fathers had the tabernacle of testimony in the wilderness, just as God directed Moses to make it according to the pattern which he had seen.

"Our fathers also brought it in [with them into the land] with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations whom God drove out before our fathers, [and so it remained here] until the time of David,

who found favor (grace, spiritual blessing) in the sight of God and asked that he might [be allowed to] find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.

But he, being full of the Holy Spirit and led by Him, gazed into heaven and saw the glory [the great splendor and majesty] of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God;

and he said, "Look! I see the heavens opened up [in welcome] and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!"

They all paid [a great deal of] attention to him, from the least to the greatest, saying, "This man is what is called the Great Power of God!"

But when they believed Philip as he preached the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were being baptized, both men and women.