Expert: Dean Gade - 3/9/2006

Question
Hi Dean - As I have said before - I always write to you first and appreciate your answers. I have another one for you.

     All the times the Jews were captured by another nation such as the assyrians, babylonians, or persians it was always a chastisement from God because they were committing Idolatry and other sins. That being the case - Why were they subjected to slavery in Egypt- I cant find a reason in the bible. Did they do something wrong.

                   Thansk again.

Answer
This plan of God gives us another glimpse of Him that we often miss...even though He has clearly told us that His ways are not ours and that they are difficult to understand by humans.

The stated reason for the the long stay in Egypt is:

Gen 15:13-16
13 Then the LORD said to him, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. 14 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. 15 You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. 16 In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure."
(from New International Version)

It's in the last line, "for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure."

My understanding is that God has His own measure of patience concerning sin.  Before the Flood He waited 120 years:
Gen 6:3
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."
(from New International Version)

For Sodom He had a numerical limit in His forbearance:
Gen 18:32-33

32 Then he said, "May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?"

He answered, "For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it."

33 When the LORD had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home.
(from New International Version)

THE POINT HERE IS;  This had little to do with the children of Isreal and more to do with the limit of evil at which God deemed it righteous to clear the Amorites from the land that He was promising to Abram's descendents.  

There also SEEMS to be a training session involved with the Isrealites. They were to learn to seek God and be obedient to Him when He led them to the land and gave them the ministry of holding the prescious message of the Messiah. A ministry that only a remnant fulfilled.

John 1:11-12
11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-
(from New International Version)