Why did God send the Israelites to Egypt for 400 years (Genesis 15:13)?

233 Having given this general view of the connection of the whole subject, I return to the conquest of Canaan. The scriptures are express in presenting it as an example of God's positive judgment after all patience had already been shewn to be useless (as in the case of Sodom and Gomorrha); of His power against the enemies of His nature, purposes, and people; and of His faithfulness to these last. Abraham was told that his descendants must go down and dwell in Egypt for a long period, for the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full; and this took place. Israel was clearly informed of the cause why they were thus judged: "Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, but for the wickedness of these nations, the Lord doth drive them out before thee," Deut. 9:5; Deut. 18:12. This truth is expressed in the strongest possible manner (Lev. 18) in warning Israel not to fall into the like abominations. "And the land is defiled, therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants. Ye shall therefore keep my statutes … that the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you." Thus a people, allowed to ripen up to their full height of wickedness, are taken as the occasion of shewing God's righteous wrath and power. Israel is fully warned and apprised of the principle on which it was done. It is a great public sample of God's full judgment in the earth. They were to be destroyed by the judicial power of God. It was also (as the case of Achan fully shews) the occasion of shewing God's power and faithfulness, but His strict judgment of evil in the midst of His people.

In the fourth generation Israel would return to the land of Canaan v.16), because only then would "the iniquity of the Amorites" be complete. God tells Abram this because He intended to dispossess the Amorites of their land in order for Israel to possess it, but would not do so until the wickedness of that nation had risen to a height that required the judgment of God.

In the fourth generation Israel would return to the land of Canaan (v. 16), because only then would “the iniquity of the Amorites” be complete. God tells Abram this because He intended to dispossess the Amorites of their land in order for Israel to possess it, but would not do so until the wickedness of that nation had risen to a height that required the judgment of God.

First, that the sojourn in Egypt should be so ordered that there Jacob's family and descendants should increase and be welded into a great nation. Their experience should be that of Psalm 4:1, "In pressure Thou hast enlarged me" (New Trans.). In the tribulations of Egypt, acting like a furnace of iron, they were welded into a nation, that God took for His own. The hour had now come for this trying experience to be theirs, though at the outset all seemed favourable.

A long sorrow also was made known to him in relation to his seed. They were again to leave the land which was theirs by promise, and to dwell in another, ill-treated, and in bondage, until 400 years had run their length. Then God would judge their oppressors, and they should come out, and serve Him in the inheritance destined for them. But for so long a time still discipline and the need of faith! They grew to a nation in that stern Egyptian school. But why the furnace covenanted to them thus? Why this need of the Refiner's fire?

However, God then speaks to Abram, telling him to know with absolute certainty that his descendants would be strangers in a strange land, in bondage to a foreign nation for four hundred years (v. 13). This would appear to be a hindrance to their blessing, but the very fact that God foretold this to Abram is evidence that God was in as full control of this matter as He was in control of the fact of their eventual blessing. In other words, the promise of God often involves long waiting, but this is intended only to be a needed trial of faith, for God's end in blessing is not affected by the affliction.

However, God then speaks to Abram, telling him to know with absolute certainty that his descendants would be strangers in a strange land, in bondage to a foreign nation for four hundred years (v.13). This would appear to be a hindrance to their blessing, but the very fact that God foretold this to Abram is evidence that God was in as full control of this matter as He was in control of the fact of their eventual blessing. In other words, the promise of God often involves long waiting, but this is intended only to be a needed trial of faith, for God's end in blessing is not affected by the affliction.

The character of the act by which the covenant was made, we have already noticed. The reader may compare Jeremiah 34:18-19, as to the force of this act. It is not here, moreover, a promise by which Abram is called out by faith, but the assuring the inheritance to his seed by covenant, and here without condition. It is the promise to Israel, the seed of promise, the heir in connection with the earth and flesh. Remark, moreover, that the prolonged sorrow and oppression of God's people — the delay of the promised heir — is in connection with the patience of God towards those that are to be judged. (Compare 2 Peter 3:9.) We may remark that the oppressors of Israel are judged for the sake of Israel, the usurpers of his inheritance for him.

But it was also the first step in the accomplishment of His word to Abram in Gen. 15, "Know assuredly that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall oppress them four hundred years. And also that nation whom they shall serve will I judge; and afterwards they will come out with great substance. And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age. And [in a] fourth generation they shall come hither again; for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full" (vers. 13-16). Of course ill-will turns what it does not understand to aspersion; yet all was made good in due time. God was faithful and accomplished as He spoke, but with His wonted patience toward the corrupt and hostile usurpers, as well as their hard taskmasters, whilst using both as a moral test of His stiff-necked people. It was His way now in progress to effect discipline for the past and present, and to increase family life into a national one under circumstances which soon changed to such as justified His intervention for His afflicted people, and gave a deep moral lesson to Israel when called to avenge His honour on the abominations of the Amorite. No forecast of man could have anticipated such a future. The God who made it known to Abram was now working in providence to bring it to pass.

The first five verses contain a brief statement of the names of Jacob's sons who came into Egypt with their father — they and their households, numbering, together with Joseph and his house already in Egypt, seventy souls. The particulars, of which this is a brief summary, are found in Genesis 46. The immediate occasion of their going down to Egypt was the famine; but by the famine, as by the wickedness of Jacob's sons in selling their brother to the Ishmaelites (Gen. 37:28), God was but accomplishing the fulfilment of His own purposes. Long ere this He had said unto Abram, "Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years: and also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance." (Gen. 15:13-14.) This is the history of the first twelve chapters in Exodus; and it fills us with admiration to reflect that, whatever the actings of men even in wickedness and high-handed rebellion, they are made subservient to the establishment of the divine counsels of grace and love. As Peter indeed said, on the day of Pentecost, concerning Christ, "Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." (Acts 2:23.) Thus even the wrath of man is yoked to the chariot wheels of God's decrees.