Have you ever been promised an awesome reward, as long as you held up your end of the bargain? Maybe your parents promised to take you to a movie once you cleaned your room. But maybe, in your excitement to go to the movie, you got distracted and didn’t actually clean your room! When it came time to leave for the movie, your parents told you could not go because you had not held up your end of the deal. The next day, you got up, diligently cleaned your room, and that evening, your parents fulfilled their promise to take you to a movie.

As strange as it may sound, a similar thing happened to a man named Abraham, 4,000 years ago! Maybe his parents didn’t promise to take him to the movies, but the idea is the same. God made some very special promises to Abraham. Some were fulfilled during Abraham’s lifetime, some were fulfilled thousands of years later, and some are yet to be fulfilled. In this article, we’ll take a look at those promises, how they were passed down to the 12 tribes of Israel, how they affect the United States and the United Kingdom today, and how they will affect all mankind in the future!

Abraham’s Captivating Story

Understanding these promises to Abraham opens up the pages of God’s Word, illuminating the events of the past, present and future. This vital key will help unlock the understanding of not only what God has done and will do, but also your own personal understanding of your calling.

It began with God calling a 75-year-old man named Abram. “Now the Lord had said to Abram: ‘Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed’” (Genesis 12:1-3).

Notice the two-fold nature of God’s promise:

• Abraham’s descendants (those born from his children) would become a great nation.
• The Messiah would be born from his lineage and bring blessings to all mankind. This is called “the promise of grace” or “the promise of forgiveness,” made possible by Jesus Christ, the “one Seed” (as explained in Galatians 3:8, Galatians 3:16).

Abram obeyed God for the next 24 years. When God appeared to him at age 99, the promises to him were enlarged and expanded: “When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, ‘I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless. I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly… Behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations… No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you” (Genesis 17:1-6).

God changed Abram’s name to Abraham to show the significance of this expanded promise. First, the promise was now conditional on Abraham’s obedience. Second, the “great nation” now became “many nations,” or more than one nation. These nations were to be large, and many kings were promised to be born from Abraham’s line. Even more importantly, God promised to continue that covenant, and be the God of the nations who would be born to Abraham in the future. He even promised to give them a specific piece of land!

“I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you. Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God” (Genesis 17:7-8).

Notice that the land of Canaan was promised to the plural “their” seed, of whom God would be the God for generations into the future. “God said to Abraham: ‘As for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations’” (Genesis 17:9).

Abraham continued to obey God for the rest of his life (Genesis 26:5). Each time God appeared to him, the promises of land were increased. In chapter 13, the land was described as “all the land he could see.” “The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him: ‘Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are—northward, southward, eastward, and westward; for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever’” (Genesis 13:13-15). The number of people who would be born from Abraham is increased by God to be beyond number: “And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants also could be numbered” (Genesis 13:16).

The land size started small enough that a man could walk across it: “Arise, walk in the land through its length and its width, for I give it to you” (Genesis 13:17). As Abraham continued to obey God, the promises to him increased. In Genesis 15:18, the land size was enlarged to extend from the Nile River in Egypt to the Euphrates River in Syria. “On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying: ‘To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates.’” The apostle Paul tells us that eventually God promised Abraham that he would inherit the entire world (Romans 4:13)!

After a son (Isaac) had been born to Abraham and Sarah, God tested Abraham in an extreme way. Foreshadowing what God the Father would face about 2,000 years later when His Son, Jesus the Messiah, would be sacrificed for the sins of all mankind, God told Abraham to prepare to sacrifice Isaac on an altar. Abraham, through faith, obeyed, and was willing to sacrifice his only son to God! But God spared Isaac, just before the fatal moment. God declared that the covenant was now no longer conditional—it was unconditional.

The account in Genesis 22 is very plain. God told Abraham, “By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son—that in blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice” (Genesis 22:16-18). The promise is now firm. God has sworn to make it good!

A Nation and Company of Nations

These tremendous promises were repeated to Abraham’s son Isaac and grandson Jacob. Genesis chapter 28 records that God appeared to Jacob in a dream and told him that his descendants would eventually spread around the world (Genesis 28:13-14). Still later, God changed Jacob’s name to Israel and promised something incredible! “God said to him, ‘Your name is Jacob; your name shall not be called Jacob anymore, but Israel shall be your name.’” So He called his name Israel. Also God said to him: “I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall proceed from you, and kings shall come from your body” (Genesis 35:10-11). Not just one nation, but a nation and a group of or company of nations would be formed from his family.

This could not be fulfilled by the Jewish people we know today. The modern-day nation of Israel and those of Jewish heritage around the world are from only one tribe, Judah. For God’s promise to come true, the fulfillment must be in the other tribes of Israel as well. Israel was the father of 12 sons. Reuben was the firstborn, while Judah was fourth. Son number 11 was Joseph, who became his father’s favorite. Joseph went on to become a powerful ruler in Egypt, and would eventually come to the rescue of the rest of his family during a great famine. Given this, coupled with the fact that there is more written about Joseph in the book of Genesis than any other man, it stands to reason that Joseph is a vital figure to understand!

The Birthright and the Scepter

Here is a vital but little-understood truth: The two parts of the promises to Abraham now are separated into two different tribes of Israel! The spiritual promises—the promise of “one Seed,” meaning Jesus Christ and salvation through Him, the Bible calls the “Scepter.” This promise was handed down through the Jews (the line of Judah) through the house of David. The ancestry records of Jesus in both Matthew and Luke go back to King David. Jesus Himself stated, “salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22), meaning that it was from the bloodline of Judah that He, Jesus, was descended.

The birthright was a separate part of the promises made by God. It was given to Joseph, not Judah. The historical record of the book of Chronicles records, “Reuben the firstborn of Israel—he was indeed the firstborn, but because he defiled his father’s bed, his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph, the son of Israel, so that the genealogy is not listed according to the birthright; … Yet Judah prevailed over his brothers, and from him came the ruler [scepter], although the birthright was Joseph’s” (1 Chronicles 5:1-2).

So the birthright was Joseph’s. What exactly is a birthright and where do we find it confirmed on Joseph? A birthright concerns material blessings passed on from father to son. It indicates one’s right to receive. The promises given to Abraham and then passed on to Isaac, Jacob, and then to Joseph included possession of land, the “gates of their enemies,” abundant crops, innumerable people, spreading over the earth, and other nations bowing to them.

Birthright Passed to Joseph

The account of the passing on of this birthright from the dying Jacob (Israel) to the two sons of Joseph is found in the 48th chapter of Genesis. In this chapter Israel adopted Ephraim and Manasseh as his own legal sons and says, “Let my name be upon them” (Genesis 48:16). They were to be rightfully called “Israel.” They were to “grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.” This blessing was not given to Judah or the other brothers. Taking some time to read through Genesis 48 will serve as a foundational understanding to comprehend the prophecies of the Bible.

The younger son, Ephraim, was to be somewhat greater than his older brother Manasseh. The dramatic prediction of this is given to us in Gensis 48:16-20. Israel said, “‘The Angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; let my name be named upon them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.’ Now when Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased him; so he took hold of his father’s hand to remove it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s head. And Joseph said to his father, ‘Not so, my father, for this one is the firstborn; put your right hand on his head.’ But his father refused and said, ‘I know, my son, I know. He also shall become a people, and he also shall be great; but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his descendants shall become a multitude of nations.’”

So Manasseh was to become the single great nation, but Ephraim was to become a multitude or commonwealth of nations. Where has this happened in history?

When the people of Israel were settled in the land of Canaan by Joshua, Ephraim and Manasseh were just two of the 12 tribes. Manasseh was actually divided—with half of them living on the Eastern side of the Jordan River and half living on the Western side. They never became a “great nation” and neither did Ephraim during those years become a “multitude of nations.” To find the fulfillment of Jacob’s predictions we need to look over 3,000 years later!

After the death of Israel, his children stayed in Egypt in relative safety for over 200 more years. They grew into a large nation of nearly three million people! The Egyptians feared the growing strength of these people, so they made them suffer under slavery. God then brought them out of Egypt by His servant Moses. They were led into the land of Canaan by Joshua where they lived under judges for several hundred years. Their history during this time was checkered—times of peace and obedience to God were followed by longer periods of rebellion, idol worship and subjection to other nations. By about 1040 BC the people of Israel wanted a king so they could be like the other nations around them (1 Samuel 8:5). Saul was the first king, but he lacked faith and disobeyed God, so God chose a teenager to be his replacement—David, a man after God’s own heart.

Next time we will look at the incredible and permanent promises God gave to this second King of Israel, and how they affect each of us today and will continue on for all eternity!