From the Beginning: A Devotional Commentary on Genesis (XVII)

The other day I was thinking about an interesting line in Genesis 46:3-4. It's right before Jacob goes down to Egypt to be reunited with Joseph, and on the way he goes to Beer-Sheba to worship "the God of his father Isaac." God meets him in a vision and says, "Don't be afraid to go down to Egypt for I will make you a great nation there; I will go down with you and I will bring you up again." It's a very encouraging verse, or at least it should be, for two interlocking reasons.

First, if you know your Old Testament history, you'll know that, in a way, Jacob's journey to Egypt has trouble written all over it. After a generation or two, they're gonna become slaves in Egypt, and they'll need God to bring them out with signs and wonders (a.k.a. the Book of Exodus). Jacob has no idea this is in store, necessarily, and whatever else this meeting with God is about, here, before he goes to Egypt, it suggests to me this important truth: just because things get hard—Book-of-Exodus-slavery-in-Egypt hard, even—just because the situation looks bleak, it doesn't mean you're not in step with God. The people of Israel might have looked at their circumstances in Egypt and thought, somewhere along the way we must have got off track with God's plan for us, 'cause look how hard it is right now. But Genesis 46:3-4 cuts that thought off at the pass: even before Jacob went down to Egypt God met him and said, "Go, and I'll go with you..."

Which brings us to the second point. In Exodus, when the people cry out to God in their distress, you sort of get the impression that God wasn't there up till then, that he'd gone AWOL and was only showing up at that moment. But Genesis 46:3-4 cuts that one off too: as bleak as it seemed in Egypt, God gave his word that he was going with them; and however much it may have looked like he was on hiatus in Exodus 2:24-25, the fact is, he hadn't gone anywhere. Nor has he abandoned you or I, even in our darkest moments.