I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, where they resided as foreigners. God is anchoring the current crisis in the longer covenant story. The same covenant that was made with Abraham in Genesis 15 and 17 — land, descendants, blessing — is what God is now beginning to fulfill. The patriarchs were foreigners in the land; their descendants will inhabit it. The word foreigners here — megurim, sojourning — echoes Moses naming his son Gershom in Exodus 2:22: I have been a foreigner in a foreign land. The whole family of faith has been sojourning. Hebrews 11:9 describes Abraham as living like a stranger in the promised land. The promise made to foreigners is about to be fulfilled for the nation of former slaves. God does not establish covenants carelessly; He remembers them with the kind of faithfulness that spans centuries and does not require the covenant partner to be present for the terms to hold.

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

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