God told Moses to tell Pharaoh, "You've ignored me long enough. Let my people go, or this time it's locusts to eat the trees and fill your houses." Pharaoh's servants said, "Maybe it's time to listen to this guy ( Read more... )

God told Moses to tell Pharaoh, "Let my people go, or there's gonna be frogs." He had Aaron bring lots and lots of frogs out of the water. The magicians did the same ( Read more... )

Moses and Aaron said, "Jehovah says, 'Let my people go, they need a feast.'" Pharaoh replied, "What god's this, then? Not happening." They said, "We've met Him, and He's gonna be pissed if we don't do this." Pharaoh said, "If your people have enough time to go party in the desert, they're not working hard enough." So he stopped giving the ( Read more... )

Moses was tending his father-in-law's flock way out in the desert. He came across a bush, which was aflame but not burning up. Moses said, "Huh," and went to check it out ( Read more... )

All Israel's people went to Egypt. That generation died out, but they had plenty of kids. Eventually there was a Pharaoh who hadn't known Joseph, who said, "Hey, there's a lot of these Israelites; if they went with our enemies in a war, we'd lose!" So the Egyptians enslaved them - having them build cities, among other things - but they just had ( Read more... )

When Jacob was 147, he knew he would die soon, and made Joseph promise to bury him with his fathers, and not in Egypt. He told Joseph about God's promises, and adopted Joseph's sons Ephraim and Manasseh, and blessed them, but blessed Ephraim more than Manasseh, even though he was younger. Joseph objected, but Jacob said, "No, that's the way it's ( Read more... )

At Beersheba, God came to Jacob in dreams, and said, "This going to Egypt thing? I'm cool with it." So he went down to Egypt, and all his household with all they had. By this point, he had all the children mentioned earlier, and assorted grandchildren; not counting his daughters-in-law, sixty-six descendants went with him, and Joseph's family ( Read more... )

Jacob heard about Egypt's Strategic Grain Reserve, and sent the rest of his sons down to buy some, but kept young Benjamin at home. They came to Joseph, who recognized them, but pretended not to and made them explain themselves. He called them spies, and insisted they fetch their last brother before he'd let them leave. Later, he decided he'd ( Read more... )

Joseph was bought by Potiphar, an Egyptian officer, who realized that he was blessed and put him in charge of the household. Potiphar's wife kept trying to seduce him, but he wasn't having any of it. She got mad and accused him of attempted rape, which got him thrown in jail, where he quickly became the chief trusty ( Read more... )

Esau's the same person as Edom. He had various offspring in Canaan, then went away from Jacob, because their herds were too big to live near each other. Esau's sons had various important descendants, as did his neighbor Seir the Horite; many of them were kings, before the Israelites went in for that sort of thing. There was an uninteresting line ( Read more... )