Summary of Genesis
Foundation to the rest of Scripture
See also the outline of Genesis and What I Learned from Genesis.
The book of Genesis is utterly foundational to the rest of Scripture. In it, we learn:
God created the heavens and the earth. God created man in the image of the triune God; male and female He created them, declaring, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.” After six days of creation, God rested on the seventh day, sanctifying it.
Satan tempted Eve to doubt what God said, and she ate from the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and she gave to Adam and he ate. Men and women were placed under the curse of work, pain, and death, but God promised that the seed of Eve would bruise Satan on the head. Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden, losing access to the tree of life.
By the time of Noah, “the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Noah was righteous because he walked with God, so God established His covenant with him to save him and his family via the ark when He destroyed all flesh with the flood. After the flood, God gave the rainbow as a sign that He would never again destroy all flesh with a flood.
Abraham was a descendant of Noah’s son Shem, and was simply told by God to travel to the land of Canaan (cursed son of Ham, who sinned against Noah) with the promise that “in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” He told him he would have a son in his old age, that his descendants would be uncountable, and that they would possess the land of Canaan forever. Abraham was deemed righteous because he believed God. God established His covenant with him, with circumcision as a sign, saying, “I am God Almighty; Walk before Me, and be blameless.” When he was asked to sacrifice his son of the promise, Isaac, he was willing. God will forever honor Abraham’s obedience: “In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.” When God first appeared to Isaac, He told him He would establish the oath He swore to his father “because Abraham obeyed Me and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.” He repeats this reassurance to Isaac later, “For the sake of My servant Abraham.”
Abraham exhibited simple, obedient faith. His grandson Jacob did not. He was devious, stealing his older brother Esau’s birthright and blessing. When he was fleeing his brother, and the land of Canaan, to find a wife from among Abraham’s relatives, God appeared to him, repeating His promise to Abraham and his descendants and telling him, “I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Jacob’s response was conditional: “If God will be with me and will keep me on this journey that I take, and will give me food to eat and garments to wear, and I return to my father’s house in safety, then the LORD will be my God.” After his return to the land of his father, God sent Him to Bethel, where He had first appeared to him, and Jacob fulfilled his vow, telling his household, “Put away the foreign gods which are among you, and purify yourselves and change your garments; and let us arise and go up to Bethel, and I will make an altar there to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.” This is likely why God told him, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel; for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed.” Interestingly, Israel means, “God prevails.” Jacob tested God’s promises and God proved He was faithful.
God chose Abraham “to command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice.” God set Abraham and his descendants apart as an example for our blessing, to demonstrate faith, to demonstrate obedience, and to demonstrate His faithfulness. God told Abraham, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions.” The story of Israel’s sons in the book of Genesis is the story of how God orchestrated for them to be a people set apart in Egypt that “increased greatly, multiplied, and became exceedingly mighty.” The next book, Exodus, is how He orchestrated their return to the land He promised them, for the sake of His servant Abraham.
Highlights of this 50-chapter book: six days of creation; establishment of Sabbath rest; temptation by Satan and Fall (first sin, resulting in death), curses and banishment from the Garden of Eden; Cain kills Abel; Adam and Eve have Seth, from whom Noah is descended; God’s covenant with Noah to save him and his family (sons Shem, Ham, and Japeth) via the ark; Flood; God’s covenant with man not to again destroy all flesh with flood, with rainbow as its sign; curse of Canaan, son of Ham, for Ham sinning against Noah; tower of Babel (languages, dispersal of men); recounting of descendants of Shem from Noah to Terah, father of Abram and grandfather of Lot; book of Job; God commands Abram, with his wife Sarai and nephew Lot to leave Haran, promising “in you all the families of the earth will be blessed,”; they enter the land of Canaan, which God promises to Abram and his descendants forever; Abram and Lot separate, with Lot settling in Sodom; Lot, his family, and possessions are rescued by Abram after they are taken in war; Abram is blessed by Melchezidek king of Salem, priest of God Most High, to whom Abram tithes a tenth of the spoil of war; God promises Abram his son will be his heir and his descendants will be as numerous as the stars, and “he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness”; God warns Abram that his descendants will be enslaved for 400 years, but will come out to the land He has promised them with many possessions; Sarai gives her maid Hagar to Abram, and she bears Ishmael; God changes Abram’s name to Abraham and Sarai’s name to Sarah; God establishes the covenant of circumcision for Abraham and his descendants, and Abraham, Ishmael, and all his household are circumcised; Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed, but Lot and his daughters survive, bearing Moab and Ammon through trickery; Isaac is born, and circumcised on the eighth day, according to God’s covenant; Ishmael and Hagar are driven out of Abraham’s household, but God promises to make Ishmael a great nation; Abraham makes a covenant with the Philistines not to harm them; Abraham is asked by God to sacrifice Isaac, but is spared from having to do so when he proves he is willing; Isaac marries Rebekah, the granddaughter of Abraham’s brother Nahor from Mesopotamia; Isaac and Rebekah have Esau and Jacob after 20 years of infertility; Esau (Edom) sells his birthright to Isaac for a bowl of lentil stew; Isaac makes another covenant with the Philistines not to harm them, just like his father Abraham; Jacob deceives Isaac and receives Esau’s blessing; Isaac escapes a murderous Esau, traveling to his mother Rebekah’s home and working for her brother Laban for seven years in order to marry Rachel; Isaac is tricked into first marrying Leah, but allowed to marry Rachel one week later in exchange for another seven years of work; Leah has four sons (Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah) while Rachel is barren; Rachel gives her maid Bilhah to Jacob and she has Dan and Naphtali; Leah gives her maid Zilpah to Jacob and she has Gad and Asher; Leah finally has Issachar and Zebulun (and Dinah); Rachel finally has Joseph; after 20 years, God allows Jacob to prosper, Laban and his sons become envious, and God tells Jacob to return to his father’s country; Laban, an Aramean, pursues but God tells Laban not to harm Jacob, so the two make a covenant and depart in peace; as Jacob fears meeting his brother Esau, he wrestles with God, who dislocates his hip and renames him Israel; Jacob and Esau meet and depart in peace; when Jacob settles in Canaan, his daughter Dinah is raped by Shechem, son of Hamor the Hivite, who then proposes marriage and the intermarrying of their tribes; Jacob’s sons deceitfully agree, requiring the men of Shechem to be circumcised, but Simeon and Levi kill all the males and loot the city, making Jacob odious to the Canaanites; Rachel dies giving birth to Benjamin and is buried in Bethlehem; Joseph’s brothers sell him to Midianites who sell him to Potiphar, Pharoah’s captain of the bodyguard, in Egypt; after Potiphar’s wife falsely accuses him, Joseph is thrown in prison where he correctly interprets two dreams, but is forgotten by Pharoah’s cupbearer, whose release his dream predicted, until Pharoah needs two dreams interpreted; Joseph correctly interprets Pharoah’s two dreams about upcoming 7 years of abundance followed by 7 years of famine and recommends storing reserves; Pharoah places Joseph over all Egypt; Joseph marries and has two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim; Joseph’s brothers, except Benjamin, come to him to buy grain; they don’t recognize him and he enacts a plot for them to return with Benjamin; Joseph’s plot continues until he is assured of his brothers’ care and concern for their father and Benjamin; Joseph finally reveals himself to his brothers, saying that God sent him to Egypt to preserve life, to preserve them as a remnant in the earth; he sends them back to Canaan to return with their father and all their families to live in Egypt; Israel and all his descendants, 70 persons, settle in Egypt, in the best of land, working as shepherds; Joseph keeps his promise to Israel when he dies and buries him in the land of his fathers, where Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, and Leah are all buried; before he dies in Egypt, Joseph tells his brothers, “God will surely take care of you and bring you up from this land to the land which He promised on oath to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob, and you shall carry my bones up from here.”