Was thinking of offering to God my ability to work with MS Visio to come up with charts. Which is a skill of an IT Project Proposal Writer and a Ex Project Manager.
Initially this started out as an innocent assignment to prove to a friend that Joseph did not turn from a slave to the Prime minister of Egypt over night… But slowly, as I was charting it out.. the chart had more and more items added then I realised that its possible to guess the age of Isaac since Isaac was 60 years old before Jacob was born.. I remembered vaguely that it is possible to make an educated guess of Jacobs age when he fled from Canaan to his uncle Laban.
So I started to work back wards based on the fact that Israel went to Egypt at the age of 130 and he died at 147.
If we add 60 years to it, Isaac would have been 190 year old (he died at 180)
Give an estimate of 10 years (7 years of abundance and 3 years of famine before Jacobs food ran out)
We know that Joseph was made the prime minister at the age of 30, and he was sold off to Egypt at the age of 17.
And when I realised its meaningless to chart out Jacobs life without reference to the life of Isaac, I decided to insert the time line fo the 3 patriarchs side by side.
I wanted to insert Abraham’s life, but I feel that the chart will be too wordy and messy if I inserted Abraham’s life timechart is included.
Gradually my curiosity got the better of me and I charted out this entire chart. Then I was thinking.. rather than just presenting the chart a few people, I might as well post it up my blog at the same time.
One of the interesting fact I learnt was that, we tend to imagine Jacob as a scheming young boy when he coveted the birthright and the blessing of Esau.. but the actual fact is, Jacob is already approximately 70 years old when he ran away from home.. technically that makes him a scheming old man..
Jacob never viewed the Lord God as his God, even though he saw the vision at Bethel.. He simply vowed, “If God protected and takes care of me, till I return to Bethel safely, then I would offer up my tithes and build a altar for God”. Even though God watched over him during his stay at Laban’s place, God was still known as ” God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac”.. God was still not his God, and Jacob was approximately 90 years old when he said that.
When he returned to Canaan he refused to return to Bethel.. and he when he finally got there.. he fulfilled is vow, and build an altar called “El Elohe Israel” (The Lord, God of Israel).. (He should be slightly older than 90 years old by then)…
Bearing in mind he died at 147, we can say that he only walked with God from 90 years old to 147 years old, a total of 57 years, which is not even half of his life… It was no wonder that when he blessed the Pharaoh, and when the Pharaoh asked for his age, he replied
“The years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty. My years have been few and difficult, and they do not equal the years of the pilgrimage of my fathers.” (Gen 47:9)
Yet Jacob was well aware that, before he loved God, God has protected and taken care of him all the days of his life. Therefore before he made this beautiful declaration about God while he blessed the sons of Joseph prior to his death.
“May the God before whom my fathers
Abraham and Isaac walked,
the God who has been my shepherd
all my life to this day,
the Angel who has delivered me from all harm.
May He bless these boys…” (Gen 48:15-16)
And he died, worshipping God, holding on to his staff till his last breath.
Sometimes when I looked back at my life and wonder, if I can ever recount the number of times God has watched over and protected me in my life. I guess indeed everyone years have been few and difficult. I know that God is watching over me and I know for sure that this God who had been my shepherd all my life, and the Angel who has delivered me from all harm.
May we all learn to count the blessings that God has given us, and hold on to our faith till the end of our lives.
"The timeline of the lives of Isaac, Israel and Joseph"
October 26, 2010 at 4:57 am
Thank you for your graphic.
I concur with your ages of the patriarchs.
You may be interested in the web link here.
http://gnomon.web.officelive.com/Documents/Patriarchs.pdf
I use the same scriptural evidence.
You may not agree with the BC dating or other notations.
But that is based on another line of study.
Thanks again for your confirmation.
Jerry
October 28, 2010 at 12:24 pm
Hi Jerry,
I saw the link diagram, wow, it is very well drawn and it includes even to Noah… I did not dare to try that because that will make my notes a bit too much detailed for my friend who is begineer in his study of the bible. It will be a good summary for Gen 25 onwards.
It hink I can understand how the years are calculated, but personally I did not make attempts, as I understand the difficulty of pinpointing Joseph, and Moses in Egyptology as well as to pinpoint years using clues from the bible. I have read various arguments and the dates can be pretty different from either perspective.
Thats why I decided to remain neutral and just count the years instead
Thank you so much for commenting and sharing with me the link. I hope to hear more from you soon.
September 17, 2011 at 5:29 am
I was preparing for a bible study that skims over Jacob’s life and thought I’d search up on his timeline, and came across here.
Thanks so much for the informative and easy-to-navigate diagram! Even more so it is true that even though Jacob knew God in a late age, God knew Jacob even before his birth. After reading your reflection, I ponder too, about how watchful God is to me even when I’m hostile towards Him, and how much grace He has given unbeknown to me.
William
September 27, 2011 at 10:07 pm
Hi William,
I am glad that the chart is able to aid you in your bible study. I do have other articles here and I will hope to hear from your comment.
Actually it surprised me very much when I did a count back and realize that Jacob was so “old” when he ran away from home… Its amazing how God still protects him despite the fact that he did not really believe in him. Sometimes it is so surprising that God love us so much but yet we still keep him far away from us.
HOpe to see you back here soon.. Immanuel
December 7, 2011 at 11:36 pm
Thank you. I am a teacher in a Christian school and am integrating the study of time lines with our study of Jacob. You just saved me hours of work! I have done similar time lines for other OT chronologies and the numbers fascinate me. So much for the thought that Jacob was a young dashing lad of about 20 when he met Rachel! It all helps us understand the Biblical story. Again, thank you for posting.
December 18, 2011 at 11:54 am
Hi Meredith
I am glad that it helped you, I will love to hear more from you on my blog as well.
Take care