Why did God tell Jacob not to be afraid to go down to Egypt when He had told Abraham and Isaac not to go there?
God was not contradicting His earlier prohibition but revealing a change in His sovereign purpose. Egypt had become the appointed place where He would multiply Jacob into a great nation, fulfilling the promise repeated to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob need not fear, because God would make of him a great nation there.
Les explains that God had earlier told Abraham and Isaac, “Don’t go into Egypt,” and when they tried it, they got into trouble until they returned to Canaan. But now in Genesis 46, God speaks to Jacob in the visions of the night and says, “Fear not to go down into Egypt,” because there He will make of Jacob a great nation. This was part of God’s sovereign setup: He had already sent Joseph to Egypt and arranged the seven good years and seven famine years to bring the whole tribe of Jacob down. After some 215 years in Egypt, Moses led out a company of anywhere from 5–7 million people, making Israel the greatest nation in that then-known world. So the prohibition was not permanent; God’s purpose for Egypt had changed for Jacob’s generation.
More Questions
Why did God forbid Isaac from going to Egypt but tell Jacob to go there?
God had told Isaac not to go down into Egypt but to sojourn in the land of promise, yet He now tells Jacob to go down into Egypt, which is a change.