These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his household: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. All the descendants of Jacob were seventy persons; Joseph was already in Egypt. Then Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation.
Exodus 1:1-6
There are different ways of analysing the book of Exodus. One is to take as its three main themes, History (1-19), Law (20-24) and Worship (25-40), and this is perhaps the simplest and most obvious analysis. Another is to analyse it 'typically', as follows: The story of the Redeemer (1, 2); the story of redemption (3-14); the story of the redeemed (15-40). It is important, however, if the first be followed, to note that both law and worship follow the account of redemption, and flow from it as a necessary consequence. Neither law nor worship are properly understood except in this context.
The story begins, then, with Israel in Egypt. And the question that naturally arises is: How does it come about that God's people are in this bondage in Egypt? Two answers may be given to this question. The first is that the sin of Joseph's brethren against him brought the whole family down from the Promised Land into bondage. The connection with Egypt dates from their selling Joseph as a slave to the Ishmaelites. And although secondary causes certainly operated in the situation, such as the famine in Canaan, this must not blind us to the ultimate factor in the case. It is one of the great lessons of the earlier books of the Bible that sin is something over which man loses control once he indulges in it. The second answer to the question is that God saw that the family He had chosen needed purging from its sin, worldliness and false gods before He could further His purposes in and through them. Thus, in a marvellously mysterious way, even evil is made to yield good in the sovereign control God has in the history of men.