As God unfolded His greater purpose, He selected Abram, an inhabitant of Ur some 140 miles (225 kilometers) southeast of Babylon, along the Euphrates River. Abram lived about twenty centuries before the birth of Christ (2000 B.C., that is, 2000 years “before Christ”). Abram was like Noah in that God “found his heart faithful” (Nehemiah 9:8) when others rejected God and worshiped idols they had made for themselves. God gave Abram the new name Abraham and made with him the covenant—the solemn agreement—that eventually would benefit all peoples. God promised,
I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing…. in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. (Genesis 12:2-3)
I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore…. and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice. (Genesis 22:17-18)
God made Abraham a wanderer in Canaan, a fruitful land beside the Mediterranean Sea. His son Isaac and his grandson Jacob—whom God renamed “Israel”—were also nomads in that land, which God promised to give to their descendants… but not immediately. For the next part, we follow Stephen’s summary as recorded in Acts 7.
God spoke to this effect—that [Abraham’s] offspring would be sojourners in a land belonging to others, who would enslave them and afflict them four hundred years. “But I will judge the nation that they serve,” said God, “and after that they shall come out and worship Me in this place.” (Acts 7:6-7)
These descendants of Abraham became known as the children of Israel or Israelites. The nation that enslaved them was Egypt. The tribes that came from Israel were Reuben (the firstborn), Simeon, Levi (later to become the priestly tribe), Judah (later to become the royal tribe), Issachar, Zebulun, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Benjamin and Joseph (represented by the two tribes that came from his sons Ephraim and Manasseh).