The African Connection
1. Which Egyptian woman was the grandmother of “twelve princes,” the grandchildren of Abraham?
2. Ishmaelite merchants sold a great-grandson of Abraham to which high official of Pharaoh in Egypt?
3. Which future ruler of the northern kingdom of Israel fled to Egypt for political asylum?
4. Which prophet was taken to Egypt by Judahites rebelling against Nebuchadnezzar?
5. Which child was carried to safety in Egypt by his parents in order to evade the evil intentions of murderous king?
6. A daughter of Pharaoh found and adopted what castaway baby?
7. Which king of Egypt plundered Jerusalem shortly after Solomon’s death?
8. Which New Testament evangelist baptized an Ethiopian treasury official who was traveling along the Jerusalem-Gaza road?
9. Who carried the cross for Jesus?
10. Who rescued Jeremiah from confinement in the cistern of Malchiah?
Prepared by Bill Ickes, of Berlin, Pennsylvania. BR’s most prolific quiz-master, Mr. Ickes has contributed seven previous quizzes to this department.
Answers
1. Hagar. Impatient at her inability to bear a child and so begin to fulfill God’s promise that Abram’s descendants would be as numerous as the stars in heaven, “Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian her maid, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife” (Genesis 16:3). Hagar conceived and bore a son she named Ishmael. Filled with jealousy even after having a son herself, Sarai (then Sarah) turned Hagar and Ishmael out into the desert. God protected them and brought them safely to Paran (in north central Sinai). There Ishmael eventually married an Egyptian woman and fathered twelve sons who became tribes from which modern Arab nations ascribe their heritage—fulfilling God’s promise to Ishmael’s abused mother, that her descendants too would be many.
2. Potiphar. Betrayed by his brothers into slavers’ hands, Joseph was bought by the captain of the guard at Pharaoh’s court, Potiphar, who made Joseph the overseer of his house and property. Joseph enjoyed great success in that household until Potiphar’s wife falsely accused him of sexual assault and he was imprisoned. There his talents for management and dream interpretation eventually earned him a job as “lord of all Egypt” (Genesis 45:9). Warned of an impending famine in a dream Joseph interpreted, Pharaoh appointed him to gather food, and ‘all the earth came to Egypt to Joseph to buy grain” (Genesis 41:57).
3. Jeroboam. Rending his new cloak into 12 pieces in graphic illustration, the prophet Ahijah told Jeroboam that, because Solomon had displeased God by worshiping idols, the Lord would “tear the kingdom from the hand of Solomon, and give … [Jeroboam] ten tribes” (1 Kings 11:31). “After this Solomon sought to kill Jeroboam, but he fled to King Shishak in Egypt and remained there till Solomon’s death” (1 Kings 11:40).
4. Jeremiah. Devastated by the Babylonian conquest of their land in the early 6th century B.C., the Israelite survivors turned to Jeremiah for guidance. Jeremiah told them the Lord would build them up again if they trusted in Him and remained in the land He had given them. The survivors, however, wanted to go to Egypt where starvation and annihilation seemed less likely. Jeremiah warned them, “All who insist on going to settle in Egypt will die by sword, famine, or pestilence …. Do not go to Egypt” (Jeremiah 42:17, 19). In fear and in distrust of the prophet’s words, Johanan son of Kareah and the captains of the armed bands collected the remnant of Judah, including Jeremiah, and went to Thahpanhes in Egypt. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon overtook them there, and the disaster they had been warned against befell them.
5. Jesus. When the wise men told King Herod that they were seeking the new king born in his kingdom of Judea, Herod was angry. An angel appeared to Jesus’ father, Joseph, and told him, “Get up, take the child and his mother and escape with them to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you; for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him” (Matthew 2:13). After Jesus’ family escaped, Herod slaughtered every boy under two years of age. Joseph and his family returned to Israel after Herod’s death, “to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt have I called my son’” (Matthew 2:15).
6. Moses. Circumventing Pharaoh’s edict to execute all male Hebrew children, Jochebed put her three-month-old son in the Nile in a waterproof basket near the Egyptian princess’s bathing site. Pharaoh’s daughter “took pity on him, and said, ‘This is one of the Hebrew’s children.’” Later, she “adopted him and called him Moses, ‘because,’ said she, ‘I drew him out of the water’” (Exodus 2:2–10).
7. Shishak. Identified as Sheshonk I, a Libyan who established the XXII Dynasty, Shishak exploited the division between Israel and Judah (and their kings Jeroboam and Rehoboam) by invading their lands. The prophet Shemaiah warned the king and leaders of Judah, “This is the word of the Lord: ‘You have abandoned me; therefore I now abandon you to Shishak’” (2 Chronicles 12:5). In 926 B.C., the Egyptian leader took away the treasures of Solomon’s Temple and the royal palace. Carvings in the temple at Karnak, Egypt, depict his victory and name towns he assaulted, including Megiddo, Beth-Shean, Shunem, Ajalon and Ta’anach.
8. Philip. An angel told him to approach a high official of the queen of Ethiopia who, his pilgrimage over, was leaving Jerusalem in his chariot. “When Philip ran up he heard him reading from the prophet Isaiah and asked, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ He [the official] said, ‘How can I without someone to guide me’ and invited Philip to get in and sit beside him.” Philip “told him the good news of Jesus,” baptized him and vanished from sight—at which the official “went on his way rejoicing” (Acts 8:30–31, 35–39).
9. Simon of Cyrene. Founded in 603 B.C. on a spot ten miles from the Mediterranean coast (in modern-day Libya), Cyrene was a fertile oasis and the home of several converts to Christianity who traveled to Jerusalem. Roman soldiers seized one of these, Simon, “the father of Alexander and Rufus,” as he entered Jerusalem, and “putting the cross on his back they made him carry it behind Jesus” (Mark 15:21; Luke 23:26).
10. Ebed-melech. This Ethiopian (or Cushite) servant of King Zedekiah courageously intervened to save Jeremiah from death by starvation at the bottom of a well. Imprisoned by angry people in the besieged city because he had counseled surrender, Jeremiah was pulled up out of the cistern by a harness made of rope and rag after Ebed-melech convinced the king that it was wrong to leave him there. God rewarded the African expatriate for his fidelity in a special message: “These are the words of the Lord of Hosts the God of Israel: … I shall preserve you … and you will not be handed over to the men you fear. I shall keep you safe … because you trusted in me” (Jeremiah 39:15–18).