But then God acted: the One who makes poor and makes rich, who kills and gives life, who makes and transforms everything simply by willing it. He turns night into day, winter into spring, storm into calm, and drought into abundant rain, often in answer to the prayer of a single righteous person who has suffered long persecution. He raises the meek on high and brings sinners down to the ground. Then God said to Himself: “I have surely seen the suffering of Israel. They will no longer be made to toil in clay and brickmaking.”
Once He said it, He visited them, and in visiting them He saved them. Then He led His people out with a mighty hand and an uplifted arm, by the hand of Moses and Aaron, His chosen ones.
What happened then? What wonders took place? The things recorded in books and records. Passing over all the wonders on the way and that great commotion, let me put it as briefly as possible. One Joseph went down into Egypt, and not long afterward six hundred thousand came out of Egypt. What could be more wonderful than this? What could be a greater proof of God’s generosity than His choosing to make a way where there was no way?
The promised land is given as an inheritance through one man who was hated. The man who was sold drives out nations and himself becomes a great nation. That little shoot becomes a flourishing vine, so great that it reaches the rivers and stretches to the sea. It spreads from boundary to boundary, covers mountains with the height of its glory, and rises above the cedars—even the cedars of God, whatever we are to understand these mountains and cedars to mean.