Israel - A Seed Of Evildoers

3.  A Seed Of Evildoers

“Seed” comes from a word meaning to sow, to scatter, or to disperse. It is a very common word and is applied to seed sown in a field, for instance in Judges. 6:3 to specify the time of year in which Israel’s enemies would launch attacks against them:

“So it was, whenever Israel had sown (literally “seeded”), Midianites would come up; also Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them”.

It is used in Genesis 1:11-12 uses the word to signify that when God created the world He created it to reproduce itself:

^11 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so. ^12 And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Genesis 47:23 likewise uses the term agriculturally when it speaks of Goshen and the provision that Joseph made for Jacob and his brothers when the came down into Egypt.

“Then Joseph said to the people, ‘Indeed I have bought you and your land this day for Pharaoh. Look, here is seed for you, and you shall sow the land’”.

Specifically, it speaks of plants set out, or engrafted; or to planting,and thus was used of transplanting a nation. Isaiah used in Isa. 17:10:

‘And thou shalt set it (shalt sow, or plant it) with strange slips.’

That is why it came to be applied, metaphorically, to children, posterity, descendants, from the resemblance to seed sown, and to a harvest springing up, and spreading.

The word is applied by way of eminence to the Jews, as being the seed or posterity of Abraham, according to the promise that his seed should be as the stars of heaven.  God had made a great promise to Abram.  Genesis 12:7 says:

Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” And there he built an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.

A part of that promise was that Abram’s posterity would be numberless – they would spring up and be like the dust of the earth.  Genesis 13:15-16 says:

^15 for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever. ^16 And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants also could be numbered.

…or like the stars of the heavens - Genesis 15:5:

^5 Then He brought him outside and said, “Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”

All of this by way of covenant (v18-20)

^18 On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying:

“To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates— ^19 the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, ^20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, ^21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.” .

Genesis 17:7

And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you.

This brings out the contrast that is intended here. Abraham’s seed was intended, among other things to be a seed of godliness, a root of holiness among the nations, to demonstrate God’s goodness and His holiness, his grace and His mercy to the nations round and about. God’s intention in raising up a nation from Abraham was to raise up a nation that was different, not one that was the same!

What happened, on the other hand, was that Israel ended up just like all of the nations around them. Instead of being the offspring of the godly heritage that God had planted, they were the seed of the ungodly peoples around them. Godliness was intended to be handed down from generation to generation but that had not happened. Instead of being the brood of the godly, Israel had ended up being the brood of ungodly. Their heritage was that of wickedness and judgment, rather than that of goodness and blessing.

This is always the case when the people of God seek to be too much like the people around them instead of seeking to remain separate and allowing God to bring the world to them.  It is surely true that we are to go out into the world to see win the lost and make disciples, but we must take great care NOT to do so in such a fashion that we become like the world in the process.  That is extremely important!  When we become like the world we lose the ability to win them.