The Mixed Multitude

Gen. 50 - And when the days of weeping for him were past, Joseph spoke to the household of Pharaoh, saying, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, please speak in the ears of Pharaoh, saying,  ‘My father made me swear, saying, “I am about to die: in my tomb that I hewed out for myself in the land of Canaan, there shall you bury me.” Now therefore, let me please go up and bury my father. Then I will return.’”  And Pharaoh answered, “Go up, and bury your father, as he made you swear.”

Exodus 5 - Afterward Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.’” 2 But Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.”

A fairly obvious contrast between Pharaohs, when you put them side by side, echoing what we’re told in Ex. 1: “Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.” Both “goings out” were announced as being for occasional purposes, the first a funeral, the second a feast to Yahweh.

Genesis 50 - 7 So Joseph went up to bury his father. With him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his household, and all the elders of the land of Egypt, 8 as well as all the household of Joseph, his brothers, and his father's household. Only their children, their flocks, and their herds were left in the land of Goshen. 9 And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen. It was a very great company.

Exodus 12 - 37 And the people of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children. 38 A mixed multitude also went up with them, and very much livestock, both flocks and herds. 

In both cases a mixed body of those who were children of Abraham and those who weren’t went out to participate alongside of Israel. By “mixed multitude”, we’re told that it wasn’t only Israelites who went with Israel when they left Egypt, but others who were living in the land, probably including Egyptians and those from other places who were living in Egypt but neither Egyptian nor Hebrew. 

Any semblance of a “racially pure” Hebrew people disappeared fairly early in Israel’s history. Even Joseph married a daughter of an Egyptian. The covenant was kept and passed from generation to generation, from fathers to their sons. But while the covenant with God was familial, it was never racial. Israel was always “mixed”, however one might try to define that.

At that point the contrast that supposedly exists between Israel and the Church falls apart. Israel was never a racially pure entity in such a way that distinguishes it from the New Covenant body we call the Church. Isaiah stresses over several chapters that the Good News is that Yahweh’s covenant body Israel would spread the corners of her tent so that the Gentile nations could come in and join eternally with her in covenant with Yahweh, so that all peoples of the earth could be a part of Israel.

3 

Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say,

    “The Lord will surely separate me from his people”;

and let not the eunuch say,

    “Behold, I am a dry tree.”

4 

For thus says the Lord:

“To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,

    who choose the things that please me

    and hold fast my covenant,

5 

I will give in my house and within my walls

    a monument and a name

    better than sons and daughters;

I will give them an everlasting name

    that shall not be cut off.

6 

“And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord,

    to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord,

    and to be his servants,

everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it,

    and holds fast my covenant—

7 

these I will bring to my holy mountain,

    and make them joyful in my house of prayer;

their burnt offerings and their sacrifices

    will be accepted on my altar;

for my house shall be called a house of prayer

    for all peoples.”

8 

The Lord God,

    who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares,

“I will gather yet others to him

    besides those already gathered.” (Isaiah 56)

And, as Paul says, Jew and Gentile have been made one in Christ. What already existed has merely been amplified in the New Covenant, as the people of God were detached from any earthly national body known as Israel to become a new, trans-national creation. What remains is a people and a kingdom whose King is physically seated and ruling in Heaven over all creation. There is no “Replacement Theology”. The Church is Israel.