THE “NOT YOUR USUAL STORY OF JOSEPH” BLOG

By Jill Roberts and Michael Canalé

 

Everybody already knows the Biblical story of Joseph! Anyone who has been in Sunday School or attended, however sporadically, even a few Church services, has heard about the Hebrew teenager whose jealous brothers threw him into a dry well and then arranged for him to be sold into slavery in Egypt. The story ends well, as you know, with Joseph reconciling with his brothers and saving both the Hebrew People and his family, as well as the world, from a famine which would have ended all of their lives.

 

Should you have been raised in an entirely secular setting, you would have likely heard about Joseph by seeing or by hearing of the storied musical, “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”

 

All this said, Michael and I suspect that there are central facts and fascinating themes concerning Joseph, about which you may NOT have heard or read. In this reading and study, there were for us.

 

THESE are what we want to focus on this week. One-fourth of the entire Book of Genesis covers Joseph’s life because it is both theologically and thematically important. Also, in addition to this, it is spellbinding, extremely interesting to the part of us that just loves a good yarn, a page-turner.

 

Michael and I want to focus this week on two of these themes and their connection. The first is generational sin, in this case, favoritism. The second, exile, in Scripture, follows the first theme as the night the day. To begin:

 

“Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age, and he made an ornate robe for him. When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.”

(Genesis 37:3-4)

 

(We are quoting from the NIV translation. It is more than significant that, in the Torah, the garment Jacob gave Joseph, is actually a “fine woolen coat.”)

 

These verses introduce a critical theme on which we have touched, in passing, in previous blogs. That is the problem of generational sin. Jacob was the favorite of his mother, Rebekah, as previously stated. Now, Joseph is Jacob’s favorite. Later, Joseph had two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. Joseph favored Ephraim and attempted to manipulate Jacob into giving him The Blessing, even though Manasseh is older than Ephraim. Jacob resists (Genesis 48: 12-15) NIV.

 

This, in turn, introduces the next major theme of the blog – EXILE as a consequence of such favoritism.

 

First, with regard to Jacob, he was forced into exile after he and his mother, Rebekah, who greatly favored him over his twin brother, Esau, successfully plotted to steal Isaac’s Blessing from Esau. When Esau learned that this had irreversibly occurred, Jacob had to run for his life and be gone for years. As a result of her favoritism for Jacob, Rebekah was deprived of the presence of her favorite son.

 

Also, with regard to Jacob, while in exile from home and working for Laban, Jacob, over time, was transformed in such a positive way, that God greatly honored him by renaming him Israel. Later, he also reconciled with his brother, Esau.

 

Now, to turn to this same pattern with regard to Joseph. Here, we will see arrogance changed to a state of kind humility and, as stated, Joseph’s reconciliation with his brothers. But, we don’t want to get ahead of this amazing story.

 

Like his father, Jacob, in his youth, seventeen-year-old Joseph was a very self-absorbed and arrogant young man:

 

“Joseph had a dream and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. He said to them, ‘Listen to this dream I had. MY SHEAF (of grain) ROSE AND STOOD UPRIGHT. While your sheaves gathered around mine and BOWED DOWN TO IT…Then he had another dream and he told his brothers…this time, sun and moon and eleven stars were BOWING DOWN TO ME.”

(Genesis 37:5-7) NIV

 

This favorite of his father and full of himself, openly claimed superiority over his brothers. This went over very poorly and Joseph found himself a slave in Egypt as a result of both favoritism and arrogance. Like Jacob, he was involuntarily removed from the presence of his parent who loved him more than any other child. In short, Joseph was in exile in Egypt.

 

God was faithful to Jacob when he was exiled and the same is very true of Joseph. First, Joseph was sold to be a slave in the official, Potiphar’s house. Where was God?

 

“The LORD was WITH JOSEPH so that he prospered…his master saw that the LORD gave him success in everything he did..,Potiphar put him IN CHARGE of his HOUSEHOLD…

(emphasis added)

(Genesis 39:2-4) NIV

 

Then, Joseph was wrongfully accused of sexually assaulting Potiphar’s wife and landed in prison. Where was God?

 

“But, while Joseph was there in the prison, the LORD WAS WITH HIM. ..So, the warden put Joseph IN CHARGE of all those held in the PRISON and he was made responsible for ALL that was done there…”

(emphasis added)

(Genesis 39:20-23) NIV

 

Still later, after correctly interpreting two of the Pharaoh’s dreams, with God’s instruction, the grateful Pharaoh said to Joseph:

 

“Since God has made all this known to you…you shall be IN CHARGE of my PALACE and all my people are to submit to your orders, Only with respect to the throne will I be greater than you…Pharaoh said to Joseph, ‘I hereby put you IN CHARGE of the whole land of EGYPT.”

(emphasis added)

(Genesis 41:39-41) NIV

 

Did Joseph’s original dream’s predictions come to pass? Yes – but to a very different man from the blustery youth who smugly predicted his brothers would bow down to him. Exile in Egypt had greatly changed him:

 

“His brothers then came and THREW THEMSELVES DOWN BEFORE HIM. ‘ We are your slaves,’ they said. But, Joseph said to them, ‘DON’T BE AFRAID. AM I IN THE PLACE OF GOD? YOU INTENDED to harm me, but GOD INTENDED IT FOR GOOD…the saving of many lives.”

(emphasis added)

(Genesis 50:18-21) NIV

 

Why was Jacob able to be transformed in exile? For the first time, he began to see God as He really is. He wrestled with Him because he had come to see that only GOD’S Blessing really counted. His father, Issac’s Blessing, the one he and Rebekah cheated Esau to get,  paled in comparison.

 

What about Joseph? Why did he gain both wisdom and kindness in Egyptian exile? It is for the same reason – He saw that, all along, it had been God behind the curtain of circumstance, pulling all the strings. Joseph is speaking:

 

“The reason the dream was given to Pharaoh in two forms is that the matter has been firmly DECIDED BY GOD AND GOD WILL DO IT SOON “

(emphasis added)

(Genesis 41:32) NIV

 

How humility had replaced arrogance in Joseph:

 

“I cannot do it,’ Joseph replied to Pharaoh, ‘ but GOD WILL GIVE Pharaoh the answers he desires.”

(emphasis added)

(Genesis 41:16) NIV

 

How it is justified to repeat the following idea and maturation of Joseph, as he speaks to his brothers:

 

“I am Joseph!..do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that GOD SENT ME AHEAD OF YOU…So then, IT WAS NOT YOU WHO SENT ME HERE BUT GOD…Now, hurry back to my father and say to him…This is what your son, Joseph, says, ‘GOD MADE ME LORD OF ALL EGYPT. Come down to me, don’t delay…”

(emphasis added)

(Genesis 45:3,5,7,9) NIV

 

It is highly interesting and true to human nature that, at one point in God’s great deliverance of His Chosen People and everyone else, Jacob, not yet seeing the full picture, cried out,

 

“EVERYTHING IS AGAINST ME!”

(emphasis added)

(Genesis 42:36) NIV

 

We hear this and don’t know whether to laugh or to cry. As the reader, we know that God is doing everything possible to save their lives. Yet, when a person is in the trenches…

 

How often we are like Jacob! God is working through providence, sometimes very tough providence, to bring us out whole on the other end of things. All the while, we are crying and complaining and understandably so. It’s extremely difficult to discern how God can turn challenging developments in our lives into astonishing victories. Until He does it, which he will…

 

This ancient book speaks to us today in many ways. What should we take away from this powerful story as its bottom line? Michael and I believe that it is this: At the end of the day, God is a loving God. When all the dust settles, God is a delivering God.