Tag Archives: Joseph

Day 18: Grain and Grief

Genesis 42-43; Matthew 14:1-21

The seven years of plenty that occurred in the land of Egypt came to an end, and the seven years of famine began to come, as Joseph had said. There was famine in all lands, but in all the land of Egypt there was bread (Genesis 41:53-54).

Genesis 42 begins with an abrupt change of scene. After four chapters devoted to Joseph’s life in Egypt, we suddenly are back in Canaan, and guess what? There is no food. Jacob sends all of his sons to Egypt to buy grain, but he keeps Benjamin at home – for fear that he should lose him just as he lost Joseph. Joseph and Benjamin were Rachel’s only sons. Jacob’s love for Rachel extends beyond her grave to her sons…

The dreams that Joseph had as a young boy in Canaan (Genesis 37:5-11) begin to come to pass. As his brothers come to Joseph, the governor of Egypt, to buy grain, they bow before him with their faces to the ground. The text says, “And Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him. And Joseph remembered the dreams that he had dreamed of them” (Genesis 42:8).

These two chapters begin the dramatic story of reconciliation. Joseph cautiously conceals his identity from his brothers, and he chooses to speak with them through an interpreter.  He understands them when they talk of remorse over what they had done to him years earlier, and he has to turn away so they do not see him weeping. Moved with compassion he sends  his brothers away with grain but devises a plan for them to return with his younger brother, Benjamin. And much to Jacob’s distress, the brothers return to Egypt a 2nd time with Benjamin in tow.

This story is tense with emotion as it builds to Joseph revealing himself to his brothers in Chapter 45. Today’s reading in Matthew is also wrought with emotion. Jesus, having just learned that John the Baptist was beheaded, seeks to grieve and pray alone… But the crowds won’t let him, and continue to follow him. The familiar story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 takes on a new light when you read it in the context of Jesus’ grief over John the Baptist. The time that Jesus spends with the crowds in the midst of his difficult circumstances only serves to magnify His compassion.

Both readings end in the middle of a story… So, until tomorrow… :-)

Day 17: His Kingdom

Genesis 41; Matthew 13

The first words of Genesis 41 are… “After two whole years, Pharaoh [had a dream].” How many years passed between chapters 40 and 41?? Yep. Two whole years. Not just two years, but two whole years, Joseph had been sitting in prison waiting. waiting. waiting. After no one in the land could interpret Pharaoh’s dream, the chief cupbearer remembered Joseph from prison and how he had interpreted his dream. And just like that, Joseph is standing (freshly bathed and shaved with new clothes) before Pharaoh!

Joseph predicts there will be 7 years of plenty and 7 years of famine. He then lays out a plan to prepare the land of Egypt for the famine. Pharaoh is so impressed… he makes Joseph his 2nd in command!! Only God could bring someone from the depths of the pit and exalt him to the leader of the land!

Who else was his father’s favorite son, rejected by his brothers, betrayed for pieces of silver, was unjustly accused, rescued from the pit and exalted to sit at the right hand of the King?? Jesus. Joseph points to Jesus.

Another parallel between Joseph and Jesus is that they are both rulers of a Kingdom. In Matthew 13, we see Jesus teaching about His Kingdom.

The Kingdom is a place with a ruler, a law and a people.

  • The place is here – but ultimately, the place will be the new earth.
  • We see the law personified as Jesus lives on the earth – He shows us compassion, humility, righteous anger, grace, forgiveness. Jesus also teaches the law of His Kingdom, i.e. the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7).
  • God is gathering a people for His Kingdom. These are the people who understand and live to obey his teaching (or law).

Jesus explains in Matthew 13 that only the people of His Kingdom can understand his teaching (vs. 13-17). He teaches that His people will live side by side (on this earth, in this place) with those outside the Kingdom until the last day – when the angels separate the good from the righteous (vs. 24-30; 47-50).

He teaches that His Kingdom will begin small, and seem insignificant, but will grow to take over the whole place (vs. 31-33).

He also teaches the value of the Kingdom – it is like treasure – and worth great sacrifice (vs. 44-46).

What Kingdom to you belong to? Who is your ruler? What law do you live under? Are you part of God’s people? Jesus teaches that admission into His Kingdom requires perfection. And if you can’t meet the standard, then you must pay a price. That price is death. But. Jesus paid the price for you – which makes your admission to His Kingdom – not free – but paid in full.

Are you willing to go into His place, to live under His law and to be a part of His people? And if you are a part of His Kingdom… do you realize the treasure you have been given??

Day 16: God with us

Genesis 38-40; Matthew 12:22-50

Genesis 38 is… strange. My first reaction is, “Why is this in the bible? And why is it right in the middle of Joseph’s story?” The scandalous story just seems out-of-place… until you read the genealogy of Christ in Matthew 1, and Judah, Tamar and Perez are all mentioned as being in the family line. We learn that Judah is the one son out of Jacob’s 12 sons by which the promised savior would come. If we were to choose, we would probably have chosen Joseph, but we don’t get to choose! Judah’s story is sandwiched in the middle of the story of Joseph. It makes the contrast between the brothers crystal clear. Again, God’s ways are not our ways (and we should be thankful for that!)

Genesis 39 is our first glimpse of Joseph in Egypt. Remember, he is now a slave. Three times we read that “the Lord was with Joseph” in this chapter. I think the writer wants us to notice that the Lord was with Joseph!

The Lord was with Joseph, and he became a successful man, and he was in the house of his Egyptian master. His master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord caused all that he did to succeed in his hands (Genesis 39:2-3).

Joseph was wrongly accused by his slave master’s wife, and put in prison.

But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. And the keeper of the prison put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners who were in the prison (Genesis 39:21-22).

And the third time:

The keeper of the prison paid no attention to anything that was in Joseph’s charge, because the Lord was with him. And whatever he did, the Lord made it succeed (Genesis 39:23).

Think about how difficult life must have been for Joseph. It was bad enough that he was a slave, but now he’s in prison! But, I love this part of the story of Joseph… It is the middle of his story, and typically the middle of a story is the hardest. My daughter, Anne, suffers from a brain injury. We have no idea how much Anne will recover, if she’ll ever be able to walk, read or take care of herself. Our dream is for her to make it to college. Right now, that dream seems impossible – but we are in the middle of her story. And what makes living in the middle of a story difficult is that you don’t know how the story will end…

But.

The Lord was with Joseph in the middle of his story. And God is with our family as we live in the middle of Anne’s story. This is a great comfort to me.

In Genesis 40, we start to see how God will use Joseph’s difficult circumstances for good. Pharaoh became angry with two of his servants and threw them in the same prison as Joseph. Joseph interpreted the dreams of these two men. This detail will become very important in tomorrow’s reading… But who knew Joseph would be referred to Pharaoh through someone he met in prison? God knew, so he made sure Joseph was in prison at just the right time to meet a servant of Pharaoh! I love the way God works.

Turning to Matthew, I’m thinking that I need Joseph to interpret all of the difficult passages found in today’s reading! I’m not even going to try to comment on Matthew 12:22-50 except to say that the context of this section of Scripture is that Jesus begins to face opposition in his ministry, specifically from the Pharisees and other religious leaders. And we’ll see later in Matthew that Jesus has little patience for the hypocrisy and hard-heartedness of the Pharisees!

Day 15: Good in spite of evil

Genesis 36-37; Matthew 12:1-21

The deaths of Rachel and Isaac in Genesis 35 and the settling of Esau away from his brother in Genesis 36 mark the end of Jacob’s story. The narrative now turns toward Joseph, Jacob’s favorite son. Joseph’s story will continue to the end of Genesis – making it the longest narrative in the book.

Joseph has been a great source of comfort to me since my daughter’s accident. Joseph is one of the few characters in the bible who suffers greatly and also learns the reason for the suffering before his death. If you look at the sweeping narrative of Joseph’s story, you see God’s hand orchestrating each circumstance so that Joseph would be used to save the whole family of Israel, and therefore, preserve the lineage from which the promised savior would come.

We’ll walk through his story slowly over the next week – savoring each detail – as we also look forward to Jesus’ life as portrayed in Matthew.

Genesis 37 introduces us to Joseph. His father loves him, but his brothers are jealous of his preferential treatment and they hate him. The hate intensifies as Joseph shares his dreams with his family… dreams of him ruling over his brothers and father. These dreams provoke Joseph’s brothers to conspire to kill him. Judah, however, convinces the others not to shed blood, so instead they sell Joseph to slave traders making their way to Egypt.

Who gave Joseph these dreams? This is an important question because it was the dreams that pushed the brothers to such an evil act. But we learn later, that it was imperative that Joseph go to Egypt – for it was only from Egypt that Joseph could save the family. Joseph had no idea of his destiny. He only knew his present – that he would probably be separated from his family for his lifetime – serving as a slave in Egypt. That’s quite a sad turn-around in Joseph’s life, but we will see that God was with Joseph every step of the way… God was with Joseph in Egypt.

But let’s turn to look at what Jesus is up to in Matthew’s reading for there are parallels to Joseph’s predicament. Jesus, was not conforming to the strict Sabbath laws of the Pharisees. The Pharisees hated Jesus for this – for Jesus spoke truth to them and said, “the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath” (Matthew 12:8).

This intensified the Pharisee’s anger and we read in vs. 14 that “the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him.”

In both cases, God used the anger and jealousy in the hearts of men as a piece in his master-plan. God’s will will not be thwarted! This is a good reminder for me as it is easy to lose sight of God’s goodness in the midst of mass killings, extreme poverty, and innocent war casualties. Not much has changed since Joseph’s time. God still has a plan, and despite the evilness in this world, his good plan will come to pass!