Joseph and His Brothers

Most of us know the story: Joseph was the favored son of Jacob. Jacob's love, his wife Rachel, only had two sons, Joseph and Benjamin, although he had twelve sons altogether, and Benjamin was still pretty young. So, already the older brothers are jealous, because Jacob's favoritism is obvious, but then Joseph starts spouting off about dreams that he has had (the sun and moon and eleven stars bowed down to me). The dreams were actually prophesies about the family showing obeisance to Joseph because he made it possible for them to survive the upcoming famine, but, at the time, they just seemed to be boastings of a boy who thought way too much of himself.
One day, the brothers found themselves alone with Joseph, and their father was way out of sight, and some of the brothers started scheming to kill Joseph. Reuben intervened, not because he was less jealous of Joseph than the others, but because he had some idea of what it would do to their father if something happened to Joseph (the beloved son). He talked them into putting Joseph into a pit, while he tried to think of a way to rescue Joseph. In the meantime, some merchants came by, and some of the other brothers decided to sell Joseph as a slave; that way, they got rid of him, and picked up a little extra cash, too. They took his coat, smeared blood on it, and showed it to Jacob. Jacob believed that his most beloved son had been killed by a wild animal, and mourned his loss. I think that the brothers had second thoughts, then, as Ruben had expected, but it was too late. They didn't even know where their brother was.
Years later, after going through a lot of stuff, Joseph is called in to interpret a dream for Pharaoh. The dream is, of course, prophecy about the famine. Joseph tells Pharaoh that he needs to pick a man of wisdom to collect a portion of the crop yield for the next seven years, so that it can be stored and used during the seven years of famine. Pharaoh figures that Joseph was the only man wise enough to interpret the dream, so he's the perfect choice to oversee the collection and distribution of food for the next fourteen years. The famine turns out to be considerably more widespread than just Egypt, but Jacob and his sons hear that there is food in Egypt. The ten oldest sons go down to Egypt with money to buy food. Joseph gives them food, but he toys with them a little. I think part of him wants to punish them for what they did to him, but, mostly, I think he wants to know if they have developed some moral fiber in the years since he last saw them.
One thing that is very clear, as you read the story: Even after all he has been through, Joseph still loves his brothers. He isn't sure how they feel about him, but they seem to have written him off as dead. Of course, they've been pretending that he is dead with their father for years, so maybe this is just force of habit. Possibly they are afraid that word will get back to their father; perhaps Reuben doesn't know what really happened to Joseph, even now. As Joseph pushes and prods his brothers, trying to find out what kind of men they really are, now, it becomes increasingly difficult for him to keep up the pretense. He has to walk away, weep, wash his face, and come back. He sets Benjamin up, the only other son of Joseph's late mother, and waits to see what the other brothers will do. The brothers could easily have walked away; Oh well, Dad's second favorite son is gone, too. They stayed, and they pleaded for Benjamin. This time, Reuben wasn't the only one who thought about what the loss would mean to their father. Eventually, Joseph broke down and revealed himself to his brothers, and told them to go get Jacob, and return, and live in Egypt, and he will take care of them.
Interestingly enough, Joseph’s mother had already died by the time all this happened, and there is no mention of Leah dying, or migrating to Egypt. The prophecy was that Joseph’s parents and brothers should show him obeisance, so, in the absence of his mother, I am assuming that his father’s other wife was represented by the moon in Joseph’s dream. Apparently Leah did make the trip, even though it isn’t specifically mentioned.
In any case, family is important. We won’t always agree with, or even understand, some of the things that our relatives do, but they are still family. We should love and respect our families, even when we have to disagree with them. Jesus made it clear that we shouldn’t let even our closest relatives keep us from living the life of a Christian, but we should still care for them.

UPDATE: It was pointed out to me that I inadvertantly wrote Joseph twice where I should have written Jacob. That has been corrected. My apologies for any confusion this may have caused.

Betrothed

One of the questions that I drove people nuts with as a kid was, "Why did Mary tell the angel that she didn't know a man, when she knew Joseph?" Of course, nobody wanted to explain to me that when they say 'know' in the Bible, they aren't talking about what I thought they were talking about.

Of course, as an adult, then I had people tell me, "Oh, well you have to understand what the word 'betrothed' means." I know what the word betrothed means, but the Bible doesn't say that Joseph and Mary were betrothed, it says that they were espoused. Espoused means exactly what it sounds like: They were spouses; husband and wife.

But that pretty much brings us back to the original question: Why did Mary tell the angel that she knew not a man? Why was she so sure that she was not going to bear her husband's child? My father actually put me on the right track for that one, a couple of Christmas's ago; he made the comment that marriage traditions must have been very different back then.

They were. Boys and girls, and even young men and young women, lived with their parents until they were married. Even then, once the ceremony had taken place, it was the man's responsibility to get a job, if he didn't already have one, and find a piece of land, buy it, build on it, and, when he had their home ready, then he would come back to his wife (who was still living with her parents) and take her to their home. In other words, he would go away, and prepare a place for her. This had the added benefit of additional proof, even if only to the young couple, that they actually married for love, and not for sex. So, even though Mary and Joseph were married when the angel came, he was away building a house. She didn't expect him back for many months, certainly not within the time frame that the angel indicated. How can this be? What will my husband say when he comes back and finds me pregnant (or perhaps a mother)? All legitimate concerns, but God had the answer. So, when Joseph came back, and found his wife pregnant, and knowing it wasn't his, he was nice enough that he was going to divorce Mary quietly, without making any accusations, but the angel appeared to him, and talked him out of it. So their neighbors just assumes that Joseph took his honeymoon a little early. At least they didn't think that Mary and Joseph had sinned, by getting together before their marriage, just that they had taken some liberties with tradition.

He Knew the End From the Beginning

God knew the end from the beginning. He doesn't always share with us His plan, because He wants us to walk in faith and to trust Him. In some cases, He puts us in situations on purpose to build our faith. In those instances, He knows the end, but He doesn't tell us how it's going to work out, to help us learn to trust Him. He has our best interests in mind, even when we don't.

I think most, if not all, of us are familiar with the story of Moses. Jochebed put her son in a little ark in the Nile river, because Pharaoh had ordered that all Jewish baby boys were to be killed. I don't know how many times I read that story before it registered that God never told her that He was going to save that baby--much less use him to lead Israel out of Egypt. It must have at least occurred to her that she might be putting her baby in the river just so that she wouldn't know when he died. She also knew that she couldn't follow the basket as the current carried it downstream; that would have attracted attention to it. Instead she sent her daughter, Miriam, to see what would happen to the baby. Miriam followed, until the basket attracted the attention of Pharaoh's daughter, who was bathing downstream. I wonder what Miriam thought when Pharaoh's daughter pulled the child from the basket. But Miriam, even at a young age, had the wisdom to speak up when the princess decided to adopt the baby, and offer to 'find' a Hebrew woman to nurse the child. This is something that also went over my head for a long time. They didn't have formula. She could have given the baby cow's milk, but I don't think that practice was widespread then. The obvious solution was to get one of the Hebrew women, whose baby had been killed while she was lactating, to feed the baby. So, because Jochebed obeyed God, and Miriam obeyed her mother, Jochebed was able to see that her son did indeed survive the river.

Even before that, God sent Abram out from his home, in search of a promised land. After Abram, but before Moses, God sent Joseph into Egypt (as a slave!) to prepare for a famine that would have wiped out Israel, but didn't, because Joseph was faithful.

The Bible has lots of stories like these three, and yet, so often we get direction from God, and we make excuses. "But, God, I don't understand how this is going to help." "I don't see any benefit to this." "I can't do this" (as if God doesn't know what we can do). Romans 8:28 says, "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose." Yet, so often we need His help to deal with our unbelief.