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five, we continue in our series on the patriarchs. So, um, praise the Lord. He got us through some technical difficulties this morning. I’m told that spiritual warfare occurs in church media systems, and I believe that. But so far so good. I love to to think about what the Apostle Paul said, but the word of God is not bound. It’s certainly not bound by technology. It’s not bound by anything else. if you would turn in your Bibles to Genesis 37. We’ll be entirely in Genesis 37 today. Um, just want to say thanks to uh to Dave and Jose um and Ian for their faithful teaching so far.
We’ve really benefited from that and we’ll continue in that stream today. And uh for some reason this remote stopped working, Lyndon, so I’m not Oh, there we go. It’s a little slow. Okay.
Okay, I will. All right, as we usually do, just a a couple of verses of scripture to wet our appetite and prepare us before we pray.
Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons because he was the son of his old age. And he made him a very colored tunic. And his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers. And so they hated him and could not speak to him in peace. Then fast forward later in the chapter, we would see that hatred acted out. Right?
Then some Midionite traders passed by.
So they pulled him up and lifted Joseph out of the pit and sold Joseph to the IshRaelites for 20 shekels of silver.
Thus they brought Joseph into Egypt. And as we fast forward into the life of Joseph, did they really send Joseph to Egypt? There’s more to that, and we’ll discover that as we go along. Here’s a verse from Psalm 33 that’s been precious to me as we think about the spiritual realities that are behind the scenes that we see in the narrative. Right? The Lord nullifies the council of the nations. He frustrates the plans of the peoples. The council of the Lord stands forever the plans of his heart from generation to generation. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen for his own inheritance. We see that played out in our narrative today. And with us with that, let let me pray for us. Father God, help us to see your purposes not only in this narrative today, but all the way through redemptive history and even into our own lives. Thank you that you navigate the sin and deception of man to accomplish your eternal purposes. Like Joseph, Father, may you make us humble and faithful in all circumstances. Guide our steps, illumin our hearts, transform us into your image through this time together. We pray.
Amen. Amen. All right. Hope you’re in Genesis 37. Uh our outline is pretty much the same throughout the week as we try to teach some principles of good inductive Bible study. We’re going to give some scriptural and historical background um do some observations from the text, some interpretation and correlation and some application. So um in the past we’ve kind of left some space for questions as we go. We’re going to kind of save those toward the end unless unless I prompt you. So what you’ll see is there will be questions on the slides and I will both give the questions and the answers. Okay? Uh and then at the end we’ll I’ll try to give some generous time for us to interact.
Okay? And I know that you will take advantage of that time. I I can see you’re you’re ready for it. Uh so I’m looking forward to that. What I love about that is you God is impressing things on our hearts through this time.
This is a spiritual exercise as the Holy Spirit illumines our hearts. So that’s what makes it so exciting. Some of the things that I will say I’m hearing for the first time too. Uh so that’s a sign that God is our teacher. So praise God for that. Okay, just a little bit of background leading up to Genesis 37. Uh God made a covenant with Abraham over 200 years earlier than this narrative.
God reaffirmed that covenant with Isaac.
So we’re going from Genesis 12 now to Genesis to Genesis 26. Um God proclaimed the covenant to Jacob. We see that reaffirmed in Genesis 28. So now we see those often times we see in the New Testament and throughout you hear that you see those three names together Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, right? And you see this this stream, this flow of God reaffirming his covenant through those generations. And in Genesis 35, God called Jacob to move from Sheckchham to Bethl. And God changed Jacob’s name to Israel and confirmed his covenant to make him a great nation. And so we see God’s purposes continue to unfold through the generations. Very exciting. In Genesis 37, just a little bit of background before we read it. Jacob was 91 years old when Joseph was born to Rachel and Heron. Sometimes we forget how old these guys were at the time. You know, we sometimes we think of them as young men when in fact they were they were older.
Joseph lived with his large family in Haron for another six years until Jacob finally fled from Laban, his father-in-law. And after 20 years of servitude, Jacob returned to Canaan. See if we can get these one at a time. And Jacob had 12 sons. Uh, six from Leah, two from Rachel, and four from their maidervants. Kind of a mess, right? And we see that played out uh as the siblings relate to each other in unhealthy ways in our narrative today. And Jacob loved Rachel and her sons more than Leah and hers. And we see this, we’ve already seen this throughout several generations, right? We’ve seen favoritism play in. People trying to manipulate the situation to their own advantage. And what comes out of that?
God’s eternal purposes. It’s amazing.
That’s not an excuse for us to sin, but it’s a reassurance for us that we cannot thwart God’s purposes. There’s no way uh as my friend Danny says that God is relentless, and that’s a good thing.
He’s relentless. All right, let me go ahead and just read uh Genesis 37. We’ll read the first 11 verses to start. Now, Jacob lived in the land where his father had sojourned, in the land of Canaan. These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, when 17 years of age, was pastoring the flock with his brothers while he was still a youth, along with the sons of Bilha and the sons of Zilpa, his father’s wives.
And Joseph brought back an evil report about them to their father. Now, Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons, because he was the son of his old age.
And he made him a very colored tunic.
and his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers and so they hated him and could not speak to him in peace. Then Joseph had a dream and he told it to his brothers so they hated him even more. And he said to them, “Please listen to this dream which I have had. Indeed, behold, we were binding sheav in the field and behold my sheath rose up and also stood upright and behold your sheav gathered around and bowed down to my sheath.” Then his brothers said to him, “Are you really going to reign over us or are you really going to rule over us?” So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words. We’re seeing a p pattern there.
Their love for their brother is not growing. Their hatred is growing. Then he had still another dream and recounted it to his brothers. You’d think he would stop at this point, right? But he he keeps going and you wonder about that. Um, behold, I have had still another dream. And behold, the sun and the moon and the 11 stars were bowing down to me. And he recounted it to his father, to his brothers. And his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream that you have had? Shall I and your mother and your brothers really come to bow ourselves down before you to the ground?” And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind. Here’s another pattern we see.
in the natural order particularly at that time the oldest was the most prominent and that has certainly not been the case has it so far in the book of Genesis I think our Lord is trying to tell us something with that so let’s go ahead and proceed with some questions uh and as I just mentioned where was Joseph in the birth order he was the last one one before they left Haran so only Benjamin is younger so he was the 11th of 12 children. How old was Joseph at this time? And it says explicitly in the text that he was 17. And from this we can conclude that they had been back in Canaan for 10 or 11 years since they had arrived. So they they had settled in. How is the relationship between Israel and Joseph described? And it’s very explicit here. Israel loved Joseph more than the other children because he was the son of his old age. Now I when I read this personally I feel this a little bit because I’ve got kind of two sons of my old age. Some of you may know that we had four children.
Noel was the youngest. Um we weren’t planning on having any more. U but as is so often the case, the Lord did not consult me uh on his plans and he just went ahead. And so we have Lee who’s in Lancaster and Jackson who’s working the sound booth today. And there’s a really interesting affection that has happened.
I was I was born just a couple weeks after I turned Lee was born just a couple weeks after I turned 40. And that was a really uh unusual time. And so I I can understand the affection of having younger children at an older age because I think you appreciate it more. You’re a little more seasoned. I think the dad that Lee and Jackson have experienced and I is a little bit more sanctified uh than the one that that Noel and the other kids have experienced. Praise the Lord. I think the Lord knew that I needed a lot of work as a parent. And so that’s why he did that. But you can understand that, can’t you? Um and one of the one of the things that we thought about when our kids were born, our younger kids were born, is that I have kind of this unique paranoia about not spoiling the younger kids. Does that make sense? I really I’d seen that happen in other families and I just didn’t want that to happen. All that to say, not to make this about me, but you can understand the affection and the different dynamic of having younger kids, especially when um Israel had a wife who he loved more than the others, which was unfortunate. So, we can I think on a human level really relate to that. So, how did Joseph’s brothers react to this situation? So seeing that Israel loved them less than Joseph, they hated him and could not speak peacefully peacefully to them. You know, Proverbs says that uh jealousy is rottness to the bones. Anybody here struggle with jealousy at all. It’s corrupting, right?
Nothing good comes of it. But we see that taking root in Joseph’s brothers.
So when what did Joseph see in his first dream?
12 sheets of wheat were harvested by the 12 brothers and 11 bowed down to Joseph’s sheath which was standing up in the middle. Now this the text doesn’t say but you wonder why he would offer that up in that family knowing he had to know of their hatred of him. It didn’t seem like they hid it. Um, as I think about it, as a as a younger person, maybe he was just excited about this dream and didn’t think about the implications. I think that’s possible. But for whatever reason, he was not shy about sharing these dreams and completely unaware, I think, of of how they would react. This thing is kind of uh flaking out on me.
Bear with me, guys. Okay.
Okay, we saw what he saw in his first dream. Good.
Okay.
How come on?
We saw that, right?
I’m just going to keep going here, guys.
So we saw that. We saw that. We saw that.
This is new. Okay. How did his brothers respond to hearing his dream? They hated Joseph even more and scoffed at the idea that he, the youngest, besides Benjamin, would rule over them, right? This was just an unheard of thing at that time.
Just very, very unusual. And then how did Israel respond to Joseph and interpret his dream? He rebuked Joseph.
He thought, you know, you really maybe you could keep these dreams to yourself.
um and understood the dream to mean that the family would bow down to Joseph. So on one level he thought that that this might be prophetic and and we see that further on in the text. Okay, looking at verse 11, his brothers were jealous of him, but the father kept the saying in mind.
Right? That was a contrast. He thought the brothers, they envyed Joseph, but Israel kind of filed it away. And it was a good thing. As we as we walk through the narrative of Joseph, um we’ll see why that was important and how that was significant.
So, um, it seems that Israel did not learn the lesson of the strife that comes from favoritism. Right? Again, we’ve seen this through several generations at this point. As you probably know, things are about to get ugly. While we don’t have an explicit have explicit statements of modem from the text, it seems that Joseph was a bit arrogant and unwise, perhaps naively so, but I think we can derive that from the text and his father noticing this, right? Um, he shared his dreams with his brothers knowing full well it would provoke them. Joseph’s lack of discretion created only more strife. So, I think we can hopefully we can all relate to this. Just because you think something doesn’t mean you necessarily have to say it. Those of us who who are on the more talkative side um have to be careful. He who restrains his words is wise, the proverb says. And so um Joseph, I think would have benefited from that. However, in all this, as we can see, God is working behind the evil motives of men to accomplish his good purposes.
You know what? I’m just going to look at my phone here real quick because I have the slides here and I want to make sure that we’re not missing anything. So, if you would just bear with me, that’d be great. Okay. Well, let’s keep going.
Let’s uh let’s read the rest of the chapter. Uh let’s look at verses 12 through 36. Will you follow along as I read? Then his brothers went to pasture their father’s flock in Sheckchham. And Israel said to Joseph, “Are not your brothers pastoring the flock in Sheckchum. Come, I will send you to them.” And he said to him, “I will go.” Then he said to him, “Go now and see about the welfare of your brothers and the welfare of the flock and bring word back to me.” So he sent him from the valley of Hebrin and he came to Sheckchham and a man found him and behold he was wandering in the field and the man asked him what are you seeking and he said I am seeking my brothers please tell me where they are pasturing the flock. Then the man said they have journeyed from here I for I heard them saying let us go to Dothan.
So Joseph went after his brothers and found them in Dothan. And they saw him from a distance, and before he came close to them, they plotted against him to put him to death. Then they said to one another, “Here comes that dreamer.” So now come and let us kill him and cast him into one of the pits, and we will say, “A wild beast devoured him. Then let us see what will become of his dreams.” But Reuben heard this and delivered him out of their hands and said, “Let us not strike down his life.” Reuben further said to them, “Shed no blood. Cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, but do not put forth your hands against him that he might deliver him out of their hands to return him to his father.” Now it happened when Joseph reached his brothers that they stripped Joseph of his tunic, the very colored tunic that was on him. And they took him and cast him into the pit. Now the pit was empty without any water in it. And they sat down to eat a meal, apparently very comfortable with what they had done to take a break to eat.
Then they lifted up their eyes and saw, and behold, a caravan of Ishraelites was coming from Gilead with their camels bearing aromatic gum and bomb and myrr, going to bring them down to Egypt. And Judas said to his brothers, “What gain is it that we kill our brother and cover up his blood? come and let us sell him to the IshRaelites and not lay our hands on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.” And his brothers listened. Then some Midianite traders passed by. So they pulled him up and lifted Joseph out of the pit and sold Joseph to the Ishraelites for 20 shekels of silver.
Thus they brought Joseph into Egypt.
Then Reuben returned to the pit, and behold, Joseph was not in the pit. So he tore his garments. Then he returned to his brothers and said, “The boy is not there. As for me, where am I to go?” So they took Joseph’s tunic and slaughtered a male goat and dipped the tunic in the blood. And they sent the very colored tunic and brought it to their father and said, “We found this. Please recognize it whether it is your son’s tunic or not.” And he recognized it and said, “It is my son’s tunic. A wild beast has devoured him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces.” So Jacob tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his loins and mourned for his son many days. Then all his sons and all his daughters arose to comfort him. And he refused to be comforted. And he said, “Surely I will go down to Shiel in mourning for my son.” So his father wept for him.
Meanwhile, the Midionites sold him in Egypt to Piphar, Pharaoh’s officer, the captain of the bodyguard.
Okay, there’s a lot going on here. Let’s let’s unpack it together. What circumstances took Joseph to Sheckchum? His brothers had gone there to feed the flocks, and Israel sent Joseph to check on them. How did the brothers respond when they saw Joseph approaching? What was their intent? So, you saw it right from the get-go. We’re going to take him out, right? They made plans to kill the dreamer in an effort to stop the fulfillment, right? They understood on one level that the dreams may be prophetic. And so, they they um they decided they would stop that. How does that usually go when we we try to stop God’s plans? Doesn’t doesn’t normally go that well. They also intended to cover up the murder by saying that a beast had killed him. Now, I don’t know how far away Joseph was when they saw him, but this seemed like a pretty quickly conceived plot, right? Uh the hatred in their heart was strong, and I think it indicates that they maybe been thinking about this even before they saw Joseph. So, who interceded for Joseph?
and how. And we see Reuben encourage them not to murder their brother, but to throw him into a pit, intending to rescue him later. So, we’ve got kind of a subplot. We’ve got the brother scheming. We got another brother trying to do something else. And when the IshRaelites appeared, what did Judah propose? And he proposed, of course, to sell them and to profit from the sale rather than to kill him. When the Midionite traders passed by, what did they do? They sold Joseph to the IshRaelites. So, you’ve got a number of people involved here. You’ve got the brothers, you’ve got the Midionites, you’ve got the IshRaelites. You you really, if you were planning this humanly, it’s I think you wouldn’t really be able to orchestrate this. God is working among several parties who each had their own interests. What comes out of that is God as we saw in the first slide or one of the first slides, God in a sense sending him to Egypt. So was Reuben aware of this transaction? No, he was, it doesn’t say, but he had to be somewhere else when this happened. And so he came back.
Apparently not. He was not aware. So Reuben had secret plans different from his brothers to rescue Joseph. And when he did not find him, he despared. and he and his brothers conspired to deceive their father into thinking that he had been killed by the wild beast. So that’s kind of back to the original plan. As the eldest, Reuben felt a heavier weight of responsibility and that I think explains some of his actions here to look out for his younger brother. We’re waiting. We’re waiting.
So, how did Israel respond to seeing the bloody robe? Well, in one sense, it worked that they convinced Israel that that Joseph was dead. He believed it was proof that Joseph had been killed by a wild beast.
So, he tore his clothes and dressed himself in sackcloth as a sign of mourning.
If you were to pick one son that he did not want to die, Joseph would probably have been it because of his favoritism, which wasn’t good. But you can imagine how this landed with Israel. And how long did Israel intend to mourn for Joseph? For the rest of his life, right, until he died. The term go down to shield is describing this period. That’s far longer than the time of mourning that was given at this time. Advertising even at that point, I’m never going to get over this. Has anyone had someone pass that’s close to them and you’ve never gotten over it?
Right. Um there’s a sense in which that in which that’s natural. You know, you you lose a parent. I know we have we’ve had some you know, it’s it stays with you and I get that. My mom died when I was in my mid20s and stays with me. But we have hope. We have hope. But it doesn’t seem like Israel was thinking about that. He thought he would be grieving for the rest of his life. So what was Joseph’s fate at the close of this passage? He was sold to Potifhar, captain of Pharaoh’s bodyguards.
Interesting to go from being sold into slavery to being in the home of a very prominent official. And I’m I’m almost the narrative is just so riveting through the rest of Genesis. And I’m tempted to talk about it, but we’re going to save that for future lessons as we see God’s providence unfold.
So I actually I will pause right now before we go into kind of making some connections. Do you have any questions up to this point? Thank you Keith.
Anyone?
Glenda, I’m looking at Joseph as a young boy. He know his dad loved him more than the others. Do you think he played on that by telling them the dream over and over and knowing the dream is annoying them. Yeah. So, was he playing with my dad love? Yeah. And let me tell them if they if they don’t if they don’t accept it, that’s up to them. Yeah. But let me keep let me keep telling them.
Let me I’m seeing it aggravating them.
So, do you think that is what was his point there? telling them all the time to aggravate them to that. Yeah, let’s talk about that a little bit. We’re doing great on time, so I can I take my time on this a little bit. This is one of those areas where the text just doesn’t tell us. And so, we have to be a bit careful to not read into it.
Um, it’s possible. We We know we have a sin nature. We know Joseph had had a sin nature. Um, as I as I looked at various commentaries, um, it ranges from him being young, right, he was 17 and innocent, and just being excited about what he learned. We can understand that he may not have had the guile, right, uh, or the the presence of mind to to think beyond that. Um, yet at the same time, we know as the narrative continues about Joseph that he was wise beyond his years. So, um, you may be able to project from that that that yeah, he was and that would certainly be human nature to do that, but honestly, we we just don’t know. We don’t know.
Leela, thanks. So in the beginning of the chapter um I was noticing so wondering about the significance that it says um that he was pastoring the flock with the sons of Bilha and and the sons of Zilpa. So they weren’t the sons of Leia.
They were stepbros. And so I was wondering if he’s telling them that um that dream because he already feels superior to them. Yeah. Again, we can uh we can only speculate uh on that. Uh certainly uh we can rely on his father’s wisdom. If you look um uh his father rebuked him in verse 10. And so I think there’s something to that, right? I think that’s that’s about as far as we can go with understanding his motives.
Yeah. Just because the scripture specifically mentions that it’s just it’s the sons of Bilha and Zilpa. Yeah, that’s right. And that’s that’s great to understand. You could you can see that strife certainly was fermented by them not being full brothers and his father having multiple wives. That that just never goes well. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Anyone else? Magda giving Keith his exercise today.
Um my question was in reference to the Ishelites and the Midianites. So was he sold to both of them? So we’re going to get to that. I have seen various uh interpretations of that in in um commentaries some we’re I have a slide a whole slide for that. Um it seems to me as I read it that um both were involved.
They saw the IshRaelites who sold you know my slide has it I don’t remember but one in my in my view one party sold them to the other. What’s interesting about that is both groups were descendants of Abraham which is really really interesting. So we’re going to we’re we’re going to get to that. We’ll even have a map. It’ll be very very exciting. Yeah. So just really quick um earlier in the chapter uh is there any significance to the piece of the story where Joseph is looking for his brothers and he has to ask for directions like is there okay there is significance to that and we’ll get to that as well. Be patient Arthur. We’ll just one more and then we’ll move on. That’s all good.
It’s all good. We’ll get we’ll get there. I’m glad we’re going to get there. I didn’t want to be stumped but that would be okay.
Arthur, um my my question is two-part.
First part, um shouldn’t we go back to um the rivalry between Leah and and um Rebecca? Oh, I’m sorry. Did I say Yeah, Rachel. Rachel and Leah. Yeah, there was a rivalry there to understand where the jealousy and the strife comes from. Absolutely. Yes. To to understand the state of mind of the brothers. Yeah. But the the other thing that um just caught my attention as I I studied through this chapter preparing for today is uh we know that Joseph had the ability to interpret dreams. But it’s interesting that when he tells his brother the dream, they immediately were not giving any context that he explained it to them, that they understood it. Yeah. And we realize that if we jump further ahead, Joseph interprets the dream. Yeah. Um interprets dreams later on. So did his brothers also have that gift? Yeah. But they just never had an opportunity Yeah.
to demonstrate it. Yeah. We don’t know.
But we do know according to the text that on some level they understood that Joseph was indicating that he would be in some way superior to them. And so that did not did not land well. All right, let’s go ahead and make some connections in the text. So, um, this was interesting. I actually thought of this late in my preparation. Was the evil report that Joseph brought about, and that’s in verse two. Was that, uh, to the evil report he brought to his stepbros to his father something slanderous or sinful? Right. It’s a good question. I did not see that covered in the in the guide for this lesson. So, I had to do a little research on that. Um, and we’ll just look at it. It says he uh Joseph brought back an evil report about them to their father. Now, we know that his father sent them to check up on them. Okay. Um, couple things here. Uh, while the word evil report can be used for slander, we see that same word used in some other passages of scripture. In this case, it is an accurate report concerning evil things. Uh it also seems likely that the bad report here foreshadows the intended evil we’ll see in Genesis 50. So I think what we see here and I’ve concluded um and not not all commentators agree but as I look through it and I examine some of the context I recognize that this is um this is really an expression of Joseph’s faithfulness. Um right Joseph is the only patriarch which is interesting uh whose integrity is unquestioned in the book of Genesis.
That’s really interesting. Um, and so, uh, as such, this report was likely an act of faithfulness consistent with the rest of his life. One of the one of my favorite verses in the next chapter is talking about Piphar. P it said Piphar did not concern himself with anything that he gave Joseph to do. In other words, he considered it done. Would that we all be have that level of faithfulness? You know, one of the things I pray every day for myself, ‘Lord, give me the faithfulness of Joseph, the wisdom and conviction of Daniel and the mind of Christ. And I pray for that. And I had a Christian boss years ago say to me one time, and it just warmed my heart because it was an answer to prayer. He said, “Mark, you remind me of Joseph because when I give you something to do, I just don’t even worry about it.” Praise the Lord. You know, that’s a that’s a great example for us. One of the things I think about with regard to to prominent men like Joseph and Daniel, as I think about my own motives, I I tend to be um more impressed with their prominence and that they were impressive men, but I don’t think that’s where the Lord would have us land with them. It’s their character and their faithfulness. One of the things we notice about Joseph, he was going to be the same. He will he would have the same level of faithfulness regardless of his station in life.
Whether he was a slave in Potterer’s house, whether he was in prison or whether he was in the company of Pharaoh, he was equally faithful because his orientation primarily was the Lord and other people around him. And again, that’s a wonderful example for us. This the faithfulness we have before him, regardless of who sees it, is a is a great reward because it draws us close to him. Okay, that was for free. That wasn’t in your notes, but I think that’s a great thing for us to think about. Once again, we see how the sinful attitudes within this family have brought about turmoil. There was so much pride, deceit, and hatred that Joseph’s brothers were willing to kill him. Think about that. Think about that. Think I mean, we all have family drama. I’m assuming we all have some family drama, some level of it, right? And maybe even some of you have a family member with whom you’re estranged. But to think about killing a family member is kind of a different level, right? Um and so that’s pretty severe. Uh they not only thought about it, which Jesus said is equal to murder in his eyes in Matthew 5, they actually were willing to carry it out. While the most significant consequences of their sin would be judged by God, they also experienced the consequences in a temporal sense. They saw their father devastated by the loss of his favorite son. They continued to cover up their evil deeds. Right? Think about this. What do we read about Israel? He was going to mourn for the rest of his life. And they never told him. He was the probably the most shocked. I never expected to see you alive, he said to his son, Joseph, much less your sons. Amazing.
So, think about the dynamic on the family, how that affected I I I think the this is what we call unintended consequences. I don’t think the brothers thought that through. Um, it could not have been pleasant at home after this. All right. How does God typically accomplish his will on the earth? That’s a loaded question, but I’m going to kind of summarize it here. What we see here, although God works miracles, God primarily accomplishes his purposes on earth by acting through people, flawed people like us. The sequence of activities and players was clearly orchestrated by God.
Right? As we mentioned before, you had several parties with different motives, all working somehow under the providence of God for the outcome that he had determined. It’s an amazing thing. And again, this is not the first time we’ve seen people sin uh and be manipulative and trying to orchestrate an outcome that was ungodly. And we see uh God’s purposes come through it. Again, not an excuse for us to sin, but something to boost our faith. God will work with or without you and I. And so fast forward, I couldn’t resist uh sharing Genesis 45 7 and 8. So God sent me, Joseph said to his brothers when he was reunited. So God, God sent me before you to establish for you a remnant in the earth and to keep you alive for a great remnant of survivors. So now it was not you who sent me here, but God.
Amazing. God is the ultimate cause, right? We have proximate indirect causes and we have efficient causes, right? You see this in the crucifixion, God’s purpose from eternity past to crucify his son, right? The proximate cause of the Jews who put him on trial and then the efficient cause of the Romans all working under God’s providence to make something happen. And so we we just hope you know as you read these things, may God just open our eyes to not only see and be confident in God’s working, but think about the implications of that in our own lives, right? Might we be I’m getting into the application section a little bit. Might we be more content?
Right? Might we be more prayerful as we understand the circumstances that are beyond our control? All right. Here’s the here’s the map piece. Um, and so Dothan is a significant place. So, so Joseph went um after his brothers and found them at Dothan. And there’s a lot here that you could look up at an atlas, but that was a very strategic place. It was multiple trade routes converged there. And so, it was of God that his brothers were there and and that Joseph had to be redirected there. And um the archaeology of do of Dothan is consistent including uh Joseph’s well or pit. There’s an actual pit there that they think was likely the one that Joseph was thrown into. So really really interesting. Isn’t it interesting? I don’t know if you follow biblical archaeology at all. I see some I see things from time to time. There’s um um who wrote the book um Patterns of Evidence. We’ve seen some of those if you see some of those movies and and I get these updates and they just keep finding more and more um that validates the scriptures. Of course, we would expect that you know all these things that they say didn’t exist. Somehow we find them. It’s interesting. Judah then prompted his brothers to sell Joseph to the passing IshRaelites on their way from Gilead to Egypt. Ishelites were descendants of this is this Abby I think will uh will answer your question in part. Ishelites were descendants of Abraham by Hagar and the Midianites descended from Abraham by his concubine coutura. The term Ishelites became a general designation for desert tribes so that Midionite traders were also known as Ishelites. So that’s possible. They could could both be talking about the same people. I don’t think so, but that’s possible. Joseph was treated harshly by his brothers, but being sold for 20 shekels, which is 8 ounces of silver, and taken to Egypt, he was preserved alive, right, by God’s providential hand working through all of it. I thought I had something else here.
I I do I do in the um Give me a second here. Nope.
I thought I had something else to answer your question, Abigail, but um as you can see, the slides aren’t cooperating. So, all right, we’ve got a good amount of time here today. So, I’m just going to stop before we get into some specific application questions um for any questions you have.
Glenda, once again, I’m sorry I couldn’t answer your last question. Can you hear me? Yes, I’ll be right with you, Glenda.
Uh, the multicolored uh coat. What’s that all about? Maybe you need to uh tell us a little bit about that. It had a lot of colors.
Thank you. You needed that. That’s all I got. Well, it was a sign of honor and favoritism and apparently very valuable.
I haven’t studied more than that. I didn’t see anything really in the commentaries that un unpack that.
Although I have my MacArthur study Bible here. Let me take a quick look and see if it says anything about the tunic. Uh I don’t think that it does. Um here we go. I’m just going to cheat here by reading from my study Bible. Well, that’s okay.
Um the Septuagent favored this translation of very colored tu um tunic.
The Septuagent is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. Um although some refer to a long sleeved robe or an ornamented tunic. It marked the owner as one who the father intended to be the future leader of the household and honor normally given to the firstborn son.
Well, there you go. So that would be a kind of a poke in the eye of the older brothers.
Does that help, Danny? I don’t know where you went. Okay. Sorry I didn’t cover that earlier, Glenda. And then Okay, Jay. It make me the script. The scripture said everything written in the scriptures for our learning. It makes me see right there God’s plan because they were in Sheckchum and that’s where he went.
But then he asked somebody saw him wandering and asked him did you see my brothers? He said they went to Doan. God directed them move from Sheckchim. Yeah. Go to dom because the Ishalites and the Amalachite they’re going to come that way and that’s where I am going to send him down into Egypt.
So we should take really example from that. Yeah, God is the director of everything in scripture and everything in our lives. He is sovereign. So I see his sovereign plan. This is the route I want them to take Joseph to down into Egypt where I want Joseph. That’s what I get from that. Yeah. Yeah.
Jay.
So earlier um um you said or it was mentioned that, you know, did was Joseph aware of the way that his brothers felt about him?
Was he aware that they were jealous and um hated him? And I just feel like how could he not be? I mean, he had the coat. He had the coat and they hated him. And you know, we usually pick up on things like that. I’m sure that wasn’t the first expression of their hatred of Joseph.
But I even I I look at that and I and then you know what happened or we know God was in control of this whole situation and he was directing it for his purpose that Joseph’s went from being the favorite son and you know designated to be the heir and and he became a slave.
So God had to humble him. But again, but God was working his purpose. And I know it doesn’t really address that, but it’s obvious that it was quite a humbling for Joseph. And God used it to teach him. And look what happened. Yeah. So, praise God. And aren’t we all in need of humility?
Absolutely. I’m not humble enough. I’m not holy enough. These are growth areas.
I heard once um I think it was CJ Mahaney who wrote a book on humility. I think we might have it in the bookstore there. He said, “I’m not a humble man.
I’m a proud man seeking to be humble.” And I think that’s the right way we should describe ourselves hopefully.
Yeah. This is less of a question, more of an observation, but maybe you can feed into it. Um, so the person who should have been most upset about Joseph having the coat is Reuben. But it was Reuben who was trying to save his life.
That interesting. Yeah. And Judah, the, you know, where that Jesus comes from, the tribe of Judah, he was the one who wanted to sell him. So, I’m just curious if there was any insight in that.
Um, not particularly. I’m trying not to speculate too much, although I think the observations of of jealousy and sibling rivalry. I mean, if you have siblings, you you have that. It’s just it’s kind of natural. And and I will say that so I’m the oldest child and and there tends to be things that go with that. I’m the only son of of my parents. I’m also the oldest grandchild in that generation of like so I was like the prince for the first five years of my life you know and I you know I probably relished that a little too much you know my I knew my I knew I was the favorite of my grandparents since I was the first grandchild and all that um I’ve you know having six children you recognize it’s a different dynamic that comes sometimes with birth order you know um and you know I love talking with Jackson about it He’s the youngest and he has an experience that I can’t relate to at all, you know. Uh and so um but it’s it’s part of God’s providence that we shouldn’t be jealous of the other kids or condescending toward them as I was as a child. Both of those things are are sin. Yeah.
Um my I’m sorry folks. I’m I’m thinking about all this different and I’m going to say that I’m going to ask my question after I explain why because I work I worked for human services for 20 years. I was a dyus worker. I’ve been in the mess. I’ve seen what happens when mothers and fathers divorce. I’ve seen what happens when a father or mother commits adultery. I see what happens in the home when these things happen. Um, so I I think differently.
I’m Should we not show more grace to Joseph because Jesus the perfect example when he stood up and read that prophets prophecy to the people of his hometown that grew up with him, the first thing they wanted to do is throw him off a mountain. Mhm. because he was reading a prophecy and Jesus himself said that prophets are not honored in their home.
Yeah. Um where would he get that? Was that something he was saying because he was God or something he was saying because he knew the scriptures? He saw the example of um Cain and Abel.
What did Cain do? He wanted to kill his brother. Yeah. Yeah. So my question when I say should we show grace to Joseph because we got to remember that God the father he chose Abraham y Isaac and Jacob out of how many people on the earth at that time?
So God is doing the very thing he’s choosing whom the savior is going to come through. He’s rejecting everyone else, choosing only certain people to fulfill his plan. So when we if we say that um we say that Israel or Jacob was doing something wrong by showing favor to Joseph whom God had already determined was going to be a prophet. We see the mess right there. It’s whenever God is involved in a plan for someone’s life, they’re going to be people unhappy about it regardless of what their behavior is going to be. Yeah. Let me give you two responses to that and then we’ll get into application questions that that’s that’s a such a great point.
Um with regard to Joseph’s character, it doesn’t say explicitly that his actions were sinful. It only says that his father rebuked him. And so for that to be kind of a glaring sin would be inconsistent with everything else we read about Joseph. So you can make a great point that that wasn’t sinful. Secondly about God’s choice.
That should give us a lot of confidence.
And this is something that we stumble over. We teach this unapologetically here at Calvary when people talk about what about what about man’s free will?
And I often respond with what the scripture says about that. one is we’re free to do whatever our nature what’s in our nature to do and it’s just not in our nature to seek him uh unless he does something but I think the better question is what about God’s right to do his will what about his right to do what he wants that’s a very very good thing and I hope you see from the narratives like this that that’s that’s not something to fight or argue about that’s something to worship him for right when you read Romans I I’ll get a little passionate about this when you read Romans 8 through11 the whole point of God’s Sovereignty is not that we argue, it’s that we worship. So let’s do that and let’s and let’s think about that as we go through the annoyances of life. As someone cuts us off on the way home from church today, God is sovereign over that. He is. How does God want me to respond to that in the big things and in the little things? Um let me just go through some Do we have Okay, one more.
Shaji, go ahead, brother. Yeah, I was just uh noticing the fact that uh similar to what you just said um you know Joseph was a young man at that age um going through something like that such violence. We don’t see him uh fighting back. He’s not uh we don’t hear anything coming back from him in such a uh you know to escape or do anything of that manner. And that just I just thought about, you know, in um Isaiah 53:7 um there’s an interesting parallel to that. It says, “He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. Like a lamp that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before the sheer is silent, so he opened not his mouth.” And I see an interesting parallel between uh Joseph’s actions and what the Lord did. Yeah, that’s a great point. I want to let me speak to that briefly because as you get further along in the book of Genesis with Joseph, um you see that he does have a redemptive role for his brother. And while I don’t want to make too much of that because the New Testament doesn’t speak directly to that, it seems like a very obvious connection. So I I think I’ve mentioned this before when his when his brothers, they’re all in Goan. I don’t remember the the exact verse. It’s toward the end of end of Genesis and Israel has died and his brothers expected Joseph to exact his revenge on them because that’s what they would do. There’s nothing in Joseph that would indicate that he would do that. But they thought he would do that.
And they said this, we know that we cannot justify ourselves. I think that’s gospel, right? they needed someone to justify them as we do as well. So again, I don’t want to make too much of that, but there are some parallels like that that in my opinion are very very obvious. And so uh as we’ve talked about God’s will unfolding, we’ve talked about the redemptive flow of history. It’s like a wave that keeps coming and culminates in Christ. We know this. And so it’s it’s good to reflect on those things. I do want to say a brief thing.
Um Abigail, I don’t think I I honored your question well enough. I just want to look at verse 28.
and tell you how I I thought this through uh in the last few days when it says then some Midionite traders passed by. So they pulled him up and lifted Joseph out of the pit and sold Joseph to the Ishelites for 20 shekels of silver.
Thus they brought Joseph out of Egypt. I interpret I interpret that to mean that it wasn’t Joseph’s brothers that sold them, but it was the Midionites who sold him to the IshRaelites. That’s how I interpret that. And so to me, they’re two different distinct people. Um but again to be fair different commentators have different interpretations of that.
So does that help? Okay there’s a lot there and it’s okay to not understand everything right there’s a lot more that we don’t know than that we do. Let me suggest some application questions for us. These don’t come from me. These are from the uh answers in Genesis study guide primarily with some modification.
So in what ways is living as a Christian contrary to the norms of society today?
Where do you start with a green light like that? Right. We could go on for a long time about that. As my wife often reminds me, take what the world does, do the opposite, and you’re probably doing well. You’re probably obeying the Lord. Uh so in this series of events, one sin led to another, right? Um uh to cover up what had become a cycle of sin, right? Some of you might know the comedian Brian Rean, who I love. You know, he says when you lie and then you our tendency is to cover that up with another lie because there’s nothing smarter than that strategy, right? How does that that that never goes well. But that’s our tendency to compound compound sin upon sin upon sin. And this is why the Lord is so gracious to give us the concept of repentance. Come clean with it, right? And and uh and uh and and walk in the light. So in this series of events, one sin led to another to cover up what had become a cycle of sin. How can we learn from this in order to avoid similar cycles in our lives? Let’s camp on that for a minute. Love to hear your thoughts on that. And by the way, these these slides, we’ll send these out uh this week so you can spend some more time in it.
Right? Keep keep in mind we see in in the epistles in the New Testament repeated, these things were written for our instruction. And that’s primarily talking about the negative example that some of our four bears display for us. Yeah. Go ahead, Mike.
So, thanks for today. Um, and and and again, we we read this section of the Bible and we talk about this cycle of sin, but the Bible has just been one big continuous cycle of sin since the garden. Yeah. And so I just go back to the root and I say this Bible is about God revealing his son to us. And I think we wouldn’t be uh harmful in in making too much of it because if you know this is what God gave us. This is what he ordained. He called out his people to bring forth his son. So it’s not just a matter of okay well he wanted Joseph in Egypt but he wanted Jesus to bring forth to this to this earth. So without this work without all of this this stuff going on with Joseph um Israel dies from the famine and there’s no Jesus. So that’s that’s the thread. That is the thread. It it all had to line up. Yeah.
It’s a beautiful thing. It’s it’s really worthy of our consideration.
Um, as some of you who know me know that I I I um I have a tendency toward anxiety. Very That’s an understatement.
Um, if you’re not worried right now, I can help you.
Um, any anyone see the movie Toy Story?
Now’s the perfect time to panic. Yes, of course. What better time than now? Um, that’s how we roll. But but what I what I do and this this is so encouraging to me when I go through this because sometimes when I’m you know just anxious in my thoughts and I can’t sleep I’ll I’ll lay in bed and I’ll just start thinking about this is the only thing that’ll help me honestly I start thinking about redemptive history. I think about creation and then through Genesis and just and then just into God’s providence in my own life. It’s all part of it. And I’m just like, okay, amazing. And so I think these are here to give us hope to give us hope in that regard. Couple other things and we need to need to wrap up. What consolation do you There we go.
In consolation do you find in your own life when you consider how God eventually used this horrible event in Joseph’s life to bring about a good end?
Shi, you brought about a great point that I hadn’t even thought about. He didn’t complain. It doesn’t give any indication that he fought back. I honestly never thought about that.
That’s amazing. That’s amazing. Um, what attributes of God do we see accented? Well, sovereignty, of course.
Um, I love the word providence because it’s loving sovereignty. It’s bringing about something good, something that’s even better than we could have possibly imagined. Um, Leela, you’ll be the last one. We got to we got to wrap up. Yeah. Oh, do you have something, Cheryl? Yeah, we’ll we’ll we’ll do it. Yeah, that’s fine. To answer that question of what attributes of God and Michael was talking about how the Bible is cohesive and it’s all reflecting is showing us who Jesus is, who and who God is. Um this story of when um Jacob sent Joseph out to check on his brothers reminded me of the parable of the vine dressers where the master of the vineyard sends out his servants to go check on the vineyard and they see him coming and they kill them one after the next. M so to answer the question of the attributes of God is that um the story is cohesive also in that God’s character is the same and he shows us through the same pictures over and over again how these things are connected and uh the same his character is the same and our character was the same yeah as it’ll say in Exodus right slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and truth Think about the forbearance he had with all of these people involved. He could have smoked them at any time and be justified and he didn’t. Cheryl, uh, so I was thinking of the second question and it kind of dovetales with all the others. Um, just think about in my own life when I’ve recognized a sin after the fact and seen the repercussions of it through my life or my children’s lives. And I think about the terrible sorrow that Jacob must have had because I think over time there’s an awareness even though on the front end he sent Joseph to look after the other brothers like knowing the family dynamic that was like a high-risk thing if he was really aware. So I would say he was not aware until many many years later how his favoritism bore thorns not fruit. And so for my own life like you don’t know what you’re doing until God brings you to repentance and then you look back and you go wow look at the repercussions of that. I didn’t recognize it. But likewise for other people, you know, I think it makes me more compassionate. When I see people either sinning against others or myself, I realize like, you know, this is what Jesus said on the cross, forgive them, father, for they know not what they do.
And at some point, if God is gracious, they will know what they did. And it’s a terrible grief that I don’t want other people to have to go through. Yeah.
Because I know what it’s like when I’ve gone through it. And I just see, you know, our only consolation, right, is that God forgives us and he redeems even that. So, Amen. Yeah. One w one does wonder. Let’s get this over to Michael.
I was going to say this reminds me of the hymn God moves in a mysterious way.
God moves in a mysterious way. Joseph play. Amen. Amen. Smiling behind what we see as a dark cloud is actually mercy.
What we see as a dark cloud is actually mercy.
No, we’re we’re going to have to stop.
I’m sorry. We’re we’re at time. Um but we’ll we’ll chat afterwards. Arthur, one of the things I’m so glad you mentioned that, Cheryl, because um I do wonder if um if Israel ever had that conversation with his kids and kind of talk transparently about an awareness of how his favoritism had affected the family.
Um I know for us as parents that can be a very powerful thing um to talk with your kids about the mistakes that you’ve made. I’ I’ve I’ve made some, you know, I’ve got six kids and I’m I’m 61 years old, so I’ve made a lot of mistakes and those those regrets can kind of pile up for you. But in God’s providence, um, he’s moved with Betty and I to talk very transparently about with our kids, to apologize, to repent of things that need to be repented of, to just have those transparent conversations, to demonstrate repentance and faith to our kids.
And that’s that’s gospel. If our kids can’t see repentance and faith in us, what that looks like, you know, we have no hope, you know. So, praise the Lord for for his mercy and working through uh such as us. Let me pray for us. Father, thank you for uh being with us in power today as your word unpacks things that maybe we didn’t expect. Um we are so in awe of your sovereign providence in our lives. Thank you for um moving in our families. Some of us have had some unbelievably difficult family experiences. I know that as I as I look out and and think about who’s here. And yet um as Joseph said toward the end of his life, what you meant for evil, God meant for good.
We worship you and uh we ask you uh to make us faithful, dependent, humble and loving in Jesus name. Amen.