I mean we should get t-shirts or something.
Hey, welcome back.
Thanks everybody for joining us as we close out the week and as we close out chapter 45
in Genesis today.
Yesterday,
a big day,
an emotional day in the context of the story,
Joseph reveals himself to his brothers.
There’s weeping,
there’s reunion,
there’s genuine affection.
There is what appears to be a settledness,
if we wouldn’t call it forgiveness.
It does seem as though Joseph has put behind the past,
which is never an easy thing to
do, but it appears that he’s done that largely because he seems to believe deeply these words
he has said that he believes God to be at work in these events and in this flow of what
has happened.
And he believes that God has a purpose that has shown through all of it.
And we pick up that story today in the aftermath of that revealing,
and we are in verse 16.
And this is kind of house cleaning a little bit.
It’s certainly a different tone than the first half of the chapter.
But let’s get into it and then we’ll talk about it.
“When the report was heard in Pharaoh’s house,
Joseph’s brothers have come.
Pharaoh and his servants were pleased.
Pharaoh said to Joseph,
‘Say to your brothers,
‘Do this.
Load your animals.
Go back to the land of Canaan.
Take your father, your households.
Come to me,
and I may give you the best land in Egypt,
and you may enjoy the fat of the land.’
You are further charged to say, ‘Do this.
Take wagons from Egypt for your little ones and your wives and bring your father and come.
Give no thought to your possessions,
for the best of all the land of Egypt is yours.
The sons of Israel did so.
Joseph gave them wagons according to the Pharaoh,
and he gave them provisions for the journey.
To each of them he gave a set of garments,
but to Benjamin he gave three hundred pieces
of silver and five sets of garments.
To his father he sent the following,
ten donkeys loaded with the good things of Egypt,
ten female donkeys loaded with grain and bread and provision for the father on the journey.
Then he sent his brothers on the way,
and as they were leaving,
he said to them,
‘Do not quarrel along the way.’
So they went out of Egypt and came to their father in the land of Canaan.
They told Jacob,
‘Joseph is still alive.
He is even ruler over the land of Egypt.’
He was stunned.
He could not believe them.
When they told him all the words of Joseph that he had said to them,
and when he saw
the wagons that Joseph had sent to carry him,
the spirit of their father Jacob revived.
And Israel said, ‘Enough.
My son Joseph is still alive.
I must go see him before I die.’”
So very interesting here in this sort of the way that this is told,
the first thing that
I think we should acknowledge.
And we’ve talked about this before,
an uncharacteristically generous and excitable reaction of the Pharaoh.
The Pharaoh says, “Your brothers are here?
Awesome.
Tell them this.
Tell them, ‘Go get all their stuff.’
I’m going to load up wagons for them.
Tell them to go get all their people.
Tell them to come here,
and I will promise them in your honor, Joseph,
the best of the
best of the land we have in Egypt.” And,
you know, again, we have to be a little careful in these stories because the story’s
intention is not to tell us strict history as we understand it,
but tell us faith history
as we sort of look at it through spiritual eyes.
That’s not to say this didn’t happen as written.
That’s not my point.
My point is that if you want to argue about whether a Pharaoh would do that or not,
you’re really having an argument that the Bible,
I think, largely doesn’t care about.
The way this story is told is a celebration of this moment and what moves the Pharaoh
to this level of generosity.
And so rather than sort of nitpick at that as unlikely,
I think we instead try to listen
behind it to what the text is telling us.
And the text is telling us, Michael,
that
two years into the famine,
they have been delivered.
They’ve been promised the best of the best,
a place to live,
and provisions that are more
than they could need.
Right, Clint, and I would say that maybe even more than that,
if you know the whole context
of the story that surrounds it,
and maybe even you have a sense for the story that’s to come,
Exodus is going to start very notably with the idea that the Pharaoh did not remember
Joseph.
The Pharaoh of the future does not remember Joseph.
And so it’s substantial and important here that the Pharaoh is not only so trusting of
Joseph, but he recognizes his importance so much that when Joseph’s family comes into the picture,
that he calls them out with all of these blessings.
In some ways,
both explains the position that Joseph is in.
He’s clearly well favored.
He’s clearly very high up so that the Pharaoh would even care about this situation.
But even more so,
it is beginning to provide for us some logic or reason.
It explains why all of this family goes to Egypt,
and in a little while is going to find
themselves subjugated in this place.
That’s a long ways down the road in terms of the story.
But for now,
what it’s showing is how good and rich and meaningful this invitation would
be to a starving family trying to find a way in a very difficult season.
This is very much a promised land kind of experience.
Go to a place where there’s riches and security and a place for you.
And that’s exactly what Pharaoh offers through Joseph.
And so we see this family radically altering the life that they’ve known.
And we’re beginning to see the reason for it here.
It’s a way that the text is setting up for what will later become a problem,
but right now is a blessing.
There’s also a couple of little things in this text that I think are fun to explore.
The first is verse 22 here.
To each of them,
Joseph gave a set of garments.
If you remember way back when,
how did all of this story start?
Because Joseph had received a special robe.
What traditionally is called the coat of many colors or the multicolored robe or there’s
lots of translations and we’re not sure what it actually means,
but it was a garment.
And so here we have Joseph,
the one who they took his garment and put blood on it to trick his father.
He now gives them clothing.
And again, the youngest is shown favor in that he receives five sets of garments and
a hundred pieces of silver.
And so it kind of very subtle,
very poignant way that the text connects
this moment in the story with that moment in the story.
And then there’s another detail I really enjoy at the end of verse 24 as he sends his brothers on his way.
“As they were leaving,
he said to them,
‘Do not quarrel along the way.’”
Now,
we had no reason to believe they would,
but Joseph perhaps knows his brothers.
Maybe he knows that along the way,
they’re going to have conversation about,
“Can you believe he’s still alive?”
Yeah, and that that would stir all that up again.
What should we do?
It’s a very interesting thing for him to say to them as if he’s trying to preserve that
moment of peace that for him,
for really the first time,
this gathering with the brothers
in at least many,
many years, at least since they sold him,
and possibly prior to that even,
has felt like a family moment.
And there seems to be maybe a sense in which he wants to preserve that peace.
Don’t quarrel along the way.
Don’t let anything spoil this.
Continue to be unified.
Continue to be connected.
And the text doesn’t do much with it,
Michael, but it’s a very interesting addition.
Yeah, and note that we’re in a family that clearly quarrels a lot.
I mean, the text has made a point to point that out to us.
And so the fact that he gives these instructions in some ways points to the new leaf that is
maybe being turned here,
the new chapter that is open before this family.
Yet on the other hand, Clint,
I think we’re a little remiss to not point out the favoritism
that’s still clearly shown to Benjamin.
So I mean,
if we bring our presuppositions as to what a good resolution to Joseph’s struggles
with his families would look like,
we probably would wish for them that there would not be
this kind of in and out,
this kind of favored one and not favored one.
And yet the text really has no interest in dispelling that.
We have no reason to believe that in some way Joseph and Benjamin will now be equal
with their family.
That’s not what the text is here to talk about.
The point here is that ultimately when Joseph reveals himself to his brothers,
he shows
by his actions that he truly wants to reconcile and that he truly believes that God has put
him in this position for the furtherance and safety and prosperity of his family.
So now in light of that,
as the family goes back to Jacob and to all of their families,
we got to remember that these are old men.
They have wives.
They have children.
As they go back to really prepare them for the journey,
what we realize is that fundamentally
this is a difficult story to swallow,
right?
In fact, the text goes out of its way to say here that when,
let’s pull this up,
they’re telling Jacob that he’s alive,
he’s the ruler of Egypt.
It says here in verse 26,
“He was stunned and he could not believe them.”
He could not believe them.
And of course he couldn’t believe them.
I mean, we can empathize with that.
His son, who he believed to be dead,
of course his brothers knew that they had sold him.
They didn’t know what had come of him,
but they had told him that Joseph had died.
Now he’s suddenly realizing that his son’s not only alive,
but he is favored by Pharaoh.
He’s come with all of these gifts,
somewhat proof of the story that these brothers have
brought back to him.
It really shows us the enormity of this text,
the enormity of the change,
the
unbelievableness of what has just happened to this family,
and that is the mark of God’s fingerprint
on the text.
It’s the reality that this kind of thing doesn’t happen
accidentally.
This is the kind of thing that has been worked and that has been foreseen.
Ironically,
or interestingly, it was foreseen all the way back in the visions,
in the dreams that Joseph had had in the very beginning.
The text had told us right from the start what would happen,
but now we see it’s been fulfilled,
the story has progressed,
and now Joseph is not only alive,
but he’s become a way for the family to be alive going into the future.
Yeah, and that news,
very late in this text,
in fact the last verse,
the word before that,
Jacob revived.
We’ve had the impression that he was very frail,
that he was very fragile,
that he was near death, and this news invigorates him.
It gives him strength,
and he says,
“Enough.
We’re not talking about it anymore.
My son Joseph is alive.
I must go see him before I die.”
If you’ve had those kind of experiences with people who are near death but hang on until
a loved one arrives,
or until the family wedding,
or until Christmas when everyone’s together,
we hear those kind of stories,
and that’s the effect this news has on Jacob.
It strengthens
him, and he commits himself to take this journey.
I think, Michael, there are two things of interest that really aren’t in the text,
and the first has to do with this business of Benjamin getting more.
The quickest way to go from happy with what you have and thankful is for someone else to get more.
And so,
does it make Joseph less generous to the brothers that he’s more generous to
one of the brothers?
We can see that as favoritism,
which it clearly is,
but he’s good to all of them.
As we…kind of like that parable where Jesus says,
“Look, some of the workers started early,
and they got what came to them.
But some of the workers got an…they got extra,
and, you know,
we think we are so locked
into in our culture,
we’re so locked into fairness,
and this seems
unfair,
don’t let that negate the fact that Joseph is good to all the brothers,
he’s just especially good
to one of them.”
And the text doesn’t really care about that,
but I find it interesting.
The second thing is,
as I think about this,
and I don’t know if I’ve ever wrestled with this question before,
I don’t know of a moment in this story where Jacob learns how Joseph is still alive.
There’s…
Yeah, that’s fair.
You think the natural question is,
“How is this possible?”
And there’s no…to my knowledge,
there is no moment that gives us a hint of what they told him.
Did they confess to what they’ve done?
Or did they leave well enough alone and say,
“Wow, I don’t…you’ll have to ask him.”
There’s no way that conversation didn’t happen.
I mean, he’s lived…
It’s a long road.
He’s lived decades believing his son was dead,
and now he finds out otherwise you’re naturally
going to ask, “How is this possible?”
But we are never privileged to that conversation that I’m aware of,
and I’m relatively confident
of that.
And so,
I find that’s a very interesting omission in the text.
Sure.
It also is worth pointing out that they discover that he’s literally here,
verse 26, “Ruler
over all the land of Egypt.”
And that’s essentially the most we get from the text about
who Joseph is.
I mean, his father’s not only learned that his son is alive,
but it’s somewhat equivalent
to learning that his son is secretary of state,
right?
His son is an unbelievably important international figure.
And so, realistically,
this changes not just the recognition of what had happened.
It completely transforms this family’s position in the world.
They went from being,
you know,
trying to make it in Canaan to now on their way to Egypt,
which by the way,
it’s always worth noting in the text here.
This happens in the Exodus story.
It is noted in several of the Psalms.
Sometimes the Scriptures go out of their way to point out how different means and mechanisms
God uses to bless and enrich the Israelite people here.
Notice that these wagons are full of,
as the text says,
the goods of Egypt, right?
So suddenly,
it’s not just that he learns that his son is alive,
which is clearly worth
more than anything that you could put on the back of a donkey.
But he simultaneously is given all of these gifts,
which represents the transformation that’s happened immediately.
I mean,
it has all changed.
And so the fact that the story doesn’t tell us about these questions that you raised,
Clint, or the text isn’t particularly interested in teasing out what it is now going to mean
for them to get to move into an Egyptian place.
And the fact that the pharaoh says,
yeah, you don’t even need to bring your stuff,
because when you get here,
we’re going to have stuff for you.
I mean,
fundamentally, the text is trying to show us this is what divine protection
and what divine providence looks like,
that God has made a plan.
He showed it to Joseph.
And even the brothers’ actions,
which we would have reasonably believed would derail
that plan, has actually created a mechanism by which God’s plan could be more fully come
to pass.
So I think this is where this text is beautiful.
It shows us the reality,
the humanity of these characters.
But simultaneously,
it’s showing us the reality or what you might see through the eyes of
faith of God’s work in this story.
We saw it explicitly in what Joseph had to say yesterday,
but now I think we’re seeing
it as the ripples of that now extend to Jacob and to the whole family.
Yeah, this is, I think, a really interesting way to kind of cap part of this story.
This story continues, but it really now transitions.
We get some emphasis back on Jacob now,
though Joseph remains an important part of the story.
Monday when we undertake this story,
God is going to show up again explicitly.
God has kind of been a background character in the last multiple chapters.
That’s going to change Monday when we see God, again,
taking a more upfront role,
at least initially in that narrative.
We’ve covered a lot of ground,
and it’s been deep ground,
it’s been emotional ground.
I think that one of the struggles with this story is that it’s so big,
it’s hard to process.
It’s big theologically,
it’s big emotionally,
it’s a family story,
it spans decades.
It’s a national story,
it’s Israel and Egypt,
it’s Pharaoh and Jacob.
It’s lots of things.
And so,
if there are threads that sort of remain out there for you,
by all means stick
them in the comments,
send us an email,
we’ll do our best to address them,
but there is a lot here.
This is the kind of story I think you could read every month or so,
and you would find
something in it nearly every time that you hadn’t seen before.
It’s just that big.
It’s deep,
it’s deep, and we’re glad that you’ve joined us this week as we’ve explored
it.
Definitely join us next week,
there’s a lot to come,
the story’s not over yet,
but thanks for being with us.
Have a good week.