Step by Step through the Old Testament
Eric L. Arnold, Substitute Teacher
Week 14 Handout 1: Parallels between Joseph and Jesus
Week 14 Handout 2: Excerpt from Castle of Wisdom discussing God's Sovereignty
Week 14
Genesis 37 & 39 – Introduction to Joseph
This morning, we are introducing the story of Joseph beginning in Genesis 37. We don’t have enough time to cover everything. There is so much good stuff here. We need eight hours to cover it all.
Joseph really lived the "Philippians 4:8" life.
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.
That’s what we see in the life of Joseph. There is something else we see. I’ll tell you a little about Joseph and want to ask you if this sounds familiar:
Does that sound like anyone else we know? Jesus Christ. I just gave you a little taste of the parallels between Joseph and Jesus—I just don’t have time to cover all of them. I did prepare a handout covering some of them because I just didn’t want you to miss them. I believe there are about thirty different comparisons. The picture we see of Christ in Joseph is not perfect, but it will be perfected in Christ when He comes (later in the Bible).
Genesis 37-50 is really covering the life of Joseph. It says, "the account of Jacob," and we’ll see Jacob at the beginning and at the end. But the middle is about Joseph. We will also see the truth of Joseph’s statement at the end (Genesis 50:20), "you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about the saving of many people."
We’re also going to see the sovereignty of God. His plans are never thwarted and we can rest assured in what He’s trying to do on earth. Are any of you going through hard times right now? (Many hands raised.) I hope that this lesson will be an encouragement to you. Joseph went through some pretty hard times. We shouldn’t, but if we were to compare the hard times we’re going through with what he’s going through, we should be ashamed of ourselves. We’ll see that through it all, Joseph trusted God, believed in God, and had faith in God. This faith was pervasive in his life and God honored him for that.
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Genesis 37:1-2 Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan. This is the account of Jacob. Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them. |
Someone figured out that Jacob was 91 years old at Joseph’s birth. So I tend to think that Jacob was a little older, wiser, and maybe not quite as deceptive as he was when he was younger and was raising the other kids. Also, remember that Joseph was the first-born to Rachel. Rachel was Jacob’s favorite wife/woman. So he was very proud of Joseph and I think he spent more time with him and talked to him more. Jacob probably told Joseph a lot more about God and the relationship Jacob had with God. However Jacob is not "there" yet. We’re going to see that. It says, "tending the flocks" here, but some of the other translations say that Joseph "shepherds his brothers." That could either mean that he shepherded WITH his brothers or that he shepherded OVER his brothers. So we can see that he’s already being set over them, in a sense, to keep them in line. He brings a "bad report" about them, which in the Old Testament was a very bad thing. It meant to tattle, gossip, or slander—something very malicious that would really bring strife to the family. |
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Genesis 37:3-4 Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made a richly ornamented robe for him. When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him. |
This robe represented a position of favor, a princely standing in the family, and the birthright. The real idea behind the Hebrew phrase for "coat of many colors" was that instead of being just a piece of cloth they threw over you, cut a hole in the middle, and strapped a belt around you, it was a much more elaborate piece of clothing. It had sleeves that went all the way to the wrists and it went all the way to the ankles. It wasn’t something that a "working man" would have worn. So we see that Joseph is pampered. Jacob had this special robe made for him. This was a very expensive and laboriously hand-made robe. At this point, Rachel is gone. She died at the birth of Benjamin, so Jacob is now centering all of his attention and affection on Joseph. What does it do to a family when parents show preference to one child over another? Instills jealousy. Dysfunctional. Isaac did this with Esau and Jacob. He showed favoritism toward Esau. Jacob showed favoritism for Rachel over Leah (and of course Zilpah and Bilhah). Now he does it with Joseph, Rachel’s son. Is this right for him to do this? Absolutely not. If anyone should be favored, it should be Reuben because he was the first-born son. He’s the one who logically, back then, should’ve gotten the birthright, but he doesn’t. Jacob is being sinful here and he’s sowing seeds of strife in the family. It’s going to come back to bite him. |
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Genesis 37:5-8 Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. He said to them, "Listen to this dream I had: We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it." His brothers said to him, "Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?" And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said. |
Was this intelligent? Why would he say this? He’s already having a problem with his brothers and he says, "Hey. Guess what I heard. Guess what was in my dream." I think Joseph was being cocky and proud. It shows a proud lack of wisdom. He’s so young. He was so focused on how great his dreams were for him that he doesn't begin to consider the effect on others. What does his family think of these dreams? They don’t believe that these dreams are from God. They think Joseph has lost his mind. They despise the idea of bowing down to this younger brother. I don’t know exactly how old Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and the others are, but here’s this young, cocky teenager coming up with these dreams. They’ve got to be saying, "Whoa there. You’ve got a lot to learn, boy." We also see the character of Jacob and Israel. They’re going to look back at this and see that they hated God’s messenger. When they hated Joseph, his dreams being from God through Joseph, they hated God’s messenger. They’re also going to see that their salvation comes in spite of this. We do the same thing. We may despise what God wants to do in our lives by rejecting or ignoring the leading of the Holy Spirit. We may try to work things out by ourselves. In spite of that, God is in control. We’re going to see a lot more of that. |
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Genesis 37:9-11 Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. "Listen," he said, "I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me." When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, "What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?" His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind. |
Why were they "jealous"? <The brothers were the ones out in the field doing the work and Joseph was sitting at home getting all the attention and affection.> I think they also might be worried that Joseph might be right. If it had been me, as an older brother, and Joseph said this to me, I would have said, "You’re nuts! You’re crazy. You’re the younger kid. You’re a teenager. You don’t know what you’re talking about. I think there must have already been some evidence of Joseph’s authority, leadership, and capabilities. <If they’d had a relationship with God, don’t you think they would’ve seen God in these dreams?> Definitely. I think we see a hint of that with Jacob, where it says, "he kept the matter in mind." He did not totally dismiss it. He didn’t say, "Son, you’re crazy." Does Jacob recognize God's word?
We’re going to see that even though people got in the way, again, God had a plan. Maybe Rachel was the original plan, but with all this deception being sown and reaped, the plans were sidetracked. If Laban hadn’t deceived Jacob with Leah and Rachel (if it had been Rachel right from the start), things may have been vastly different. Rachel may have had all the children. The Bible may have been much shorter. Because there was sin and deceit, it derailed what God had planned. But He is going to bring it back around again. Jacob says, "Go find your brothers." Joseph says, "OK," wanders around, and finds them. |
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Genesis 37:18-20 But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him. "Here comes that dreamer!" they said to each other. "Come now, let's kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we'll see what comes of his dreams." |
Isn’t this a good story? It would have been good just to show you an excerpt from a movie about Joseph this morning. I couldn’t because I didn’t think it would work to just pause and say, "Did you notice that?" In the movie, we see more about Simeon and Levi and what happened before all of this with the Shechemites. You know that Dinah, their sister, was raped by Shechem, pretty much right before all of this happened. I think that this crime (the murder they were contemplating) would’ve been easier because they had already killed. This leads me to think about desensitization, where we’re desensitized to things that happen to us. If we were to chart it with "Experiences" versus "De-sensitivity," it would happen something like this: |
At some point, we start. We’re born and we have innocence. We’re naïve about things that go on in the world. We’re going along and we stub our toe. All of a sudden, we know about pain. We know what blood is. "Ouch, that hurts. I don’t like that." Then we see somebody at school get in a fight. So we say, "OK. People will fight. That’s going to happen in this world. I’ve learned a little more." Then we catch a glimpse of the evening news of some kind of war going on somewhere else and we learn a little more. We see an old John Wayne movie and someone is actually killed. We see more and more and more and we get desensitized. I’m sure that many of you have seen "Saving Private Ryan." If we can watch the first thirty minutes of that without getting physically sick, then we’re pretty high on the "de-sensitivity" scale.
Because the brothers had killed all of these people, Joseph was really just another step. It was actually easier than killing all the Shechemites.
It’s very easy for us to forget that our children are pretty low on the "de-sensitivity" scale. We’ve got to be on guard, really careful, about what we show them or expose them to too early. We don’t want to overprotect them. We don’t want to leave them at the bottom and say, "I don’t want my child to ever stub his toe." But we’ve got to be sensitive and ask, "Where are they in their maturity?" I have traumatized my son. He is scared to death of "E.T." because I wanted him to see the movie before he was ready. I didn’t think about or remember some of the things that might be scary. He’s eight now, and I think he’d be all right with it, but he doesn’t want to hear about it. He’s scared. That was a mistake I made. I didn’t consider his maturity well enough.
<It’s the same way with video games. My kids got a game that we thought was just a racing game, but there were things in the game that just shocked us. Many parents don’t even know what’s in these games.>
There have been studies on this. Because kids are exposed to and overloaded earlier with more and more junk, it does affect them, what they do, and the decisions they make. The "times" are changing. The gruesome war movie of the last generation may have been John Wayne. It’s gotten worse and worse. In the 80s, it was "Platoon." Now it’s "Saving Private Ryan." It is more and more gory.
<I can’t believe some parents are taking their children to "R"-rated movies. They may say that the kids sleep through it, but what are they thinking? What are they trying to do to their kids? Even if they are half-asleep, there are things that they’ll hear. You have to watch babysitters, too. Some will let the kids watch anything. Even "PG-13" movies present things that our kids just don’t need to be exposed to.>
I hope that we teach our kids such that they can make decisions for themselves. My son, who is a Christian, has been really good about that. A neighbor of ours got the "Scooby Doo" movie. I haven’t seen it, but I’ve heard that it’s pretty scary and that it’s really not for kids. He made the decision, by himself, not to watch it. I re-enforced him. I helped him and encouraged him with the good decision he’d made. But he made the decision.
Check out www.movieguide.org sometime. Ted Baehr is that name of the guy that runs it. He watches and reports on all the movies that are in the theaters now. He’ll give you the Christian perspective on them. It’s really good. He’ll tell you what’s good and bad about the movie and rate them on a scale ranging from "Exemplary" to "Abhorrent." He’ll tell you about cuss words, compromising scenes, incorrect philosophies, etc. It’s amazing how many movies are so far down on the scale.
This desensitization applies to many things, not just movies.
The class expressed significant interest in Tivo, so here’s a little more information:
We use something called Tivo that really helps us protect our children. Tivo is a "digital video recorder", kind of like a tape-less VCR, that takes over your cable or satellite. There are similar products that you may want to investigate (Replay and UltimateTV). Tivo has many features and benefits, but we use:
Our kids have no idea what real TV is like.
You can find more information at www.tivo.com.
TV, itself, is still mostly bad and evil and we spend too much time with it, but something like Tivo helps lessen some of the things our children are exposed to.
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Genesis 37:21-24 When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. "Let's not take his life," he said. "Don't shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the desert, but don't lay a hand on him." Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father. So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe--the richly ornamented robe he was wearing--and they took him and threw him into the cistern. Now the cistern was empty; there was no water in it. |
What kind of a leader was Reuben? Obviously, he’s the oldest of the brothers, but what do we see about him here? Compassionate? Maybe a little. He didn’t stand up here. He didn’t say, "WHOA! This is wrong! We’re not going to do this to our brother, our blood." Instead, he didn’t want to alienate his brothers. He wanted to please everyone. He did come back for Joseph and had good intentions, but he shows only a little more backbone than the others do. I just don’t see Reuben doing enough. As the firstborn and "leader" of his brothers, I think he could have done more. I think he could have done a lot more. Reuben’s plan involves compromise and deceit rather than standing for principle. Reuben is what we are and what we do. We get overwhelmed with the solution to the problem or overwhelmed with the idea of making a gain ("Hey, there’s 20 pieces of silver in it for us."). I think we do that too. |
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Genesis 37:25-27 As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt. Judah said to his brothers, "What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? Come, let's sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood." His brothers agreed. |
His brothers are pretty heartless. It says that they sat down to a meal. They threw Joseph into a pit and said, "Hey. Let’s eat something. I’m hungry." So Joseph is over in this well over here screaming, "Help me! Let me out!" The brothers are over there saying, "Hey. Can you pass me that sandwich, please? Are you going to eat the rest of that?" Joseph’s crying out probably took half a second to reach their ears while they’re eating, but we’re going to see that it took 22 years before it finally reached their hearts. Judah does stand up. That’s a little something. It helps us a little later when we learn that Judah is the line of Christ. The robe that was stripped from him was very important to him. It showed that he was "somebody" here on earth. It was taken from him, so all his worldly anchors (things that meant something to him) are gone now. Although they stripped him of his coat, we’re going to see that they didn’t strip him of his character. Even though everything he had here on earth was taken away, he remains true to God and God to him. |
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Genesis 37:28-32 So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt. When Reuben returned to the cistern and saw that Joseph was not there, he tore his clothes. He went back to his brothers and said, "The boy isn't there! Where can I turn now?" Then they got Joseph's robe, slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in the blood. They took the ornamented robe back to their father and said, "We found this. Examine it to see whether it is your son's robe." |
Does this deception sound familiar? The slaughtering of a goat in order to deceive somebody? We’ve seen the exact, same thing before. That’s what Jacob did with putting a goat skin on so that he appeared to be Esau before Isaac. They also used a goat to prepare the meal for Isaac. You reap what you sow. Remember Galatians 6:7. Jacob reaped exactly what he’d sown. |
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Genesis 37:33-35 He recognized it and said, "It is my son's robe! Some ferocious animal has devoured him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces." Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and mourned for his son many days. All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. "No," he said, "in mourning will I go down to the grave to my son." So his father wept for him. |
What do we learn from that? <Jacob probably tore a very expensive robe that he was wearing.> Yes. I’m sure that as the Patriarch of this group, clan, tribe, or family that he was wearing better clothes than most other people. At 100+, he was probably not doing too much hard labor. So he probably tore some nice clothes. More importantly, I see a lack of faith in God. Jacob says, "My son is dead. Nobody come near me. I’ve got to grieve." That may be understandable. If I were to lose my son, it would tear me up. But we also see that he displays a failure to see the truth of eternal life. He is going to see Joseph again (both on earth, in reality, and in heaven). So he has not yet learned to walk by faith. We also learn:
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Genesis 37:36 Meanwhile, the Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard. |
Was it God’s idea to have Joseph become a slave? Maybe to develop his character? We don’t know for sure. If we think about the heart and mind of Jesus and God, we don’t see them inspiring somebody to be deceitful or to want to kill somebody else. We do see that God will take this evil and turn it into good. Joseph is bold and confident in whom he is in God. We’re going to see that more in chapter 39. Chapter 38 goes into more about Judah. It’s kind of thrown into the middle of the story of Joseph. That will be covered next week. Chapter 39 continues the story of Joseph. |
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Genesis 39:1-3 Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there. The LORD was with Joseph and he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. When his master saw that the LORD was with him and that the LORD gave him success in everything he did, |
What is God’s relationship with Joseph? Pretty strong. Pretty good. The Lord is WITH him. Do you believe this is true for you? Is the Lord with you like He was with Joseph? Yes. You’d better jump up and say, "Hallelujah! Yes!" Yes He is. That’s something we have to cling to and hold onto. See Romans 8:35-39. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. God blessed Joseph, and the Lord prospered him even though he was a slave. He didn’t work for wages. This "prosperity" that God’s talking about is the prosperity that Joseph provided to others by using his gifts and by his relationship with God. |
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Genesis 39:4-5 Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the LORD blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the LORD was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. |
What was the effect on Potiphar of Joseph working for him? He prospered. That leads to the next question: can this work for you with your employer? Sure. <It’s good that Potiphar recognized that God was blessing him through Joseph.> |
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Genesis 39:6-12 So he left in Joseph's care everything he had; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate. Now Joseph was well-built and handsome, and after a while his master's wife took notice of Joseph and said, "Come to bed with me!" But he refused. "With me in charge," he told her, "my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?" And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her. One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. She caught him by his cloak and said, "Come to bed with me!" But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house. |
So Joseph is taking care of everything in Potiphar’s house. Potiphar’s wife tempts him. We see a lot of lessons there on how Joseph resisted this temptation:
When it was all said and done, he didn’t stop to reason with her. He didn’t stop to pray about it or meditate and ask, "God, what should I do?" He ran. He took off. He said, "This isn’t going to happen. God is in control of my life. Forget about it." Also note:
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Genesis 39:16-20a She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. Then she told him this story: "That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me. But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house." When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, "This is how your slave treated me," he burned with anger. Joseph's master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined. |
Why was Potiphar "burning with anger"? Who was it directed at? I say it was directed at his wife, not Joseph. Joseph was his most valuable employee and source of profit (through God). Had Potiphar really believed his wife, Joseph would have been killed immediately. He was still "just" a slave. Instead Joseph was thrown in prison so Potiphar's wife could "save face" and he could keep up appearances before Pharaoh. |
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Genesis 39:20b-23 But while Joseph was there in the prison, the LORD was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph's care, because the LORD was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did. |
The Lord is with him. Again and again. Remember, at this point, God wasn’t "speaking" to Joseph. He wasn’t "appearing" to Joseph like He did to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That ought to encourage us. God did speak to him through dreams, but He didn’t come down and say, "You need to do this and you don’t need to do that." Joseph was still faithful. "The Lord was with him." Do you agree? Would Joseph have agreed? If you were Joseph, would you have denied God or blamed God for this further disaster in your life--a disaster that happened only because you were faithful? |
So we see that through this situation, God is preparing Joseph. He’s preparing him to serve. In Potiphar’s house, he’s gaining management experience. God is preparing him to serve later as prime minister of Egypt. His imprisonment was probably an answer to his prayers. Sometimes we don’t get the answer that we quite expect, but I’m sure Joseph was praying, "God, this woman. Please get her to leave me alone. I don’t want to commit a sin. I don’t want to do anything against Your will. I love you, but please get rid of this woman." His imprisonment may have been an answer to prayer, "OK, Joseph, you’re going to prison." Also, in prison, God planned for him to have an appointment with a man who would introduce him to Pharaoh. So we see God at work here.
The necessity of suffering and adversity is taught throughout the Bible, particularly suffering that is undeserved or that results from righteousness. It is a part of the normal Christian life that we should expect things to happen to us.
Since suffering innocently is a part of the normal Christian experience, let me suggest two practical implications.
Fortunately, Joseph believed in a God who is not only all-wise and all-loving, but all-powerful. The God he served did place his servants in circumstances that were difficult and unpleasant, but He also gave a sufficient measure of His grace to endure it. The testimony of Joseph in these dark days is a reminder to every Christian that even the righteous will suffer and that such suffering is in the will of God to accomplish His purposes. No promise in the Bible should be more comforting to those suffering than this:
Hebrews 13:5b-6
God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." So we say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?"
We must cling to that when we experience hardships that we just don’t understand.
Prayer:
Dear Heavenly Father, thank You so much for You being in control. Things happen and we don’t understand. We may be tempted to say, "Hey, God, have you forgotten me? Have you forsaken me?" We may be tempted to deny You, but God, we’re so small. Our perspective is so limited that we can’t see what You have planned. We can’t see that we’re going to be thrown into a pit and serve in slavery for thirteen years and eventually be promoted to something else. Not that we would presume that we are to be promoted, maybe it is Your will that we do suffer and provide an example to others as we remain faithful to you. I thank You for that. I thank you for providing salvation. We were Reuben. We threw Joseph in the pit. I threw Joseph in the pit and I sold him into slavery. And yet You turned that around. You turned that evil into good and provided a way of salvation for the people on the earth at that time. Just like we and I nailed Jesus to the cross. Even though we were sinners, Christ died for us. You raised him up again. Even though we meant to do something malicious, even though we turned Him over to be killed, you turned it around and provided a way of salvation for us that we can cling to and put our hope in. Lord, I ask that you show us, as we go through this week, even though we may have hardships, let us remain faithful to You and continue to good. In Your name, we pray. Amen.
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Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®.
Copyright©1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.
Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.