Joseph's brothers sell him into slavery.

Howard Taylor (January 2005)

Remember these are only notes so don't expect perfect grammar or even perfect spelling. Remember too that British spelling is different from American spelling.

Joseph - most exciting and moving story in Bible.
-  Is it only a story?
-  What does it mean?
-  Anything deeper than a good story?

Old preachers: Joseph a type of Christ.
Rejected by his brothers.
-  Jesus rejected by his brothers - Jewish people.
-  Just as Joseph put in a pit so Jesus put in the pit of death.
-  Just as Joseph exalted in Egypt so Jesus becomes King of Kings.

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Is it right to see types of Christ in OT or we just letting our imagination run riot?
-  Can't simply read off one from another.
-  Joseph didn't actually die.
-  Joseph far from perfect.
-  Jesus obedient in all things.

What is the truth?

In OT God is beginning to draw near to our sinful world.

-  Chose Ab, Isaac, Jacob and their descendants.
-  Begins by His Word and Spirit to come near to them.

-  Things begin to happen in their lives and history of the world.
-  Approximate to that which will happen when God doesn't just come near but comes right among us in Jesus.
-  Jewish History bears witness – often unconscious witness - to Christ.

Same with us today.
-  When we become part of God's people thro Jesus, we begin to experience things that approximate to Jesus.
-  Eg: Take up our Cross.
-  If any man would come after me - deny himself.

Not easy but glorious.
Author and finisher of our Faith.
-  Gone ahead of us that we might follow.

So OT story does point forward to Jesus.
-  Psalms - not exact description of Jesus - but do really bear witness to Him in a very deep and wonderful way.

-  All the Law Psalms and Prophets - bear witness to Him.

-  Jews wrote the Bible. (Humanly speaking).

-  Gentiles took it to the world.

-  Mutual interdependence.

Remind ourselves of Ab, Is and Jacob.
-  God had said to Ab (Joseph's great grandfather) 'I will bless you and your descendents and through them bless the whole world'.

-  Abraham didn't really know what it meant but he trusted.

-  2000 years later coming of Jesus made that promise clear.

-  Abraham's motto: on the Mtn of the Lord it will become clear.

-  One day on the Jerusalem Hills all that he and his descendants experience would become clear. - Jesus and His death.

Abraham didn't really know why he was called to leave his father and his father's country.
-  Another would leave His Father and His Father's country to come to this world of sin and sorrow for us.

Abraham didn't really know why he had to wait so long for the birth of Isaac.
-  God Himself had to wait for the time to be ripe for His own Son to be born into this world.
-  (Patient endurance of the Lord.)
-  Paul: Fullness of time, God sent forth His Son.

Abraham didn't really know why God told Him to take his son, his only son, whom he loved and sacrifice him.
-  He didn't know that one day another Son, and Only Son of the Father, beloved of the Father, would give His life as a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.

Ab didn't really know why he had to go long distance to hills of Moriah for the sacrifice.
-  Didn't know that Moriah would later be Jerusalem where the Son of God would one day suffer human death.

Abraham didn't know what it meant when he and Isaac made the final climb up the hill - alone. No one to share their grief.
-  Didn't know that one day Jesus and His Father would walk to Golgotha alone (no-one else understanding what it was all about).
-  God was in Christ …..

Jacob son of Isaac didn't really know what his dream about the ladder from heavebn to earth meant.
-  Didn't know that one day the Saviour of the world would say that He was that ladder. (John 1:51)
Jacob had that dream when after he had deceived his father and stolen his brother's birthright.
 
Done something very wrong.
-  That dream told him there is a ladder from heaven to earth and earth to heaven.
-  There is a way back to God from the dark paths of sin.
-  The only ladder there can be is a something that unites God and man in such away as to take away man's sin.
-  Christ is God and Man together bearing our sin on Cross.
-  Son of God became Son of Man - embracing the whole of God and the whole of mankind in Himself and He says of Himself:
 (John 1:51) 51 And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

Jacob didn't really know what his experience of wrestling with a man who was God really meant.
-  Didn't know that it was a picture of the struggle God has with all mankind in our wilfulness, sinfulness and pride.
-  Struggle against God (while not realising it is with God - just as so many struggles today, people are actually struggling against God.)
-  Holding on to God - what we do once we realise with whom we have been battling.
-  God holds on to us too.
-  A struggle that would reach its climax in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
-  Esp in the temptations,
-  Confrontation with the Jewish religious leaders, and in the Garden of Gethsemane and then finally on the Cross.
-  Meaning and destiny of Israel.
-  Israel means: he who struggles with God, or he who perseveres with God, or he with whom God struggles, or he with whom God perseveres
-  description of Israel's history to the end of time.
-  See it especially throughout history in the struggles of the Jewish people for survival.
-
Anti-Semitism is the struggle of the Gentile world against God's purposes in the history of the Jewish people.

OT is not a disconnected series of exciting stories each with its own moral or lesson.
-  It is a dramatic and real preparation of the people of God - descendants of Abraham Isaac and Jacob to receive their Messiah.
-  To give Him birth, and then finally accept Him whom. they, in his adult years, rejected.

Jesus: All the Law, Psalms and Prophets bear witness to me.
-  Law, Psalms and Prophets - reach out to end of time.

(The whole destiny of Israel from Ab - end of world bears witness in a way they themselves do not understand - to Christ.)

In the Sermon on Mount He came not to destroy but fulfil
- Fill out.
- Bud opening to full flower.

So now Joseph:
-  The full meaning - not seen until end of story when Joseph is reconciled with his brothers

Sovereignty of God not thwarted by indiscretions of Jacob and Joseph or by malice of those who were jealous of them.
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A few points re Joseph.
-  Born in today's Iraq.
-  Jacob his father working for Laban.
-  Joseph born to Jacob's favourite wife Rachel.
-  Earliest memories: flight from Laban across desert.
-  Then panic as news of his father's enemy brother Esau is approaching with army.
-  Continues South to Bethel - where his father had had the dream of the ladder.
-  Then a few miles South to Bethlehem - there, Rachel his mother dies giving birth to Benjamin, Joseph's only full brother.
-  Rachel's tomb is there to this day.
-  Benjamin is to feature dramatically in the final stages of the story of Joseph.
-  Further South to Hebron where they settle - where Abraham, Sarah and Isaac are buried.
 
Gen 37:1Jacob lived in the land of his father's sojourning, in the land of Canaan. 2 These are the generations of Jacob.
Joseph, being seventeen years old, was pasturing the flock with his brothers. He was a boy with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father's wives. And Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father.

Tell tale? May be?
-  Depends on what the brothers were doing.
-  Gen 34: Simeon and Levi’s deceit and brutality
-  Gen 35 Reubin’s incest.
-  Gen 39 Judah’s flcklenes and lechery.
Lev 5:1 We have a duty to speak up.

Loyalty to father must come first.
3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his sons, because he was the son of his old age. And he made him a robe of many colours.

-  Favouritism always was a problem in the stories of the patriarchal families.
-  Jacob had received favourite treatment from his mother Rebecca over his brother Esau.
-  Leads to terrible human anguish.
God had no favourites.
-  He had chosen Joseph for a special purpose (not favouritism). - but so, in the end he would save his brothers and Egyptians from starvation.
-  God's purposes always mean that we are humbled before one another in ways we don't expect.

5 Now Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers they hated him even more. 6 He said to them, “Hear this dream that I have dreamed: 7 Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf arose and stood upright. And behold, your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf.” 8 His brothers said to him, “Are you indeed to reign over us? Or are you indeed to rule over us?” So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words.

Whole story - gathering hostility.
-  Four bros and then all the brothers.

Jacob also angry with Joseph.
-  But he was wise enough not just to dismiss Joseph's dreams.
-  His long life had taught him that God works in ways that we don't expect.
11 And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind.

Anyway Hebron's pastures insufficient.
-  Joseph's brothers take flocks 80 miles to Dothan.

Jacob later sends Joseph to look for them.
12 Now his brothers went to pasture their father's flock near Shechem. 13 And Israel said to Joseph, “Are not your brothers pasturing the flock at Shechem? Come, I will send you to them.” And he said to him, “Here I am.” 14 So he said to him, “Go now, see if it is well with your brothers and with the flock, and bring me word.” So he sent him from the Valley of Hebron, and he came to Shechem. 15 And a man found him wandering in the fields. And the man asked him, “What are you seeking?” 16 “I am seeking my brothers,” he said. “Tell me, please, where they are pasturing the flock.”

Christ came to seek and to save …
-  His brother man.
-  Our human flesh.
-  However He came to His own and His own received Him not.

Bros see him coming and conspire to kill him.
-  Gospel story: as Jesus nears Jerusalem there is a build up of hatred and a gathering hostility and plotting.

Grab him and tear off his beautiful coat.
Put him in pit.

(Much later they make a confession: Gen 42: 21 Then they said to one another, “In truth we are guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the distress of his soul, when he begged us and we did not listen. That is why this distress has come upon us.”

Story reminds us of the gospel account of death of Jesus:
-  This is the heir, let us kill him and the inheritance will be ours.
 And
-  They parted his garments.

Gen 37: 24 And they took him and cast him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it. 25 Then they sat down to eat. And looking up they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels bearing gum, balm, and myrrh, on their way to carry it down to Egypt.

Lamentations:  Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by, was there any sorrow like unto my sorrow.
-  Sorrow at the destruction of Israel
-  and used as a prophecy of the sorrow of Jesus as those who pass by His cross care nothing about it.

What did Joseph think now of his dreams?
-  But his dreams did come true.

We need people with dreams and visions and sense of destiny.
-  Joy is to see one's destiny fulfilled and dreams come true.

-  Without a vision the people perish.

All of us should have and ideal, a hope, a longing.
-  But sometimes our hopes will be dashed.
-  But if our hope is focussed on God's kingdom and righteousness, it will be one day a vision that will be transformed into reality - may be beyond this world.

Joseph later in his earthly life saw his dreams come true.

Heb 12:1Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

The story of how:
-  Joseph and his brothers are eventually reconciled is heart rending and awesome.
-  It will tear at Joseph's heart and his brothers' hearts - revealing, sifting and refining their true character.

Just before he reveals himself to them they think he is a Gentile - Egyptian.
-  (Many Jews today think that Jesus is a gentile god figure who does not belong to them.)

Just before he does reveal his true humanity to them he weeps for them.
-  I am reminded of Paul in Romans 9 speaking of the heart of Christ for his brothers after the flesh.
Rom 9:1 I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit— 2 that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers,  my kinsmen according to the flesh. 4 They are Israelites,

When they do realise who this Egyptian prince is
-  they are afraid that he will punish them for putting him in a pit so long ago.

But he says to them:
Do not be afraid, you meant it for harm but God meant it for good for the saving of many lives.

We must pray and await that day when the Lord says to his ancient people: I am Jesus whom you crucified, but don't be afraid you meant it for harm but God meant it for good for the saving of the world.

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