Faith.In.Life

Joseph and His Brothers

From Sarah to Rachel we have seen a common theme:  YHWH is the Lord of fertility and has the ability to bless woman with children or to “close up their womb.”  We saw in chapter 29 that Rachel was unable to have children in order that Leah might be lifted up.  As Rachel’s envy grows, we see at the beginning of Genesis 30 Rachel has had enough.  We then see a strange revisiting to Sarah offering Hagar to Abraham when Rachel offers Bilhah to Jacob.  What is even more strange is that Rachel sees this as an answer to her prayer, naming this son of Bilhah’s Dan because “God has vindicated me!  He has heard my request and given me a son even though Dan is not hers.  Rachel further allows her envy too influence the naming of Bilhah’s second child to by naming him Naphtali, which means “I have struggled hard with my sister, and I’m winning.  The competition between the two sisters continues to increase where Jacob is the prize in one way or another.  In total, five sons and one daughter are given to Jacob before God ever acts on Rachel’s behalf.

Finally, in 30:22 God remembers Rachel’s plight and finally enables her to have children.  And Rachel’s first son will be names Joseph, for she says “God has removed my disgrace,” and “May the Lord add yet another son to my family.”

We may gloss over this chapter similar to other chapters that include family histories and all the “begets” referencing what child came from who.  Typically these chapters span over many generations of the Hebrews and all their descendants coming down from Abraham.  While every family tree is important, Jacob’s family stands out for we are given the reason behind each name.  While every Hebrew name has a significant meaning, we should pay special attention to the meaning of the names when they speak into the person’s circumstance for God is indicating that this is particularly important for one reason or another.  In this case the women are pretty much projecting their situation upon their children and while the children will be known by their names from then on, the names do not describe their personality but the women’s plight.  While this is equally true of Joseph, there is equally a hint to how Jospeh’s life will unfold for two different reasons:

-  Joseph is Rachel’s only son, her first born, and effectively a new reiteration of Isaac. Jacob becomes the “first born son” and has illusions to God’s promise to Abraham in regards to Isaac.  Even though he is born seventh in the line of Jacob’s offspring, his value is more than his elder siblings. We have all seen what can happen when this happens, though - when a new born child comes along the elder siblings will do anything and everything to get their parent’s attention.  However, if an inheritance and value was given to a younger sibling that was owed to the elder (much like is the case in the parable of the two brothers), the elder sibling has every reason to hate the younger.  There is an inherent problem to how the siblings are born and the value placed on Jospeh:  The elder siblings cannot help and are even in the right for their disdain for Joseph.

-  With Joseph’s birth, the Lord has removed Rachel’s disgrace.  There are echoes of salvation in line with Joseph’s name.  We are all born into disgrace or sin, but when we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior it is God who imparts grace freely upon our disgrace.  In Christ Jesus, God no longer sees our disgrace, sin, shame, or that we are unlovable, but rather sees only His perfect Son imparted over and unto His children.  However, we need not fast forward to Jospeh and his amazing technicolor dreamboat to know what happens next - we all are familiar with how the brothers will beat Jospeh and leave him for dead.  While Jospeh’s very name creates room for hope and grace, his brothers will do anything and everything they can to try to remove the grace unfairly given to this younger brother.  They believe that they can completely remove him from his mother’s fancy all together by beating him and throwing him in the pit - essentially disgracing him.  Yet, God’s grace given to Rachel’s while certainly meant for this barren women, is not solely contained in a one time event.  Not only does God remove Rachel’s disgrace, but once we do arrive at Joseph’s own narrative, we will see that God equally will remove Joseph’s disgrace despite his brothers best efforts to essentially dethrone this undeserving brother.

And this is only but the beginning of the parallels between Jospeh and each of our stories.  God has a way of removing our disgrace by offering his grace and mercy which gives us life.  We will continue to see these parallels unfold especially when we reach Genesis 37.  In the mean time, we have more to learn about Jacob, and we will see his story further unfold in teh coming weeks.