Today, I am reading and commenting on  Genesis 45-47.

I was going to only touch something which comes later, but I wanted to touch on how Jacob answered Pharaoh asked him, “How many are the days of the years of your life?”  Jacob answered by saying that he had sojourned for 130 years and that was only a short and bitter time.  A sojourn is a time away from one’s real home.  Jacob was saying that his time on this earth was a mere sojourn from his true life, to which he would return when his time on this earth was over.  Let us remember that our time on this earth is only a sojourn, a short time away from our true home with God.

Now to the thing which first struck me in today’s passage.  I have thought about this before but have avoided writing about it for various reasons.  At the end of the passage it talks about how Joseph sold the food back to the people of Egypt and gives us an important lesson about relying on the government.  The food which Joseph has in the storehouses was collected from the people of Egypt by the government of Egypt during the years of plenty as a supply for the coming years of famine.  However, when the years of famine came, Joseph, as the leader of the Egyptian government, did not give that food back to the people.  Instead he made them pay for it.  When they ran out of money, he took their livestock in payment.  Once he, as the representative of Pharaoh, the head of government. had their livestock, he made them sell him their land, and themselves into slavery.  The lesson being that if we rely on the government to provide for our needs, they will, eventually, demand that we enslave ourselves to the government.  I will also note that Joseph’s family, his father, his brothers and their descendants, all profited during this time as well.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Genesis 45-47.

When Joseph revealed himself to his brothers, his first thought was to reassure them that they should forgive themselves for what they had done to him.  Joseph stresses that God used what they intended for evil to bring good.  This statement by Joseph is consistent with how he behaved when things went wrong in his life.  In fact, Joseph lived his life, and was telling his brothers, and us, according to the principle which Paul laid out in Romans 8:28:

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Or, to put it another way, this story communicates the same message which Paul relates in the New Testament.  No matter how bad things may seem for us today, or even tomorrow and the day after, God has a plan which will lead to better things for us and those we love, if we will just put our faith in Him and act today according to the commands He has given us.  Joseph was able to so readily forgive his brothers because he never allowed himself to succumb to bitterness over the “bad” things which happened to him.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Genesis 45-47.

Many people hold a grudge against those who have wronged them, even after the end result of the wrong is something markedly better than anyone could have imagined happening to them without the wrong first occurring.  Joseph did not.  When Joseph’s brothers discovered who he was, they were terrified.  They were sure that he would use his position to get revenge on them for the wrong they had done him.  However, Joseph looked at what they had done and realized that God had used it to get him to where he was.  Instead of seeking revenge against his brothers for what they had done to him, Joseph praised God for putting him into those bad circumstances in order for him to be in the position to do good things later.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Genesis 45-47.

When Joseph revealed himself to his brothers, they were terrified that he held a grudge against them for what they had done.  Their reaction on their first visit indicates that they had been living with guilt for having sold their brother into slavery all of these years.  Now, he had chance to pay them back for their treachery, and they could not blame him.  However, instead of having lived with a grudge against those who had wronged him, Joseph had lived his life making the best out of every situation and worshiping God.  So Joseph saw what had happened to him as part of God’s plan.  Instead of seeking payback against his brothers, Joseph used his position, and his understandings of Egyptian bias, to get his family the land in Egypt best suited for them.   Joseph did not spend his life bemoaning his fate and seeking to inflict suffering on those responsible for his suffering.  In fact, he did not assign blame for his suffering to anyone.  Instead he chose to look at his suffering as necessary steps for God to put him in the place where he could do the most good.  Let us live our lives similarly.

Another interesting thing about this passage is that it allows us to look at the archeological record to see if we can confirm it.   Interestingly, there was a period in Egyptian history where power shifted from a  group of nobles to the Pharaoh in a manner which might match up to that described as happening under Joseph.  In addition, a group of people with ties to Canaan occupied the area of Egypt referred to here as Goshen in a time frame which might be consistent with the way this passage describes Jacob’s descendants settling there.  However, the timing of those two archeological findings are currently believed to have occurred earlier than the biblical account records Joseph as having lived (there are a couple of events which are recorded later in the Bible for which we have solid archeological evidence and dating, and the biblical account gives us a pretty solid idea of how long before those events Joseph lived–it is actually a window of time, depending on how you interpret several passages which give length of time between events).  On the other hand, some recent developments in archeology have led archeologists to question whether a significant portion of early Egyptian history occurred as far back in time as currently believed (to understand this one must understand that the dates for events in much of early Egyptian history are arrived at by counting backwards from certain events which are reliably dated and recent findings suggest that some of that counting backwards was based on faulty assumptions).

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 45-47.

I usually try to look for something other than the “Sunday School” lesson in a passage to write about, but I have written on some of those other things in this passage in previous years.  And I feel like the feel-good, “Sunday School” lesson in this passage is one too many people today have dismissed.   When Joseph revealed to his brothers he did not blame them for the wrong which they had done him.  Instead, he pointed out that if they had not done that to him, if he had not experienced the suffering which he experienced, he would not have been in a position to save them and their father in this time of famine.  But not only does he absolve them of their sin against them by attributing it to God’s providence, he also give God credit for his rise to prominence.  Just as when he was first called before Pharaoh, Joseph takes no credit for what he has accomplished.  He was merely in the place which God had placed him, doing the things which God had given him the gifts to accomplish.  Joseph’s attitude reminds me of a book I read about the village of Le Chambon, France during World War II.  The book is titled “Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed.”  The people of the village did much to rescue many Jews (particularly children, but not just children) from the Nazis.  After the war, when questioned about what they had done, many of them answered, “I just did what anyone would have done.”  We all know that is not true, but Joseph shared that attitude: that nothing he had done was particularly exceptional.  Let us strive to have that attitude.  We will just do the tasks which God puts in front of us to the best of our abilities and give honor to God for however they turn out.