The closing chapters of Genesis tell the story of Joseph. He of the coat of many colours. The first thing we learn about Joseph is that he was Jacob’s favourite son. Joseph was “born to him in his old age” (chapter 37, verse 3) and he was the first son of his favourite wife, Rachel so it’s perhaps understandable that Joseph would be special to him, but that still doesn’t excuse the way he behaved. Jacob may not have been able to help the way he felt about his sons, but he could have helped the way he acted; and the same goes for us. The easiest thing in the world is for us to give in to our impulses and act according to our feelings, but none of us are perfect, so that’s not always the best thing for us or for other people – we need to act according to God’s mind, not our own.
As well as being unfair and ill-advised, Jacob’s behaviour also seems somewhat surprising when you consider that Jacob himself had learnt the hard way the damage that favouritism can do to a family – it was because Rebekah loved Jacob more that she helped him cheat Esau out of his blessing. Jacob’s family was torn apart by favouritism, so you would have thought that he would have known better than to treat one of his own sons as the favourite, but apparently he failed to learn from the mistakes of the past, and I’d say that was his biggest mistake. Each time we screw up, or we see someone else screw up, we’re given a marvellous opportunity to learn from that mistake and avoid messing up in the same way again; and we need to make the most of these opportunities.
Not only did Jacob love Joseph more, but he wasn’t subtle about showing it either – as Andrew Lloyd Webber has told the world, he gave him an amazing technicolour dreamcoat, or as the Bible puts it, a richly ornamented robe. I’m sure his brothers had already figured out by then that Joseph was the favourite, but this was like rubbing salt into the wounds by providing a constant reminder that they just didn’t measure up. And more than that, now people outside of the family would know, and that must have been humiliating for them.
The brothers were clearly hurt by their father’s behaviour, but there’s no indication that they ever confronted him about. Instead, we read that “they hated Joseph and could not speak a kind word to him”. Joseph certainly didn’t do a lot to help his cause later on, but isn’t it possible that he only became insensitive because his brothers pushed him out? And isn’t it possible that Joseph was as hurt by his brothers’ hate as they were by their father’s lack of love? By taking their anger out on Joseph, and leaving the hurt caused by their father to fester, the brothers prevented themselves from having a good relationship with either. Too often we do the same thing – someone hurts us, but instead of dealing with it, we hurt someone else. That may make us feel better for a time, but it doesn’t resolve the underlying issue – all that pain and bitterness is still there, and it’ll come back to bite us eventually. And in the meantime, we’ve inflicted that same pain on someone else, who may well go and hurt someone else in turn...and so the cycle goes on. Somewhere along the line, someone needs to be strong enough to put a stop to it.
The next thing we learn about Joseph is that he was a dreamer. He dreams first that his brothers’ sheaves of corn bow down to his; and then that eleven stars, then sun and the moon bow down to him. He tells his brothers about these dreams and “they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he said”. It’s interesting that the Bible makes a distinction here between the dream and Joseph’s words. It wasn’t just the dreams and their possible meanings that bothered them, it was also the fact that Joseph had told them – it must have seemed to them like he was gloating, and loving every minute of it. Our words can have a powerful effect, so we need to think first about the impact they will have on others, and if that impact is going to be negative and harmful, we should just keep them to ourselves.
It seems to me that if his brothers hadn’t spoken kindly to him since he got the coat, then he must have known they already resented him, so in deciding to tell them that he would one day rule over them, he either showed incredible arrogance and insensitivity, or a remarkable lack of intelligence. Whichever it was, he certainly made a bit of a faux pas. He was so caught up in his dreams, and what they meant for the future, that he didn’t think about the impact they would have on his relationships in the here and now. It would be easy to say that Joseph had to behave like that, because if he hadn’t angered his brothers so much they wouldn’t have sold him into slavery, and he wouldn’t have enjoyed the eventual success that he did; but if it was in God’s plan for Joseph to become the second most powerful man in Egypt, then it would have happened another way, and maybe it could have happened with much less suffering on all sides. It can be very easy to be so intent on the future that we ignore the present, but if we miss out on the here and now, we miss out on life. There’s nothing wrong with having dreams, but we need to make sure that we don’t let them take over and cloud our judgement.
But it’s not just dreams that confuse things. Feelings can do that too. One day, Joseph’s brothers see him approaching them and they plot to kill him. Reuben convinces them not to kill him but instead to throw him into a well, with the intention of freeing him later. The brothers tear his coat off him and throw him into the well, but before Reuben has chance to rescue him, the other brothers sell him to slave traders on their way to Egypt. They then kill a goat and smear Joseph’s coat with its blood, then take it back to Isaac, letting him believe that his beloved son has been killed by a wild animal. Joseph’s brothers allow their anger and their hatred to take over and overrule everything they know to be right, but we need to use our heads as well as our hearts.
At this point, the narrative goes of on a slight tangent to tell the story of Judah and Tamar. Tamar married Judah’s eldest son, but he was wicked and so he died. Then she married his second eldest son, but he too displeased God, so he died. Judah then promised to marry her to his third eldest son when he was old enough, but he did not keep his word, so Tamar tricked him into sleeping with her. Tamar was deceitful and an adulteress, but Judah still declared her more righteous than he because he had broken his word. This doesn’t excuse Tamar or mean that two wrongs make a right, but it does mean that we must acknowledge our own sins and the part we play in leading other people into sin.
The narrative now switches back to Joseph, who is a slave in the house of an Egyptian man called Potiphar. Potiphar can see that God is looking after Joseph and that he succeeds in all he does, so he puts him in charge of running his household. All goes well for Joseph, at least as well as can be expected for a slave in a foreign country, until one day Potiphar’s wife falsely accuses him of trying to attack her. Potiphar is understandably furious, and throws Joseph into prison. However, God is still with him, and he grants him the favour of the prison keeper, who puts Joseph in charge of all the other prisoners.
Some time later, the Pharaoh's chief butler and chief baker are also thrown into prison and they begin to have strange dreams. Joseph interprets these dreams, and just as he predicts, the baker is hanged but the butler is reinstated. Joseph asks the butler to remember him to Pharaoh, but he forgets until some years later, when Pharaoh himself starts to have strange dreams. The magicians and wise men fail to interpret these dreams and Pharaoh becomes increasing agitated, and it is now that the butler finally remembers Joseph. He is summoned before Pharaoh and he tells him that he cannot interpret dreams on his own, but if he tells him his dreams, God will give him the answer he seeks. So Pharaoh tells Joseph his dreams, and Joseph tells him that they mean there will be seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine, and advises Pharaoh to appoint a man to oversee the stockpiling of food in preparation for the famine. Pharaoh sees something in Joseph and so he appoints him to this role, making him the second most important man in all of Egypt, and giving him a new name, great wealth and a wife.
I once came across a children’s version of the story of Joseph which quite simply stated that “Joseph was not very nice”. And it's true. He was spoiled; he was tactless, dim or proud, or maybe even a combination of the three; and he would tell tales about his brothers to his father. But we can already see that God is playing to his strengths and improving on his weaknesses. Joseph’s dealings with his brothers show that he couldn’t really get alongside people, but he clearly had a knack for managing them; and so whether he was a slave, a prisoner, or governor of Egypt, God always found a way of putting him in a position of authority.
God has also taught him some valuable lessons. When Joseph was thrown into a foreign land, where no one knew him and no one favoured him, I’m sure he learnt very quickly to rely on God rather than on himself; and being made a slave must surely have taught him the humility that he had had seemed to lack when he was with his family. It certainly seems that he had learnt these lessons by the time he was brought in front of Pharaoh – when Pharaoh asked if he could interpret dreams, he could quite easily have simply answered ‘yes’, but he didn’t. He told Pharaoh that the power to interpret dreams came from God, not him, humbling himself and showing that he recognised his reliance on God for his success. Joseph’s seeming arrogance landed him in the pit, but his humility landed him the top job in Egypt; and that change was only possible with the help of God.
God wants to do the same thing for each of us – he wants to bring out our strengths and diminish our weaknesses, and help us become the people he originally made us to be. However, He gave us all free will so He can’t just change us, and we shouldn’t expect Him to. We have to work with Him, and that mean spending time in prayer and reading the Bible, drawing closer to Him and learning more about the people he wants us to be.
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