40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 40 Minutes in The Old Testament: Episode 52

Episode Date: July 5, 2016

Daniel and Chad talk about Joseph's rise to power and lying to himself about forgetting his family. Famine has struck and the craziest family reunion ever is happening. "Old guilt gathers no rust." Have a listen!

welcome to another episode of 40 minutes in the old testament i am daniel emory price and i am joined by chad bird alone today how you doing chad i'm good i'm good here we are just the two of us we'll uh we'll fill in for brandon today okay let's do this thing do you know where we're at do you recall i do actually the only reason i recall is because i wrote it down i'm on my uh my memory is uh is growing weak so i have to write everything down these days We are in chapter 41, about halfway through, about verse 37 is where we're going to pick up today. All right. We left everybody hanging last time, if I remember correctly.

So unless they read ahead, they don't know. They've been waiting with anticipation to find out what happens in this next chapter of Joseph's life. So let's recap where we left him. So Joseph has been in prison for a while, and then he interpreted the two dreams of the cupbearer and the wine guy, and nothing happened after that, even though the cupbearer and the baker, even though the cupbearer was supposed to say a good word on his behalf to Pharaoh. So he waits two years. Pharaoh has his dreams, and no one can interpret him.

and it's then that the cupbearer says, hey, there was a guy in prison, a Hebrew, who is a pretty good dream interpreter, so they get Joseph out of prison. They clean him up, shave him, put on clean clothes, and Pharaoh tells him his dreams. Joseph interprets those dreams for Pharaoh, and if you remember, the two dreams are basically the same dream, just told in different ways that there is going to be seven years of fatness in the land, followed by seven years of famine in the land. So that's kind of where we left off. Joseph interprets the dreams,

and then he hastens to add that Pharaoh should do a couple of things. He should, first of all, find someone who's really smart, who's a good planner, and they should put him in a position of power so that this really smart guy can set aside a lot of food during the seven years, and then when the seven years of famine come, they'll be ready. So that's kind of where we're left off.

And the next verse, verse 37 of chapter 41, says, Now the proposal seemed good to Pharaoh and all his servants. So they like what Joseph says. And then Pharaoh gives the only reasonable answer that he can. He says, can we find a man like this in whom is a divine spirit? So he says to Joseph, since God has informed you of all this, there is no one so discerning and wise as you are. You shall be over my house and according to your command, all my people shall do homage only in the throne. I will be greater than you.

And then he adds, see, I have set you over all the land of Egypt. So Joseph's life is about to go through another radical change, except finally things are actually going to turn out well for him. He's been on a pretty much a downward spiral ever since the age of 17 when he was sold into slavery by his brothers. And 13 years have passed. Now he's 30 years old, as we learn a little bit later in the chapter. So he's sold into slavery, taken into Potiphar's house, where he's accused of attempted rape, ends up in prison.

And now he's about to enter into kind of the third phase of his Egyptian pilgrimage. First as a slave, then as a prisoner, and then he's exalted all the way to the right hand of Pharaoh. so this kind of uh going off of what uh what luther what luther said which i quoted in the last episode this is easter day for joseph this is the day of his resurrection so he went through this long long passion week of suffering and crucifixion and burial and finally it's come to an end and he's exalted he's he's he's enlivened he's raised up from the pit of death and he's exalted to the right hand of Pharaoh. So this is kind of a type of foreshadowing

of the resurrection of our Lord as Luther sees it, quite rightly. This is kind of in black and white, if you will, the black and white story that we see in full color of our Lord's own suffering and death and burial and resurrection. resurrection so this and this is you know this is just the way god works he uh he wounds and he heals he kills and he makes alive he buries he resurrects this is just simply the the this is

the pattern that we see throughout the old testament that culminates in the life of christ it's a pattern we see in our own lives as well because god is constantly putting us to death in various ways and resurrecting us as well this is the bearing of the cross that that joseph endured and that all god's children endured this is simply always the way that god that god works the the christian life is not a victorious life instead it's a it's a death and resurrection life over and over and over again as we're joined to as we're joined to to christ in his own death and resurrection so here's joseph he's uh he's at pharaoh's right hand and pharaoh and we have this we have kind of a long description of how much how much authority that joseph has he's he's kind

of the uh uh as they say in some in some countries the vizier or maybe the prime minister or as i like to call him he's the he's the vice pharaoh so he's he's the one who has all authority in the land uh directly under under pharaoh so he uh for instance he puts he puts his signet ring on joseph's hand and he clothes him in garments of linen puts his gold necklace around his around his neck he has him riding his second chariot so he's in the second limo as they're parading around the country and everywhere they go they make this proclamation before him to to bow the knee and he goes all all over the land of egypt so now joseph is uh he's the vice pharaoh he's got all this authority so he's got a new job basically and he's about to get two new things as

well not only does he have a new job he's about to get a new name this is kind of part of the uh egyptification if you will of of joseph so he's exalted to pharaoh's right hand and now he's given an Egyptian name. He's called Zophonoth Paneah. That's the only time this name occurs in the Bible where we assume that this is the name that the Egyptians used

to refer to Joseph, since Joseph would have been a Hebrew name. So he's called Zophonoth Paneah. So he has a new job and a new name, and he's about to get a wife. So he's in a new relationship too. He's given

uh azenith and she is the daughter of potiphar not to be confused with potiphar is uh his master back in the day this is potiphar with an a on the end who was a priest in the city of heliopolis or the city of own o-n uh which is a a major city in the ancient world along the along the nile river it's a new name new job new wife everything about egypt it's like joseph is being transformed within a few verses from a hebrew son and brother into a full-fledged egyptian ruler he's vice pharaoh has an egyptian name has an egyptian wife and he's basically the one who's in charge of all the land there's got to be an element of uh of pharaoh being like i'm gonna make this guy sort of second in charge here he's second in command but uh i'm gonna need

to, like, Egyptian-fy this guy as much as possible, if anyone's going to listen to him. So we'll give him a different name. We'll marry him in. In fact, we'll marry him off to this religious leader's daughter, which will help. So if his wife is the daughter of this sort of religious figure, then people will think, oh, yeah, he's obviously in.

yeah i i i suspect it was those kind of considerations that led pharaoh to to do that i mean he's got a joseph has to have credibility because this is about to be some some pretty major changes that take place in egyptian politics uh and and law because joseph is going to be taking he's going to be basically taxing the people pretty heavily over the next seven years even though they have abundance of crops he's going to be taking quite a bit of those crops from them and setting them aside and you know this this guy comes out of nowhere right nobody's heard of joseph but all of a sudden this this new face is second in command so yeah he's gotta he's gotta make him look like he is is one of them he's got to look like look like

an egyptian have an egyptian name have an egyptian wife be kind of part of the nobility if you will nobility of egypt and you know you got to wonder too what this does to joseph uh and maybe there's a hint of it in these these next few verses when we get to talking talk about his his two sons but yeah everything is everything has changed this is this is like a really is like a resurrection for joseph it's like a new life for him everything about his former life is gone he has no family he's basically an orphan he has no family no real cultural identity there uh even though he still believes in in yahweh the true god he's surrounded by all kinds of egyptian deities so there's got there's got to be some culture shock that goes on with with joseph and uh just

a complete absorption into these new ways the new ways of egypt so he but he's a busy man uh with the with the new job new marriage and all of that comes the uh the responsibilities that uh are part of the reason he was exalted to this position they got to get ready for the famine that's coming so for the next seven years they saw up grain and in all the in all the cities of egypt in fact there's so much it says in verse 49 that joseph stored up grain in great abundance like the sand of the sea until he stopped measuring it because it was beyond beyond measure so uh you kind of wonder what the people are thinking too why is it why is he taking so much grain but joseph joseph knows and so he's getting he's getting ready for it then we have this added

And this, I think, is interesting. It tells us a little bit more about what's going on in Joseph's mind. Because it says that the year before the famine came, so this would have been about, you know, we'll say six years, six years or so into his marriage. Before the year of famine came, two sons were born to Joseph, whom Asenath, the daughter of Potipharah, priest of all in Bordahim. the first one the first one he names manasseh and he explains the name this way he says

because god has made me forget all my trouble and all my father's household we'll come back to that in a second but let's get to the second one too then he had a second son and he named him Ephraim or Ephraim for he said God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction so his firstborn is Manasseh Manasseh comes from a Hebrew verb Nasa which means to forget and the particular form of this this Hebrew verb it's called a hyphil it's usually translated as something like cause something to happen make something to happen in this case it's causing to forget so he explains the name this way he said i'm going to name this my firstborn son i'm going to name him manasseh because god has made me or enabled me to forget all my trouble and all

my father's household you know it's weird but i hate to say boo on this but go ahead say boo You don't name somebody after something you've forgotten. That doesn't make sense. Because that person becomes a constant remembrance, right? And if you had really forgotten, it wouldn't occur to you to name them that. You sort of like let the cat out of the bag. I'm going to name my kid Manasseh because I don't even remember my father's house that I just referenced. right exactly yeah this this uh if there's any forgetting this going on perhaps perhaps it's

sort of a emotional forgetfulness the way the way i the way i see it is this yeah first of all he remembers of course he remembers otherwise he wouldn't name his son that uh but either either he's at the point it actually actually it has to still bother you or you don't name your son that yeah so either either a either he has come to the point of some sort of emotional healing emotional forgetfulness if you will or the whole thing is nothing more than self-deception Dude, it's like if I named my daughter after, like, an ex-girlfriend because I'm so over her. Yeah. Nobody believes that.

Nobody believes that. The only person who believes that is you, and you really don't believe it, right? So it's all nothing more than an act of self-deception. it becomes obvious that he that he hasn't forgotten as the chat as you know as the story goes on he starts crying uh during his first conversation with his brothers yeah so i think this is more like a a desire than like a reality i'm sure i'm sure you would like to i'm sure he's like to forget his brothers and his father and stuff and uh and maybe he has times where as he's gathering all this

unmeasurable grain he might have times where he goes long stretches where he doesn't think about it but clearly when he does think about it, it bothers him yeah, and how could it not as long as he's flesh and blood

there's no way that you simply get past having your brothers stab you in the back and go through all of the crap that you went that joseph that joseph went through yeah and then when you name your next son you know god has blessed me in the land of my affliction or prospered me in the land of my affliction yeah land of your affliction yeah how'd that happen like i mean i mean like i mean it's

still like this is still your identity like you still identify with these two things one like this other like this father and these brothers and you still identify this place that you're in even though you're prospering as the land of your affliction and who's to blame for that affliction yeah right yep yeah now that you mentioned it both names really harken back to the two sources or two places of of his affliction the first one manasseh the affliction he endured in his father's household because his brothers and his second son Ephraim uh the affliction that he's endured while he's in while he's in Egypt he's he's betrayed first by his brothers but he's betrayed a second time by by Potiphar's wife and then later by the cupbearer who forgets him for

two years so he's got he's got a lot of he's got a lot of affliction in his past just to simply forget it yeah and this is something that uh i've it's a question i have but uh there's no really no answer to it and that is okay uh put yourself in joseph's shoes now now he's a he now has so much power that he could basically do what he wants he's not that far from Canaan. So if he wanted to make a trip there to see his family, or if he wanted to send messengers to tell his father and his brother, Benjamin, that he's still alive and everything that's happened, he could have done that too. So even though he has the power and the means to make contact with his family, even to go and see his family, he chooses not to.

which I think also indicates that this healing that he's talking about or this forgetfulness that he's talking about is not really there. It's more appearance and reality. Because if he were fully over this, then there would be nothing to impede his desire to seek reconciliation with his brothers. so it's almost like he uh he's accepted that he's in egypt and he's going to stay in egypt and he wants to forget about everything that he's gone through but he can't quite do it and he even gives his sons these names as sort of a farce uh to to make it seem as if he's moved on

but but clearly he hasn't and i don't think that and god doesn't want him to move on that's that's another point to make here too when his brothers show up in the next chapter i i expect that joseph uh is not happy about it he doesn't he he wants basically to be able to move forward uh he can't but he wants to and he really doesn't he kind of wants to forget that part of his past he doesn't want to reconcile with his family he doesn't want to deal with his brothers again he wants to basically live this new life that he has in Egypt because things have turned out rather well for him. He has a wife. He has kids now. He has plenty of power, plenty of wealth. So it's like he has everything that you would think that he needs. And yet God's not going to let him sit

there unreconciled to his family. He's going to force Joseph into a situation where he has to face what's gone on in the past and to seek reconciliation with his brothers well i mean this whole this whole thing the whole seven years of plenty and seven years of famine is just a strategy by god to bring about reconciliation it's playing the long game for sure by god but that's that's what he's doing yeah that's what he's doing joseph joseph's not aware of that but that's what that's what god is up to yeah and that's and that's what's going to happen that's what the rest of the of the chapter describes in fact there's the seven years of plenty the seven years of famine just like he had prophesied but the uh the famine is so severe it

doesn't affect just egypt it spreads from there and uh affects all the surrounding lands which of course would include would include canaan and uh it says the chapter finishes with this this big wink at us it says the people from of all the earth came to egypt to buy grain from joseph because the famine was severe in all the earth earth here meaning the that that that area so that like i said that's a wink to us that something's about to happen because if it's not only affecting egypt but the surrounding lands that means it's affecting joseph's family so this uh this sets the stage for what's about to happen next all right so that was the end of chapter 41 chapter 42 now opens with a completely different scene you know if this was a play

they'd close the curtain they'd switch around the you know the furniture new new uh actors would on the stage because we're about to we're about to switch location and switch characters so chapter 42 opens with kind of a a humorous humorous scenario so here's here's jacob who's very old now and here's his family his his sons who just like just like joseph it's About 20 years has passed at this point since Joseph was sold. So he's about 37, 38 years old now. And here's how the chapter opens. Jacob saw that there was grain in Egypt.

And so he says to his sons, why are you staring at one another? So you got to see these brothers. And they're like looking at each other like, what should we do? and there's nothing even leading up to this it just jumps right into this scene so the curtain opens there's jacob there's his sons and he's like why are you just looking at each other why are you staring at each other we need to do something get off your butts we got look we're out of food there's there's no crops in the field everything's dead we're all going to be starving to death. So let's do something. And then he goes on. He says, here, look, I've

heard there's grain in Egypt. So go down there and buy us some from there. So we're going to live and not die. This is very different Jacob than when we last left him. You know, two or three scenes before this, when we left Jacob, he had just heard about Joseph, that he thought Joseph was dead. He thought he'd been torn by a wild beast, and he's in deep grief and mourning. So that's where we left him 20 years prior to this moment. When we meet him again, I wouldn't say he's gotten past that, but he's certainly in a very different place now, although he's being afflicted just for a different reason so this this begins uh the first visit of the brothers to to egypt there's gonna be two visits of the of the brothers to egypt and this is the first

the first time so uh 10 of them not 11 even though there are 11 sons left with jacob 10 of them load up their stuff they get their donkeys get their packs get their money and they set out for egypt it's about a week's travel i think something like that down to egypt to buy grain but uh we learned one thing one thing about jacob from this opening scene this is from verse four but jacob did not send joseph's brother benjamin with his brothers for he said i am afraid that harm may befall him now what does that tell you about Jacob

that he is constantly playing favorites yeah right nothing's changed right nothing's changed in that regard we learned early in this story that he loved Joseph more than all his other

sons and after Joseph dies supposedly dies then Benjamin becomes his favorite So he's afraid that something might happen to Benjamin. So he's still playing favorites. He's still coddling the son of his favorite wife, who is now long, long deceased. Well, this little detail is going to be significant when the brothers get down to Egypt.

So let's pick up the story. They go down there to buy grain, along with a whole lot of other families. And in verse 6 it tells us Joseph was the ruler over the land And he was the one Who sold to all the people of the land And Joseph's Brothers came

And bowed down to him With their faces to the ground Boom shakalaka Yeah it took 20 years It took two decades But finally The dream came To pass

so they're they're on their faces before before joseph and joseph recognizes him so he he knows who they are 20 years have passed but you know it's like when you go back for your high school reunion after 20 years yeah you recognize most of the people so he recognizes his brothers but But they have no idea who he is. It says he disguised himself to them and spoke to them harshly. So he recognizes them. They don't recognize him. He's disguised himself.

No doubt Joseph looks completely different. He's dressed like an Egyptian. He speaks like an Egyptian. Of course, most of them, if not all the brothers, just assume he's dead by now. They've long given up the hope of having their evil deed reversed. So they assume he's dead. So this is the last person they would assume they're talking to is Joseph. And he speaks to them harshly.

We'll get back to that in a minute, but let's see what he says. He says, where have you come from? And they said, well, we came from Canaan to buy food. and at this point it says joseph remembered the dreams which he had about them and says to them you're spies you've come to look at the undefended parts of the land and we have this back and forth between them they're like no no no no we're only here to buy food and then they give all of these details about themselves that uh that they really shouldn't and it comes it comes back to bite them later on they say we're we're all we're brothers we're all sons of one guy and we're honest which

is hilarious well look we're honest we're not spies and joseph insists he goes on no no no look you've come to spy out the it says literally in hebrew the nakedness of the land that like the you know the the undefended parts of the land and then they add even more details they said look we're we're 12 brothers in all the sons of one man in the land of canaan the youngest is with our father today and one is no more i just love the irony of this they're talking to joseph they're talking to a dead guy they think what is no more so joseph he joseph will not let this rest he says look you're spies i'm going to test you this is the test he says you're not going to go from this place unless your youngest brother comes here now if they wouldn't have mentioned

the youngest brother there's no way that joseph would have been able to say that so they they they created these problems for themselves in more ways than one so he says send one of your brothers one of you go get this youngest brother who supposedly exists and bring him back here and the rest of you are going to stay in jail until this happens and then he puts him in prison for three days let's stop there for a minute now what's going on with uh what's going on with joseph why is he acting this way well well it's it's one of two things or a mixture of both I think there's the the chance that he'd like to see Benjamin

so there is that so he's devising a way to get Benjamin down there so he can see him that makes sense since they share the same mother and so they're all brothers but he's a little bit

he's doubly his brother so there's that and then I think there's also just a little bit of jerking these dudes around because you can because you can yeah because all the tables are turned now right right watch up watching them squirm man so he's going to give them a little a little taste of their own medicine yeah i suspect that both these are both these are his motivations he he obviously wants to see

Benjamin. In fact, later as the story unfolds, the second visit of the brothers to Egypt, when they do bring Benjamin, he lavishes gifts upon Benjamin. Gives him twice as much as everybody else, singles him out for blessings. So yeah, Joseph, because he is his only full brother, has a lot of love for Benjamin. And of course, Benjamin had zero to do with all the bad stuff that happened to Joseph. Benjamin wasn't even there. So there's no grievance that Joseph has

against Benjamin, quite the opposite. But he is in a position to jerk his brothers around and possibly to simply find out if they are telling the truth. because the last thing that the last the last experience that joseph had with his brothers uh is probably the same way that he views those brothers yeah well i mean is it is it possible that he even thinks like look maybe i mean did you guys off benjamin too and he wants to know yeah exactly i mean if they did that to joseph well yeah i think about this way okay so

So Joseph's looking at 10 brothers. Now, where's the 11th? Because he knows that he was his father's favorite. And it doesn't take much deduction to assume that with Joseph gone, Benjamin was going to become his father's favorite, which we know is the case. Joseph did not know that, but we know that. and if his brothers treated him

the way they did who's to say that they didn't do the same to Benjamin right so maybe he thinks yeah that they they did to Benjamin the same thing that they did to him and perhaps if he finds out that they did to Benjamin the same thing they did to him this doesn't go well yeah they're going to be in prison

more than three days they might not ever come out yeah so he's testing them no doubt and jerking them around, for sure, and probably also trying to figure out a way to get Benjamin down there. He probably never wanted any of this to happen.

Maybe he did. Maybe I'm reading this too negatively. But he seemed at least partially content with how everything was going up to this point. And now he's confronted with his brothers, and he remembers the dream that he had, which has to also open up new possibilities in his mind i i'm thinking that probably by this time he assumed that the dreams were just visions of youth which were really never going to come to

pass but now they have there's his brothers bowing down to him in fulfillment of the dreams and now he has to figure out what he's going to do with his brothers so he puts him in jail for three days and uh a little psychological warfare going on here then uh he either changes his mind or maybe the whole thing was uh a ruse to begin with i don't know but he uh he brings him out on the third day and he says uh i fear god i'm a respectable ruler so here's what I'm going to do if you're honest if you are as you say

you are then we're going to keep one of you here in prison and the rest of you can carry your grain back to your households because I know they're starving to death and then bring your youngest brother

to me so that I'll know that you're not lying and you won't die And then we presume that at that point he would let the brother that he's kept in prison free. So that's Joseph's plan. Now, I think one of the most revealing verses in this whole narrative is verse 21 of chapter 42. so after all this goes on the three days in prison the accusation that they're spies joseph saying he's going to keep one of them in prison while they go back

so all these all this bad stuff that they had no idea was going to happen has happened and here's their reaction this this this i think is extremely telling not only about the brothers but just about all of us in general it says this is this is the brother speaking to each other they say truly we are guilty concerning our brother because we saw the distress of his soul when he pleaded with us and yet we would not listen therefore this distress has come upon us that's that's uh he's been carrying around some guilt for quite some time yes they have big time that that's what i think is is fascinating about this 20 years have gone by and yet when when things fall apart when they are going through this whole ordeal that is the first thing that

comes to mind all of this is happening because of what we did to joseph so yeah it's it's luther once uh what was this phrase that uh that luther used something about uh oh yeah old guilt gathers no rust nice sermon proverb which which i think is true old guilt gathers no rust uh guilt has a way of it's like a it's like a ghost that uh that haunts that haunts you and we've talked about this before too like when when you're living when you're living with this uh immense guilt you tend it it tends to be the lens through which you interpret anything good or bad that happens to you so that if anything good happens to you it's easy to be uh suspicious of it as if it's just going to be uh you know temporary and it's actually just a disguise for something bad about to happen

or when something bad happens to you it's always because like it's a it's a punishment because of what you did wrong and that's that's where the brothers are they interpret all this as nothing more than punishment for what uh what they did to joseph years ago now the good news is that And eventually, eventually they're going to realize that they had forgiveness all along. Joseph tells them this at the end of this whole story, that they had forgiveness all along. So to stop beating themselves up and to believe the forgiveness that it gives to them. And it's the same message for us. The old guilt that gathers no rest for us is guilt that really doesn't even exist.

That's the beauty of the gospel is because it's non-existent because Christ has assumed it into himself. All of our guilt, all of our sin, all of our death, he's taken it away. So it's no longer our guilt. It's no longer our sin. It belongs to Christ. It no longer belongs to us. And because it belongs to him, it has ceased to exist because he's buried it in his own grave. And when he left that grave, he left the sin behind, left the guilt behind.

so old guilt the guy there's no rest well there is really no old guilt because that guilt has been an atoned for by the blood of christ yeah there's gonna be some sweet absolution going on but it's not like this absolution where it's just i forgive you but like you're saying it's it's i've already forgiven you yeah yeah it's a done deal over uh god is is not just willing and able to forgive you he already has the the his goal is just to get you into a knowledge of that yeah the mistake that people think is that they imagine that god is just waiting to forgive us he's ready to forgive us he's willing to forgive us all we have to do is take a step toward him or believe in him or do something anyway in order that it may become a reality but the truth is it already is a reality

christ on the cross absolved the world it's done we are forgiven all sin is atoned for all guilt is atoned for god was not only willing and ready he accomplished it so it's it's a reality into which god invites us by by faith to enter and to receive the benefits of that amen and we are done out of time that's a good place to end we're going to get some of that tasty absolution i think next week i think we'll get there we'll get there we will we are on our way we will get there so guys thanks for hanging out the uh if you uh want to check out more stuff you can go to christholdfast.org uh if you would like to support the program uh the blog the other podcasts the city events uh we'd appreciate if you did you can go to christholdfast.org

slash support and thank you to those who have done that we will see you next week