40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 40 Minutes In The Old Testament: Episode 58

Episode Date: October 6, 2016

Chad and Daniel discuss Jacob and Joseph being reunited with many tears, Pharaoh accepting Israel into Egypt and there is a whole lot of talk about sojourning. Have a listen.

welcome to another episode of 40 minutes in the old testament i am daniel emery price i'm joined by chad bird chad how's it going today it's going really good how you doing daniel i'm good i'm good i'm tired i got my coffee though i'm ready to roll you'll be fully awake by the end of this episode uh-huh well i'm a little bit ahead of you so i'll try and i'll try to move us along yeah dude just talk for like five minutes uh straight with that and then i'll be good to go you'll be good to go your brain will be fully awake then all right so uh i better start talking So, where are we at? Well, we didn't cover, as far as verses go, we didn't cover very much last time. That was really my fault. We were in the first few verses there in chapter 46.

But I make no apologies, really, because there is so much packed into those verses that it was worthy spending 40 minutes on just four verses. But today we will be covering substantially more than we did last time. So just to recap where we were last time, Jacob and his family were getting ready to head down into Egypt. So they get all their stuff together, but they stop along the way before they actually cross the border that will take them from the Holy Land into Egypt. And they offer sacrifices in a place called Beersheba. God appears there in visions, and he says to Jacob, more or less, don't be afraid because you're leaving the Holy Land because I'm going with you. And not only am I going with you, I'm going to be there with you the whole time in exile in Egypt.

And not only will I be there, but I will bless you. I will make you a great nation there. And when the time is up, I will bring you up again. So a lot of good promises made to Jacob, promises that, as we discussed, apply just as much to us today in whatever exiles that we ourselves might be facing or going through right now. That God has not nailed himself down to a particular place so that he can't be with us, nor has he secluded himself in heaven so that he's not with us in the deepest exiles on earth. Rather, he promises that he will always be with us no matter where we're at, no matter what's going on.

So that's kind of where we left off, some good exile theology there, and we might touch on that again in a little bit different way once we get to this next chapter. So where do we go from here? Well, it says that after all of this happened, after stopping at Beersheba, offering sacrifices, and having God appear to Jacob, that Jacob arose from Beersheba. And his sons were helping him along, along with their children, their wives, everything. They got together, put in the wagons, and they headed down into Egypt. And then we have kind of a big parenthesis, if you will, where we have a genealogy of sorts inserted here. It's not so much a genealogy, I guess, as it is just kind of a collection of names.

So what happens is the biblical writer is wanting to impress upon us the totality of this exile. So it's not as if just part of Jacob's family went down into Egypt and part stayed behind to take care of stuff back in the Holy Land. No, everybody, every single person who belonged to Jacob went down into exile in Egypt. And the way that this is explained to us is that everybody's kind of broken down into four different groups. You remember that Jacob had two wives and two co-wives. He had Rachel and Leah as well as their maidservants, Zilpah and Bilhah. And so what we have beginning in verse 8 and going all the way through about verse 27 is a list of everybody's names. And they're broken down into those that originated with Leah and Zilpah and Rachel and then finally Bilhah.

and when you add them all up you come up with 70 in all not that number is important we have all the names listed but the number itself of 70 is is very significant because if you look at the various places in the Old Testament and the New Testament as far as that goes where the number 70 occurs it's it's a number that indicates completeness that there's there's there's nothing left out It's kind of like the number seven itself is indicative of completeness, like the seven-day week. So just to throw a few examples out there, in Isaiah, it talks about the span of a king's life being 70 years. Or if you think later on in Israel's life, in the 6th century B.C., you have 70 years of Babylonian captivity or Babylonian exile.

Then you've got a couple of other places there, such as the 70 elders of Israel. There's 70 nations mentioned right before the Tower of Babel episode. So anyway, we've got lots of occurrences of 70 going on. And all of these occurrences indicate that we're talking about a totality. So 70 people go down into Egypt. and they will be there for the next four generations. Now, we have a switch that occurs then, beginning in verse 28. It says,

Now he sent Judah before him to Joseph to point out the way before him to go to Goshen. And so after everybody gets together, it's time for them to make the trip all the way down into Egypt. So he sends Judah, who has emerged as the leader of the brothers. He sends Judah before him as the point guard to take all of the family down into Egypt. So after these names are listed, then we have a transition to the rest of the chapter. And this is when we finally get to the point to where, after all these years, after actually 22 years of separation, Joseph is finally reunited with his father, Jacob. So it says that Jacob sent Judah before him to Joseph, who points the way.

They go into the land of Goshen, and Joseph gets his chariot ready. He goes up to Goshen to meet his father Israel, and as soon as he appeared before him, it says that Joseph fell on his neck and wept on his neck a long time. And well, he should. Over two decades, it had separated the father from the son. And during that time, of course, Jacob assumed that Joseph was dead. So this is understandably a tearful reunion of father and son. Now, what's amazing about this reunion, and we'll get to this kind of in the next chapter,

is that there's sort of a symmetry between the beginning and the end of the time that Jacob has with Joseph. Because as you remember, Joseph was 17 years when he was betrayed by his brother. So Jacob has Joseph for the first 17 years of Joseph's life. And then he will have him beside him for the last 17 years of his life. Because right now, Jacob is 130 years old. He's going to live to be 147 years old. So just like he has Joseph until he's 17, then for the last 17 years of Jacob's life, he will also have Joseph by his side. So he says to Joseph, now let me die, since I have seen your face, that you are still alive.

This has been what Jacob is living for. And now that this has happened, he's fine. He is content because he has seen the face of his son. And then I can't help, when I read that verse, I can't help hearing there an echo of what we're going to encounter in Luke's gospel. When Simeon is in the temple, and he's been promised, Simeon has been promised that he won't die until he's seen the Lord's Christ. And all of a sudden, appearing in the temple is Mary and Joseph with the baby Jesus. And Simeon goes up to them, and he holds this baby Messiah in his arms, and he sings what has come to be known in the church as the Mount Demetis. Lord, now let your servant depart in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared before the face of all people.

So just as Jacob was ready to depart this life once he had seen the face of his son, So Simeon, kind of echoing that in the song that he sings, is ready to depart this life because he's seen the face of God himself in the Messiah. Simeon's amazing, dude. It's like this weird, awesome dude that's in the Bible for like five seconds. Yeah, I know. He makes this quick appearance, and then he disappears, and he leaves this short hymn that's been sung by the church throughout the centuries, and really one of the greatest confessions of faith that we have in the Gospels. I mean, just picture him there. He's holding God in the flesh, this baby, and as he looks at his face, he says,

I can go now. I can die now, because I have seen the face of salvation itself in this child. It's pretty phenomenal. So, yeah, that's Simeon echoing those words of Jacob to Joseph. And then we have, after that, as the story goes on, we've got a little kind of practical stuff going on here as the story unfolds, Because, all right, we have everybody down here now. We have everybody down in Egypt. But they've got to have a place to live, and they have to have a way in which to still engage in their vocations.

So Joseph comes up with a plan. He gathers his brothers together, and he tells them, okay, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to go to Pharaoh, and I'm going to tell him that my family is all here with me now in Egypt. They've come from the land of Canaan. And here's what they do for a living. They're shepherds. They've always been keepers of livestock, and they've brought their animals with them. So I'm going to kind of prepare the way for you.

I'm going to be your John the Baptist, if you will. And then when you come along and you talk to Pharaoh, then he's going to ask you, what is your job? And you tell him that we're shepherds. And that way, Pharaoh will be able to give to you the kind of land that you need in order that you might be able to carry out your vocation. And that's exactly what happens. Joseph goes in. He tells Pharaoh, look, my dad and my brothers have brought their flocks and their herds and all their families, and they are now in the land of Canaan. In fact, they are in the land of Goshen. And we have this scene that unfolds when the brothers appear before Pharaoh.

Not all of them. It says that Joseph only took five of his brothers, kind of five representatives, if you will. He presents him to Pharaoh, and just like Joseph said, Pharaoh asks him what they do for a living, and they respond, hey, we're shepherds, not only us, but our fathers have always been shepherds, and we've come to, and this is significant, we have come to sojourn in the land, because there's no pasture, there's no grass for us back in the homeland. land. So therefore, please let your servants live in the land of Goshen. And just kind of finish this story and come back and talk about it in a minute. Pharaoh agrees. He says, the whole land of Egypt is at your disposal. Live in the land of Goshen. In fact, if there's any capable men among you, then I'll put them in charge of my livestock as well. Now, what's significant about this conversation, I think one of the most significant parts of it, is the assumption

that Joseph's brothers have. When they talk to Pharaoh, they say, we have come to sojourn in the land because there's no pasture for our flocks back home. Now, interestingly, later in the liturgy that was connected with the Passover over itself, this particular, which is called the Haggadah, the Passover liturgy. In the Haggadah, this verse is actually quoted. I'm looking at chapter 47, verse 4, where it says that they have come to sojourn in

the land, because the point is that they intended this to be temporary. So when everybody came down from Canaan to live in Egypt, it wasn't as if they thought, you know what? We're just going to stay here. We're going to leave behind Canaan. We're going to seek roots deep into Egyptian soil. In fact, let's just plan on staying here

for the next, I'll say, four centuries. No. Their intentions were to be in Egypt probably only until the famine was over and then they would be able to go back home. So just a few more years before they would be able to return to the

land that God had promised Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob. And I think it's a great lesson for us that things don't always work out the way that we expect them to. We think we're going to sojourn in the land for a while. We think we're going to be at a certain place for a time. And as it turns out,

God has very different plans for us. And that's the same way that it happened here for the Israelites. They intended just to sojourn in the land, but that land became their permanent home and eventually became the place of their captivity until finally God sent Moses to redeem them from their slavery. Chad, you have to wonder if the Israelites were properly vetted when they went and sojourned in the land of Egypt. We don't have to talk about that. Where are you going with this? No, I'm just leaving that.

I'm just going to leave that right there. We're like, move on. I'm just saying, if Pharaoh and all his paganists are like, yeah, come on in, we'll take care of you. Or maybe he's just a pretty decent dude. You know, I think, honestly, I think Pharaoh is a pretty decent dude. When I was looking over this narrative this morning, it really is amazing to me the, what's the word, the magnanimity, this super graciousness of Pharaoh. Because, I mean, he didn't have to do all these things for Joseph's family. All he had to do was tolerate them.

But not only does he welcome them to the land of Egypt, he actually gives them the best of the land. And not only that, but he invites Joseph to put some of his brothers in charge of his own livestock. So as we have seen in other cases in the book of Genesis, for instance, with Abraham and Abimelech, Abimelech, very often it is the non-Israelites, it's the foreigners who end up exemplifying mercy and graciousness. We recall that in the case of Abraham and Abimelech, Abraham lied, and it was Abimelech who, when he found out that Sarah was actually Abraham's wife, stopped having her in his house and gave her back

and rebuked Abraham for lying to him. So Abimelech, the non-Israelite, ends up really coming out as the good guy. And it's like that here too. Pharaoh ends up coming out as a pretty good guy because he's taking care of Joseph's brothers. He's providing them with jobs and land and even more responsibility

than they had hoped for. So it's a great lesson that we see, not just in Genesis, but we'll see this throughout the Old Testament. Very often, it's people outside the land of Israel who end up being the ones who are really acting in exemplary sorts of ways. After all, remember, it was of all people a prostitute who turned over the city of Jericho to the Israelites. And even in other cases, we see that the people who did the right thing were not the people that you would think would be doing the right thing.

But it's a great example of how some kind of external connection to the kingdom of God does not necessarily determine who is going to be acting correctly in the world or acting graciously in the world. Sometimes God puts these acts of mercy into the hearts of people that we would least expect to show mercy. Every now and then a pagan loves his neighbor as himself better than a Christian. Yeah, very often that is the case. Sometimes the best people we know are those who are actually not part of the church. it's a good example of how God is able to work good in all situations in all sorts of people

and it's also a good example of the fact that goodness is not what makes us Christians certainly we strive to be good we strive to love we strive to act in compassion toward all people but ultimately it's not our lives which make us Christians it's the life and the death

of christ himself that makes us makes us christians yeah yeah so what happens here well the brothers come in they visit with joseph they visit with pharaoh he gives them all these uh these gifts in blessings and then joseph brings in his father so joseph brings uh jacob presents him to pharaoh and we have this amazing scene where this 130 year old man who is a foreigner in the land of egypt who is at least on the outside uh culturally and politically speaking very inferior to pharaoh it is this man who ends up blessing pharaoh twice in fact So Pharaoh doesn't bless Jacob, but Jacob blesses Pharaoh at the beginning of their meeting and at the end of their meeting. And then we have this short little dialogue that takes place between Pharaoh and Jacob.

Pharaoh says to Jacob, how many years have you lived? I can't help but imagine Pharaoh sitting there looking at Jacob thinking to himself, man, this dude has got to be old. just take a look at him and sure enough jacob says to pharaoh the years of my sojourning are 130 few and unpleasant have been the years of my life nor have they attained the years that my fathers lived during the days of their sojourning now there's a couple of things i think that are interesting here first of all pharaoh asked how many years have you lived And when Jacob responds, he doesn't say, I've lived 130 years. Instead, we have this word sojourning appearing again.

He says, the years of my sojourning are 130. There is, within the scriptures, repeatedly this understanding of life, not as life here, not as of something which is really permanent, but it's like we're passing through, that we're sojourning, to use that biblical terminology. And this comes up, of course, in the book of Hebrews in chapter 11 quite a bit, how Abraham was looking for, and the other saints were looking for, a city that was not

an earthly city, but a heavenly city. So there's certainly this idea that we are strangers or we are aliens or we are sojourners in this world because ultimately what we're looking for is a new heavens and a new earth. And that's why this is not our home, at least not now. Our true home will be after the resurrection

when we have the new heavens and the new earth in which righteousness dwells. Until then, we are, like Jacob says to Pharaoh, we are sojourners who are awaiting our true home. Yeah, because we're exiles, because we are simply passing through, it's one of the reasons why unhealthy nationalism doesn't make sense for the Christian. When we get too caught up in, this is my country, my nation, all this sort of thing. It's not really how, in the scripture, how we talk about our time here. We're supposed to be aliens.

We set up camp somewhere, but ultimately this is not our home. this is we're not from here we're not staying here if you have that perspective then yeah your whole life becomes a sojourn yeah everything that we whether it's our our job or uh our our possessions or our political activity or whatever it is should always be be tempered by the knowledge that everything that happens here is not only temporary, but really our primary citizenship is in the kingdom of God. Now, we have dual citizenship in the sense that we are citizens of this world. We are citizens of a particular country.

But that isn't our identity. Our identity is that we are citizens of the kingdom of God, that our permanent residence is in resurrected bodies in the new heavens and the new earth. And so for now, we are waiting that to happen. And so that should give us great pause when it comes, like you say, to becoming kind of making nationalism into more or less a second religion that we are devoted to. And I think that's really what it comes down to at times, is that our God becomes our nationality or our possessions or whatever it might be. And our hearts are led astray from the true God. And we become distracted in the sense that we end up engaging in all sorts of things that are not befitting those who are citizens of the kingdom of God.

because we have ceased to understand who we are in terms of our relationship with God, and we've come to define ourselves in terms of our relationships with the world. God's country is the new heavens and the new earth. That's his country, and that is the country that we await. And now, yeah, we live in America or Spain or Israel or Portugal or wherever we live, but we only live here as resident aliens because our true home is is elsewhere yeah so we're faithful you know on our vocation yeah it's not like we uh reject all the duties of being a citizen no no we we're still part of this world we still act in love toward our neighbor we still

serve but we do so always with the knowledge that this is this is temporary and ultimately this isn't what uh defines who we are yeah the new heavens and the new earth being being god's country what's cool about that is that the uh the population of of that country is gathered up from everywhere right every every every nation every tribe every tongue you have the you have this scattering of people all over the planet and all times and places that are all residents of the same place, that are scattered all over the face of the world, that God then sets about gathering to himself, which is pretty awesome. And so you get to have brothers and sisters or kinsmen, fellow citizens of the new heavens and the new earth scattered all over.

And that's an additional – there's a couple of different bonds that a Christian has. So when Christians meet each other, they might call each other brother or sister so that you have an adoption thing that happens. but then you also have a citizenship thing that happens as well that that we're not there yet but like hey we're we're from we are we are residents of the same home and uh and we're also we're also kin which is pretty cool considering you could meet somebody from yeah you can meet someone from spain and you're here and it's and it's your brother and it's not only your brother but it's you're also your countryman yeah yeah the kingdom of god is the ultimate melting pot uh because as you say people from every nation tribe language they all they all come together into the kingdom

of god and so that we're we're closer than just fellow citizens we are part of the same family we're all brothers brothers and sisters in christ so uh we we're exiles we await uh we await the full unveiling of our of our home when uh when christ comes again so for now we're really in the same position that Jacob was in. The years of my sojourning are 46 at the moment, and we'll see how long God gives me here, but whether I live just till the rest of today or whether I live to be 90, whatever it is, ultimately I will remain an alien here, a sojourner, but my citizenship will be elsewhere. Notice how Jacob describes his life as he talks to Pharaoh. He says, Few and unpleasant, or literally few and evil, have been the years of my life,

nor have they attained the years that my fathers lived during the days of their sojourning. Jacob has had a pretty rough life. I guess you could say that already in utero, Jacob was wrestling with the reality of life, because you remember he was fighting his brother already in the womb. he experienced his own exile in the opposite direction for 20 years and he came home and he had troubles in the Holy Land

even when he got back and then he lost his son for 22 years so it might not seem like they were few these years that Jacob had but they certainly were unpleasant they were full of more downs than they were ups. Now, when he says they haven't attained the years of his fathers, he's talking

of course about his grandfather and his dad. Abraham lived to be 175, and Isaac lived to be 180. Now, Jacob's only going to make it to 147, so he still doesn't live as long as his father or his

grandfather. But it is perhaps to Pharaoh he was impressed, because according to Egyptian culture, or the ideal Egyptian lifespan, like if you were a super Egyptian, it was 110 years. So Jacob has already surpassed that when he has this conversation with Pharaoh. So they talk, Jacob blesses Pharaoh, and he leaves. And then it says, just kind of wrap up this chapter in the few minutes we have left,

What happened next is that Pharaoh and Joseph, they provide everything that Joseph's family needs. They settle them in the land of Goshen, so they have food, and they have a place that is their own. And then we have this huge contrast that follows between the blessings that are lavished upon Jacob and his family and the deprivation that is visited upon the Egyptians. Because no sooner have we had this description of the gifts that were given to Jacob's family, then we switch in verse 13 I'm in chapter 47 now

in verse 13 of chapter 47 it says now there was no food in all the land because the famine was severe and so here's what Joseph does and we have this description of how Joseph gradually takes all of the money

of the Egyptians as they're buying grain from him And then when they run out of money, he takes all of their livestock, because they have to turn in their flocks and herds and horses and donkeys in exchange for food. And then finally, they have to sell their own freedom, because they say, we don't have any money left. Everything belongs to you.

So more or less, they become servants of a pharaoh. So we have this really kind of odd situation where Joseph is acting in the Pharaoh's stead and bringing all of the people, all of their wealth, under the control of Pharaoh. So he moves the people to the cities, and he gives them their allotted grain. And as they do produce a harvest, they're supposed to give us a tax 20% back to Pharaoh. And it ends up with the people, instead of complaining, they say, You have saved our lives. Let us find favor in the sight of my Lord, and we will be Pharaoh's slaves. So I think the main point of this section of the chapter is to set up this real stark contrast.

You have Joseph's people in the land of Goshen provided for, blessed by Pharaoh, and then you have the other Egyptians who basically lose everything and become the slaves of Pharaoh. Now, this stark contrast, when you look at it in the broader story of the book of Genesis and Exodus, really sets us up for what we're going to find next, because now, during the leadership of joseph his family has everything the egyptians don't have anything then when you get to exodus the situation is to be completely reversed because now it will be joseph's people his descendants who are enslaved who have nothing and the egyptians who have everything so in the bigger story this particular section is setting us up really for what we're going to see uh as

the story as the story unfolds yeah well uh and we're gonna have to unfold that next week chad yeah we are we are out of time but uh hey we almost covered two chapters this time hey we're moving along every once in a while we we get a lot done yeah we get in high gear uh once once a month at least hey guys there is a conference coming up very soon in dallas i'll be there. Chad will be there. A whole bunch of other people will be there, and we would like you to come hang out. If you're in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, or you live anywhere in Texas, or you live anywhere that you are willing to travel from to get to the Dallas area, you should come hang out with me, and Chad, and Donovan Riley, and Elise Fitzpatrick, and Scott Keith, and Daniel

VanVorez, and Bill Brimmer, and you should come do that, because we're going to be talking about parables and uh we're gonna be talking about the greatest stories ever told by the greatest storyteller who ever lived namely god himself so you can go over to christholdfast.org that is going to be a one-day thing on a saturday october 29th so that's very soon and uh you all the information is over there it's uh 29 bucks if you want to come and hang out with us and we'd love to see you also if you'd like to support this or any of the other stuff we do including events like that even if you can't go but you know you're going to watch those videos we'll have to re-release them for free uh but you're like you know what i'm gonna throw some coin at that you can do that

too if you go over to christophast.org and go to the support page and you can make a one-time donation or a reoccurring donation and thank you so much to those of you who have done that chad we'll see you next week all right we'll see you all then © transcript Emily Beynon