Joseph carrying the promise

so much that we can cover here but time does not permit it

Last week we covered the story of Abraham and God’s promise to give him a son. We left off with him and Sarah having a son named Isaac. He was the son of the promise. We are going to skip ahead a good bit to Abraham’s great grandson, Joseph.

From the birth of Isaac to the story of Joseph, the book of Genesis traces God’s covenant faithfulness through a series of flawed but chosen people. Isaac’s miraculous birth fulfilled God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah, and through Isaac the covenant continued despite sinfulness. His sons, Jacob and Esau, couldn’t even get along the womb, yet God chose Jacob to carry the covenant line. Jacob’s life was marked by deceit, exile, and divine encounter—he tricked his father for a blessing, fled from his brother, and wrestled with God, receiving the new name Israel. Along the way, God reaffirmed His promise to make a great nation through him. Jacob became the father of twelve sons, who would later form the twelve tribes of Israel.

As Jacob’s family grew, sin and dysfunction deepened—rivalries, deception, and moral failure filled the household. Yet through it all, God’s hand quietly directed events toward His redemptive purpose. By the time Genesis 37 opens, Jacob’s favorite son Joseph is at the center of God’s unfolding plan. His prophetic dreams and his brothers’ jealousy set the stage for betrayal and suffering that God would later use to save nations.

Joseph is the 11th son of Jacob. So he is only older than one of his brothers. God has given him a special gift of having dreams. In Genesis 37, he has a dream that he and his brothers are bundles of grain and that is is standing tall while all of the other bundles of grain are bowing down to him. Then he has another dream where the sun, moon, and 11 stars are all bowing down to him. Now, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that these dreams are of Josephs brothers and family bowing down in submission to him. This would have been culturally out of the ordinary since he had 10 older brothers. He was way down on the totem pole.

During all of this, Joseph had told his father Jacob about something that his brothers had done. His father was pleased with this and had gifted him a robe of many colors. The brothers were jealous of this. Now he is having these dreams where he is the one holding power over them.

After this, the brothers are out tending to the flock and Joseph’s dad sends him out to check on his brothers. When he finally finds where they are, they see him coming from a distance. They decide that they need to kill him and throw him into a pit and blame his death on wild animals.

Genesis 37:20 “20 Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits. Then we will say that a fierce animal has devoured him, and we will see what will become of his dreams.”” (insert evil laugh)

One of the brothers though thought this was too far. Reuben convinced them that they didn’t need to actually kill him but to just throw him into a pit. So they took this robe off of him and threw him in there. Then they killed an animal and covered the robe in blood and sent it back to their father with the claim that Joseph had been killed.

While they were still there with Joseph though, they saw this caravan of Ishmaelites coming. Judah, one of the brothers, came up with this plan to make some money off of this. So they decided to sell him to the Ishmaelites for 20 shekels of silver and they took him away to Egypt.

Before we keep going, I want to look at all of this so far from the lens of redemptive history, of how we get to Jesus. Remember last week, we talked about Abraham having another son who was not of the promise? Do you remember his name? Ishmael. What we know about Ishmael is that after Isaac was born, he was sent off. He ended up having 12 sons of his own(similar story). So, what do we know about this group that just bought Joseph? They were the descendants of Abrahams other son who was born out of disobedience. But, they were needed in redemptive history. What if we never had an Ishmael? What would have happened to Jacob?

Also, let’s turn quickly over to Matthew 1:1–2 “1 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. 2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,” And this keeps going until we get to Jesus.

So which one of the sons of Jacob was the one who led to Jesus. It was Judah, not Joseph. But Joseph plays such an important role in the sustaining of the Abrahamic/Messianic line.

Back in Genesis, chapter 38 recounts Judah and his personal life. Then in chapter 39, it goes back to Egypt with Joseph. Once Joseph got to Egypt, he found favor. There was a captain of the guard named Potiphar. So much so that he put Joseph in charge of his house. But, problems begin to happen. See, Joseph was a handsome fella. And Potiphar’s wife noticed this too. So she tries to seduce him. But Joseph refuses.

Genesis 39:8–9 “8 But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Behold, because of me my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge. 9 He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?””

He recognized that this would not only dishonor his position and Potiphar, but that this was actually a sin against God. He had self control and obedience to his heavenly father even in the midst of great temptation.

So, do you think that he should have been rewarded in a positive manner for this obedience? Why?

But she lies. She finds a piece of his clothes in the house when he wasn’t looking. She took the piece of clothing to her husband and told him that Joseph had come into the house and tried to rape her but when she screamed, he ran off and left his clothes, and that is why she had it. The master, her husband, then threw him into prison. So because of his obedience to God, he is thrown in prison. That was his reward.

I know you may think that this is a terrible way to look at it. But by the end of what we look at today, we are going to see that our perspective is not always the right perspective.

Between chapters 40 and 41, Joseph is in prison and he interprets some dreams. Then, Pharaoh has a dream and someone tells him about Joseph. Joseph, in all this time, had not lost hope or faith in God because of his circumstances. See, he was in prison for probably close to 10 years at this point of Pharaoh calling for him.

The dream that Pharaoh has is that they will have 7 years of abundance before they have 7 years of famine. Joseph told him that what he needed to do was to take a fifth of the crop from every year and store it up for the coming famine. This is like having a rainy day fund for emergencies. Except it was the opposite of rainy day, like a dry season fund. But Joseph told him that he needed to find someone to oversee this so that they were prepared for what was to come.

Pharaoh basically told him that since it was him that was able to interpret the vision, that he was going to be the one in charge of this. Genesis 41:40–41 “40 You shall be over my house, and all my people shall order themselves as you command. Only as regards the throne will I be greater than you.” 41 And Pharaoh said to Joseph, “See, I have set you over all the land of Egypt.””

If you were to stop right here, you would think that this was just a happy ending for Joseph. That we should look to Joseph and learn that if we just persevere through hardship, that God is going to reward us with wealth and power. That is actually what a lot of people are taught, but that is not what this story is about. So let’s keep going.

Genesis 41:47–49 “47 During the seven plentiful years the earth produced abundantly, 48 and he gathered up all the food of these seven years, which occurred in the land of Egypt, and put the food in the cities. He put in every city the food from the fields around it. 49 And Joseph stored up grain in great abundance, like the sand of the sea, until he ceased to measure it, for it could not be measured.”

So Joseph is doing what he is tasked by Pharaoh to do. And in fact that it is so plentiful, that they cannot even measure it anymore. The 7 years of abundance have happened, now it is time for the 7 years of the famine. But who all does this famine hit? It says all the lands. This dream came to Pharaoh and was interpreted by Joseph, who are both in Egypt. So, because of God, they were preparing for the famine. But do you think that all the lands were preparing for it? No.

Genesis 41:55–57 “55 When all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread. Pharaoh said to all the Egyptians, “Go to Joseph. What he says to you, do.” 56 So when the famine had spread over all the land, Joseph opened all the storehouses and sold to the Egyptians, for the famine was severe in the land of Egypt. 57 Moreover, all the earth came to Egypt to Joseph to buy grain, because the famine was severe over all the earth.”

All the earth.

Now, let’s go back to Joseph’s family. His father, Jacob, has heard that Egypt actually has grain for sale. So he sends his 10 sons to go to Egypt. The only one who did not go was Benjamin, who was the youngest. He was a little younger than Joseph. We will see how God uses this to bring the story together, but we can also see that Jacob was still mourning the loss of his beloved son, and did not want to lose another son. So he keeps him back while his brothers go to Egypt.

When they get there, they go before Joseph. He recognizes them but they do not recognize him. He accuses them of being spies. They are adamant that they are not and that they are just a group of 12 brothers who had their father send them to buy grain. Well, Joseph could count that there were only 10 of them, and he was number 12 himself, so he knows that he can use this.

Genesis 42:15–17 “15 By this you shall be tested: by the life of Pharaoh, you shall not go from this place unless your youngest brother comes here. 16 Send one of you, and let him bring your brother, while you remain confined, that your words may be tested, whether there is truth in you. Or else, by the life of Pharaoh, surely you are spies.” 17 And he put them all together in custody for three days.”

The brothers start talking between them and Reuben told them that this was their own fault because of how they treated their brother(talking about Joseph). Remember they did not know that this was Joseph there with them. After the 3 days, Joseph kept Simeon, he took their sacks, filled them with grain, and even replaced the money that they brought to buy the grain with, and sent them back. They find the money when they get home.

Jacob is highly upset. He tells them that he has lost one son already, now Simeon is gone, and they are wanting to take Benjamin too. Rueben tells him that he will personally see to it that Benjamin is safe, and if something happens to him, that Jacob should kill Ruebens two sons. Jacob told him that it wouldn’t be his sons that died, but it would be Jacob himself that died if something happened to his son Benjamin. So he refused to let them take him.

He tries to send Judah to go back to Egypt to get food. Judah says that the man in Egypt said if they come back without the other brother, that they would not get anything else from him. So, Jacob finally gave in. He told them to take some fruit, some gifts, and double the money with them since it might have been an oversight, and to take their brother so that they can get food.

When they get there, Joseph orders them to his house. They are scared because they think that he is going to accuse them of stealing the money from the first time. But that has nothing to do with it. He throws them a feast.

I want to skip to chapter 45.

This is where this begins to turn. The brothers had begun to feel very guilty about what they had done to Joseph. They did not know that the man that stood before them was actually their brother that they had sold into slavery. Now, we get to the big reveal. In our minds, we would probably try to take out revenge on the brothers for treating us the way that they did. He could have withheld any food from them and let them suffer through starving. He could have absolutely resented them for what they did. I mean, he got to Egypt and spent years in prison. But he had a different perspective.

Genesis 45:4–8 “4 So Joseph said to his brothers, “Come near to me, please.” And they came near. And he said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. 5 And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. 6 For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. 7 And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. 8 So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt.”

Joseph saw the big plan. He did not blame his brothers for what has happened. He gave credit to God. God did this to me so that we would survive. And they did.

They went back and got together his family. They brought them to Egypt. For the next several years, the people ran out of money to buy from Egypt. After that, they had to trade their livestock to be able to eat. Then, they ran out of livestock. So if you don’t have money, and you don’t have livestock, and you are still hungry, what do you do?

They had to trade their land for food and give themselves as servants to Egypt. This is what begins the time of captivity in Egypt that Moses will one day rescue them from. But for now, God has orchestrated all of these events to bring the line of Abraham to a place where they would be able to continue. But it wasn’t just that. It was to prove, through the selling of Joseph into slavery, that God was working in all of the details. Even in the events that are seen as bad.

I want to wrap up with what Joseph says after the death of his father. Jacob has passed away. The brothers were afraid that since their father was dead, that Joseph would finally take the opportunity to get back at them for what they did to him. But Jacob had told the brothers that he wanted Joseph to forgive them of what they did. And here is what Joseph responds to them with.

Genesis 50:19–20 “19 But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? 20 As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”

Through what seemed to be evil events, God was working for the lineage that would bring the Messiah to be preserved. Even with famine and eventual slavery, God is working through events that are considered bad to keep the story going.