BEMA 16: Out of the Pit (2017)

Transcription Status

28 Jun 22 — Initial public release

26 Apr 22 — Transcript approved for release

Out of the Pit

Brent Billings: This is The BEMA Podcast with Marty Solomon. I’m his co-host, Brent Billings. Today, we are finishing our study of the life of Joseph, covering Genesis 41 to 50. Not all of that in excruciating detail — some portions more than others. Marty, since this is the second part of Joseph, why don’t we do a quick review of what we covered last time?

Marty Solomon: Absolutely. While we’re at it, we’ll remind ourselves of everything that came before that because Genesis is that essential. Remember the preface, Genesis 1 through 11, we talked about like a really — I don’t want to say simple, it’s incredibly profound — a big premise of trusting the story. Genesis 1 through 11 was all about God saying, “Listen, I’ve got your back, I’m going to remember the covenant, I’ve got the rainbow. I’m not angry. You gotta trust me and you gotta not give into fear and insecurity.” There are all these stories of people who didn’t.

That became the thunderous premise of what God built this story on is the human condition is going to be given to fear and insecurity. But you are loved. Creation is enough and it’s all there. You can trust that. Right about the time we’re starting to feel hopeless, we get introduced to the family of God. They’re not perfect, far from it. God found a group of people, really a guy by the name of Abraham, who comes from good family stock, people of hospitality, and people of charting a new course.

God says, “I need to take that and we need to build on it because you’re somebody who’s willing to lay down your life on behalf of other people. You’re willing to trust the story and I want to see where this goes.” Abraham partners with God and he makes mistakes and he learns lessons. Ultimately, time and time again, the things that define Abraham aren’t going to be his worst stories. They’re going to be his best stories, which I hope would be true of all of us.

Abraham is going to be defined by the moments where he leaned into the story and trusted that God had his best interest in mind, that God had his back, that he had value and worth in the midst of struggling with those things, in the midst of doubting those things. That was the defining characteristic of Abraham. We saw that bear fruit in the life of his son, Isaac. Then right at the time, we’re like, “This is going to be a short book,” we ran into Jacob, who seems to take the plot of this family and just screw it all up because of who he is.

That’s exactly what life is like. If it would have been too clean and too sterilized, none of us would have found it nearly as compelling. We all can relate to the Jacob story because that’s either we’re Jacob or our parents were Jacob or our children are Jacob or whatever, but we all know what it’s like to have Jacobs in our story.

Now, we talked about Jacob and we said if there was one redeeming quality, the one thing that God is really after in the life of Jacob, it’s his heart to wrestle. His heart as we called it chutzpah; he’s got the stuff inside of him that makes him want to dig and go. He’s not the type of guy that’s going to despise his birthright. He wants a birthright. Even though the birthright isn’t necessarily his, God says, “I can use a guy like you that once wants to be the firstborn. How about you come be my firstborn.” That’s going to be a hard struggle for Jacob all throughout his entire life.

It’s not over, because we’ve gotten to the life of Joseph, and Jacob is very much a part of the story of Joseph, even though he’s drifted off a little bit into the background and not the foreground. He’s definitely still there. Now, before I get into the life of Joseph and review that, let me just say the teaching of Joseph has gotten better over the years. It was really really messy the first time I did BEMA. It was even a little bit more messy the second time, but we’ve started to get better and better at it. I originally heard the teachings that have shaped my material and Joseph and I promise you’ll quit hearing this name so much.

Rabbi David Fohrman and his material in Genesis just changed everything for me and his teaching on Joseph was incredible. The first time I heard it, it was in eight hours worth of teaching, four two-hour lessons where he covered the life of Joseph. It was not what we as Westerners would qualify as an entertaining lesson, but by way of rabbinic teaching, I just loved it. I’ve tried to take those eight hours and put it into two hours of podcast, which is really basically impossible, but hopefully, we’re getting better and better at being able to package it that way and not have to give it to you, even though I’d love to. I wish I was as good as the rabbi’s were at teaching this stuff and I’m just not and that’s okay.

All that being said, this may seem a little messy. Realize this is coming out of a much bigger package that we’re trying to repackage it a little bit but — story of Joseph, we started last week. Talking about — man, one of the things that I wrestle with Joseph is story after story after story, he seemed to have a lot of his dad, Jacob, in him. He has these dreams. He gets Dad’s favorite. Dad declares to all of his brothers like, “Make no mistake about it, Joseph is my favorite. He’s my bechor. Even though he’s not technically, he is going to be my bechor. Here’s his double portion. Here’s his second cloak.”

I’m going to make it really obvious that he’s my favorite son, and just has this relationship with his brothers that he doesn’t seem to have any wisdom or discretion in. He should be old enough, especially in their culture to have wisdom and discretion, at least enough to not go out and say, “I had this wonderful dream where you all bow down and serve me for the rest of your life.” That’s just very Jacob-esque. They obviously toss him into the cistern, the pit, without water and they sell him to the traders.

We had this really odd story that’s going to come back today. The story of Judah, all of a sudden like this, “We pause the regularly scheduled story to bring you this special message about Judah later in his life.” As we talked about that and how Judah had to go through the angst had made its way full circle back into his life, as he had slept with Tamar. That phrase of, “Do you recognize these things?” That word recognize came back into his life later and he learned a lesson there that I think is going to shape our story today.

We jumped back into the story of Joseph. Joseph went to Potiphar’s house and everything went his way. Potiphar’s wife wants to sleep with him and he essentially says, “Listen, if I do that, I’ll lose everything so why would I do that?” Ends up backfiring. He ends up getting thrown in a pit again. While he is in the pit, he gets to meet the cupbearer and the baker and they interpret dreams and his one request is that they would remember him. Just lots of stories of what feels to me to be Jacob like self-interest, if you would ask me.

I struggle, I said in the last podcast, with the story of Yosef. We always talk about a story of incredible faithfulness and at this point in his story, I’m just struggling with that. I get it, yes, he’s following God, I guess. God is blessing him. Sure, he’s with Him, but he was with Jacob too and it’s just this weird angst I have in the story. We have to see where that goes today, but with that, we’re going to pick up in Genesis 41. Brent, if you don’t mind reading, how about you start reading?

Brent: Yes, and I just want to mention, we do have a presentation for today. Scroll down in your app, open that up or grab it on the computer or whatever, and follow along with us.

Genesis 41, When two full years had passed, Pharaoh had a dream. He was standing by the Nile, when out of the river there came up seven cows, sleek and fat, and they grazed among the reeds. After them, seven other cows, ugly and gaunt, came up out of the Nile and stood beside those on the riverbank. And the cows that were ugly and gaunt ate up the seven sleek, fat cows. Then Pharaoh woke up.

He fell asleep again and had a second dream. Seven heads of grain, healthy and good, were growing on a single stalk. After them, seven other heads of grain sprouted, thin and scorched by the east wind. The thin heads of grain swallowed up the seven healthy, full heads. Then Pharaoh woke up, it had been a dream.

In the morning his mind was troubled so he sent for all the magicians and wise men of Egypt. Pharaoh told them his dreams, but no one could interpret them for him.

Then the chief cupbearer said to Pharaoh, “Today I am reminded of my shortcomings. Pharaoh was once angry with his servants, and he imprisoned me and the chief baker in the house of the captain of the guard. Each of us had a dream the same night, and each dream had a meaning of its own. Now a young Hebrew was there with us, a servant of the captain of the guard. We told him our dreams, and he interpreted them for us, giving each man the interpretation of his dream. And things turned out exactly as he interpreted them to us. I was restored to my position, and the other man was impaled.”

So Pharaoh sent for Joseph, and he was quickly brought from the dungeon. When he had shaved and changed his clothes, he came before Pharaoh.

Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I had a dream, and no one can interpret it. But I have heard it said of you that when you hear a dream you can interpret it.”

“I cannot do it,” Joseph replied to Pharaoh, “But God will give Pharaoh the answer he desires.”

Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “In my dream, I was standing on the bank of the Nile, when out of the river there came up seven cows, fat and sleek, and they grazed among the reeds. After them, seven other cows came up, scrawny and very ugly and lean. I had never seen such ugly cows in all the land of Egypt. The lean, ugly cows ate up the seven fat cows that came up first. But even after they ate them, no one could tell that they had done so. They looked just as ugly as before. Then I woke up.

“In my dream I saw seven heads of grain, full and good, growing on a single stalk. After them, seven other heads sprouted, withered and thin and scorched by the east wind. The thin heads of grain swallowed up the seven good heads. I told this to the magicians, but none of them could explain it to me.”

Then Joseph said to Pharaoh, “The dreams of Pharaoh are one and the same. God has revealed to Pharaoh what he is about to do. The seven good cows are seven years, and the seven good heads of grain are seven years. It is one and the same dream. The seven lean, ugly cows that came up afterward are seven years, and so are the seven worthless heads of grain scorched by the east wind. They are seven years of famine.

“It is just as I said to Pharaoh. God has shown Pharaoh what he is about to do. Seven years of great abundance are coming throughout the land of Egypt, but seven years of famine will follow them. Then all the abundance in Egypt will be forgotten and the famine will ravage the land. The abundance in the land will not be remembered because the famine that follows it will be so severe. The reason the dream was given to Pharaoh in two forms is that the matter has been firmly decided by God, and God will do it soon.”

Marty: All right. That’s a good place to stop there. One of the things that Fohrman talked about when he taught on this was there are a couple of details in this dream that we find rather interesting. First of all, the cows come out of — what does that say the cows came out of in the dream?

Brent: Out of the river, right?

Marty: Yes, particularly out of?

Brent: The Nile.

Marty: And particularly out of… They came up out of the…

Brent: It says they came out of the Nile. While he was standing by the Nile, they came out of the river and grazed among the reeds.

Marty: Grazed among the reeds. That’s one of the interesting things that the oral tradition taught and I believe it was Rabbi Akiva, I’d have to come back and double-check that. Akiva talked about — that’s a Hebrew word we had no idea how to translate. The Jews didn’t have any idea how to translate it.

The root word is quite interesting, but Akiva said, we need to translate that “reeds” but then the teaching also surrounded the root word. The root word for this word reeds is the word “brothers.” These cows were grazing amongst the brothers, as it sounds in its root form, without translation help from the rabbis to tell us its “reeds.” A more literal rendering is going to be they grazed among the brothers.

We keep that detail hovering in the back of our head here, but Foreman said, “What’s interesting is that, essentially, Joseph is brought out of the dungeon to come interpret Pharaoh’s dream. He tells Pharaoh, he says, “I can’t interpret dreams, that God can interpret dreams, but I can’t.” Pharaoh says, “Here’s my dream.” Then Joseph immediately just jumps in and just interprets his dream. Just right off the bat. No praying, no, “and the Lord said,” or, “okay, Pharaoh, here is God’s” — just immediately translates, interprets, should we say, the dream for Pharaoh.

Now, we could say that something similar happened to the cupbearer and the baker in the last story but the situation is pretty different. Fohrman was able to point that out really well in his original teaching. With the cupbearer and the baker, the problem is that there’s nobody else there to interpret dreams. If you went back into the last chapter, they said, “We had dreams and there’s nobody here in the dungeon to interpret them for us.”

The assumption is if anybody was there, they could have interpreted them. Any magician, any dream interpreter from Egypt, any wise man could have interpreted their dreams but here they are without that. Joseph says, “God can interpret dreams, tell me your dreams.” Then Joseph provides their interpretations. Here in the Pharaoh story, none of his wise men, none of his magicians, none of his right-hand men can interpret the dreams for him.

Brent: It says, “All the magicians and wise men of Egypt.” He’s got everybody in on it.

Marty: Right. Nobody can do this. This is quite a bit different than what we had in the dungeon with the cupbearer and the baker. This is a big deal and yet Joseph immediately interprets this dream. The question really becomes, how does Joseph interpret the dream? Apparently, almost on his own, I mean, we can say that God helped him, obviously, for sure, but Joseph just jumps in and interprets this. How does he do so quickly and on his own?

We’re using this midrash from Akiva and this word for brothers. It gives you this hint that the Midrash often gives you. As you dive into the Midrash, you start wrestling with this. You find that, in Fohrman’s words, there’s one detail of Pharaoh’s dream that if you know what that detail stands for, the dream interprets itself.

If you know this one variable, the whole dream interprets itself. That is the number seven. There are seven beautiful cows and seven ugly cows. There are seven full heads of grain and seven weak heads of grain or whatever the translation was there, lean. If you knew the sevens, the whole dream interprets itself. If you know that those are years… the question becomes, how does Joseph know that the sevens are years?

If one starts to think of his life, you may already be on top of it but one of the interesting things that we noted, that Fohrman noted that we double-checked on, was the reference of the cows. Have we run into a story where there was beautiful and ugly before?

Brent: We certainly have.

Marty: Where did we run into that before?

Brent: We’re talking Joseph’s mom and his, I don’t know, stepmom, I guess.

Marty: Leah and Rachel. In fact, the linguistic ties there when it talks about the beautiful cows and the King James — what did the King James, well-favored?

Brent: “Well-favored,” yes. In this one, it’s “sleek.”

Marty: “Sleek” and that word is the same word that she used to describe when he sees Rachel.

Brent: Sees Rachel, she’s beautiful and sleek or beautiful and well-favored.

Marty: Yes. There are details in Pharaoh’s dream that Joseph can immediately connect to his own story. It’s almost as if when Joseph hears this dream, he wonders if he internalized this dream or thought or realized it was a message from God to him, it wasn’t even to Pharaoh. Almost interpreting the dream aside, like, let me interpret the dream for you, but knowing underneath the surface, this dream is really, honestly, about me in my life because the moment you interpret that, the moment you have that detail of sevens, my dad, he had to work seven years for a beautiful wife, but then he got the ugly, I don’t want to be crass, but the ugly wife and then had to work seven more. The moment he looks back to his own story, and goes, “The ugly cows, oh, you’re going to have seven years of abundance and then seven years of famine.”

Brent: It plays backwards in this story.

Marty: It does, it plays backwards. What’s interesting is, because he knows the details of years, he’s able to even finesse the details of the dream. The ugly cows eat the fat cows, but you can’t even tell they don’t get fatter, they don’t get — they eat them but you can’t even tell. He’s able to say, “Man, this famine is going to be so bad, you’re not even going to remember the abundance of the first seven years.”

It raises this kind of the next question I have on our slide there. I just want to put this here. When Joseph interprets this dream, it’s going to raise a really important question about his own journey and his own life because this dream of Pharaoh comes out of his own life. Let’s leave that hanging for just a moment because I want to make a passing observation here and ask this next question. What kind of a person is Joseph? I don’t want to rush past this and forget it.

I just want to pause here and ask, in the middle of the story, what kind of a person is Joseph? He’s confronted with this kind of, I don’t know if it would be creepy, [chuckles] what that experience would be. He’s confronted with this dream that speaks to his own life but he’s also confronted with the harsh truth of Egypt, that there’s going to be a famine, there’s going to be an abundance and then there’s going to be famine and this horrible catastrophic, eschatological, end of days kind of nightmare is coming upon them.

What kind of person is Joseph? If you were to go back, Brent, to where we left off, let’s go ahead and keep reading in the story.

Brent: I just had a thought.

Marty: Yes.

Brent: Do you think Joseph maybe feels like… I mean, obviously, he’s not the direct comparison to the beautiful cow but he comes from the beautiful wife, right?

Marty: Sure.

Brent: Do you think he feels like his position in the family has been eaten up by the brothers from the other wife?

Marty: Yes, and the more you play with some of the details in this dream, the more you go, man, I wonder how far he took this and how far the personal — like the ‘ouch’ factor. We’re going to get a little bit more into the story here when we come back in just a moment, but yes, there’s definitely a, you wonder how far he takes this.

Brent: It’s not like he thinks of this all in one moment. He’s going to interpret the dream and he’s probably going to sit on this idea for who knows.

Marty: Days, weeks, months, years. Absolutely.

Brent: Continuing.

Marty: He just interpreted the dream and we’ll pick up in, say, verse 33.

Brent: Okay. And now let Pharaoh look for a discerning and wise man and put him in charge of the land of Egypt.

Marty: Now I wonder who that wise man is going to be that Joseph feels. Still feels a little Jacob-ee. A little self-interested, “I don’t want to go back to the dungeon, find yourself a wise guy. It doesn’t seem like any of these other wise guys around here are doing you much good.”

Brent: Yes, I got just the idea, but don’t worry about them. “Let Pharaoh appoint commissioners over the land to take a fifth of the harvest of Egypt during the seven years of abundance.” They’ve got something to do too.

Marty: Yes.

Brent: It’s not like they’re useless.

Marty: That’s correct.

Brent: “They should collect all the food of these good years that are coming and store up the grain under the authority of Pharaoh, to be kept in the cities for food. This food should be held in reserve for the country, to be used during the seven years of famine that will come upon Egypt, so that the country may not be ruined by the famine.”

The plan seemed good to Pharaoh and to all his officials. So Pharaoh asked them, “Can we find anyone like this man, one in whom is the spirit of God?”

Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Since God has made all this known to you, there is no one so discerning and wise as you. You shall be in charge of my palace and all my people are to submit to your orders. Only with respect to the throne will I be greater than you.”

So Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I hereby put you in charge of the whole land of Egypt.” Then Pharaoh took his signet ring from his finger and put it on Joseph”s finger. He dressed him in robes of fine linen and put a gold chain around his neck. He had him ride in a chariot as his second-in-command and people shouted before him, “Make way.” Thus he put him in charge of the whole land of Egypt.

Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I am Pharaoh, but without your word, no one will lift hand or foot in all Egypt.” Pharaoh gave Joseph the name Zaphenath-Paneah and gave him Asenath daughter of Potiphera, priest of On, to be his wife and Joseph went throughout the land of Egypt.”

Marty: All right. What kind of a person is Joseph? It’s interesting because if we were to put ourselves in this story, let’s say we get a vision, we get a dream, somebody has a dream. We can interpret that dream and that dream has some really, really bad news. Namely, you have this catastrophic, end times, end-of-the-world type famine that’s coming upon the land. You are currently not second in command of Egypt. [chuckles] What would our response be if we were in Joseph’s shoes?

Brent: I feel like he probably would try to sugarcoat it a little bit.

Marty: Sugarcoat it. Let’s say, we just couldn’t. Let’s say at the end of the day, this is just really bad news. This is a really bad vision. This is a really bad famine, then what?

Brent: I don’t know.

Marty: I don’t know either. Woe to us Americans, uh, fear-based. In our world, we would just be like, “Oh, read a newspaper article that says horrible things — what are we going to do?” What kind of a person is Joseph? Joseph is a type of person that says, “Pharaoh, here’s this dream. It’s got some really bad news, but guess what, here’s what we’re going to do.”

Joseph has the audacity or should I say the chutzpah, just like his father and his fathers before him. He’s willing to say, “I know what’s going to happen next in the story, but we also don’t have to accept that as our final word. We get to decide how we’re going to respond to this. Pharaoh, you bring me under your wing. Here’s how we’re going to attack this thing and we’re going to get through it.” Man, when I heard that from Fohrman, I went, “This is the reason that God has chosen this family. They know how to trust the story and they know how to push on and they’ve got chutzpah.”

They’re going to be called all throughout the Torah and Tanakh — Torah is going to call them stiff-necked and stubborn, all throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. But this is the very attribute that gives them the stuff that they need to make it through the story. Now, so far, in the Joseph in the Jacob story, I’m not seeing a whole lot of trust. I haven’t seen the trust that I found in Abraham and Isaac, but it might still be coming and so we want to keep moving from there.

I’m going to bounce over to our next slide and we can get into this where we left off. You brought up these other questions. How far does Joseph take this dream in its self-application? What’s interesting is that this is definitely a theme from the author or authors of Genesis as they put together the story. We found this theme played out all throughout the life of Joseph up to this point. For instance, if you went back to the Jacob and Joseph story, you’re going to find a template.

You’re going to find that dad, Jacob, gives Joseph gifts, this technicolor dreamcoat or this second coat, he gives him these gifts. Joseph, he’s going to go out and have dreams. He’s going to go to his brother and say, “Listen to my dreams.” That doesn’t go so well and so his coat is stripped off of him and he’s thrown into a pit. It says, “A cistern without water.” The word that’s used to talk about it and that story is going to be a pit, is one way you can translate that.

Now, if we were to jump two chapters ahead to the next Joseph story, which would be the story of Potiphar and Potiphar’s wife and Joseph, you’re going to find the same template. You’re going to find gifts from Potiphar. Potiphar makes him the head of his entire household. You pointed out in the last podcast, there’s nothing that Potiphar did that he had to think about except what he was going to eat every day. Like gifts from Potiphar.

Potiphar’s wife essentially has aspirations, dreams is too literal the word to use there. She has aspirations. She says, “Come to bed with me, I want to sleep with you. Listen to this idea.” He says, “No.” His coat is stripped again, and again he’s thrown in a pit. Our English Bible says dungeon, but the word there’s the exact same word, which is a weird word to use. The author’s doing that on purpose. You don’t use that word to talk about a dungeon, except in the life of Joseph. You do that in the life of Joseph because it’s a callback to that first time he got thrown in a pit.

If we were to jump two chapters later, we get to our story today. All of these items are reversed. What we see is that Joseph gets pulled from the pit. The very next detail, if you read it in the story today, is that he puts clothes on, he puts that cloak on and every other story was torn off of him, now it’s put on him. This time it’s going to be Pharaoh that says, “I’ve had dreams. Listen to them.” At the end of that, Pharaoh was going to make him second in command of all of Egypt. This thematic template has worked all throughout the life of Joseph. Gifts, dreams, coat stripped, into the pit. Gifts, dreams, coat stripped, and into the pit — and now out of the pit, clothes, dreams, gifts. Which is an interesting—

Let me ask you this, Brent. If you’re Joseph back in the story where you got thrown into the cistern by your brothers, what are you thinking as you sit in the cistern?

Brent: Initially, you’re probably thinking this a rotten gig.

Marty: This is not a good thing.

Brent: You’re not feeling very loved by the brothers.

Marty: No, you’re not feeling very loved. You kind of knew — look at the way he’s behaving. He knows that that’s coming, but what has he got to be assuming?

Brent: He knows his dad is all about him.

Marty: Yes, my dad’s got my back. He’s on my side so dad must be what?

Brent: He’ll know that I’m missing. He’ll come find me.

Marty: My dad’s going to come get me. Fohrman pointed this out in his teaching. Joseph doesn’t know the details that we know. What details would be really important to the story that Joseph doesn’t know?

Brent: He doesn’t know any of the conversations his brothers are having. He doesn’t know Rueben is trying to save his life.

Marty: Doesn’t know that Rueben was on his side.

Brent: He doesn’t know the other brothers are dipping his coat in blood and lying to his dad.

Marty: He doesn’t know the story that his dad’s been lied to and his dad assumes he’s dead. None of these details Joseph knows. None of these details would be assumed by Joseph. The assumption that Joseph has to make is my dad’s going to come get me and dad never comes. Instead, he gets sold to these traders and he still has to think, “Dad will come find me.” How bad does Jacob love the son? It’s his favorite son. “Dad will come find me in Egypt. Dad will come find me.” He never shows up, never comes. At what point does Joseph just give up on this story of, “ Man, I thought my dad would come after me.”

Brent: Do we have an idea of how much time? This would have been the very next verse we read but it said Joseph was 30 when Pharaoh put him in charge. Do we have an idea of how old he was when he was sold off into slavery?

Marty: The number 17 Just rings in my head. I can’t remember if that was in the text or if that was an oral tradition, but that’s the number that rings in my head. I believe that was in a text somewhere now that I think about it.

Brent: 13 years. That’s a long time to wait.

Marty: It’s a long time to wait.

Brent: He starts to lose hope at that point, I think.

Marty: Now this guy has — this Pharaoh character has reversed the order of his story. He’s taken his tragedy and turned into fortune. By the way, before we just run past it, you can also see this next slide here. You can also see in the stories that sit in between, these same variables are at play here. In the Judah, Tamar story there’s close. Judah says to Tamar, very similar words to what Potiphar’s wife says to Joseph, “Come and sleep with me.” There’s gifts, there’s clothes, all kinds of stuff going on there. The cupbearer and baker, you have dreams, you have interpretations, you also have gifts, you have the dungeon master making him — I said dungeon master, [chuckles] my old D&D days are coming out there — you have the guard putting him second in command. You have the cupbearer and the baker both pulled from the pit.

You have some of the same variables. They’re in different orders. I’m not exactly sure what to do with that quite yet in my study of the story, but I give that to you and say, wrestle with whatever you see in there. I think there’s some interesting things, particularly, in the Judah and Tamar story. The one thing we’re missing is the pit. I feel like the Judah and Tamar story seems to speak to us about forgiveness. It may be pointing us towards the end of the story. Nevertheless, the details are still there.

Brent: Boy, since you’re geeking out on D&D, I gotta have my little geek moment. This position that Joseph is in where he doesn’t know where his father is. I just saw Rogue One recently, this new Star Wars movie. The main character’s father is taken away from her early in the story. He doesn’t come back, somebody else comes and raises her and she hasn’t talked to him for years. Then she’s on her own for a few years. Then some people are trying to find her father so they come and talk to her and they say, “How long has it been since you talk to your father?” She’s like, “I haven’t talked to him in 15 years,” and like, “Do you have any idea where he is?” She says, “I’d like to think he’s dead, that makes it easier.” You think Joseph, 13 years later, maybe he’s not thinking that the whole time. Maybe there’s still a little thread of hope somewhere. You gotta think my father’s got to be dead or something because I thought he loves me more than that. If he didn’t, then that’s — I don’t know if I want to accept that.

Marty: Yes, absolutely. It’s a wonderful parallel. In a sense, Joseph is going to need a new hope, if you will.

Brent: Probably.

Marty: Boy, nevertheless. Joseph is really at this point in his narrative, he’s having to wrestle with his identity. Not like he realizes he’s going to. At this point in the story, do you cling to the narrative of Egypt? Do you cling to Pharaoh as your new daddy figure? I remember Fohrman when he’s telling me this. He said, “Joseph’s having to come to grips with who’s your daddy. Who is he?

Now, at this point, he might be just fine where he’s at, second in command of Egypt. This story turned out quite well. “My family abandoned me.” Then the very next chapter in the story, his brothers come back, and they reenter the story. We’re not going to read all of that. It’s not in your presentation. All of a sudden, in the next chapter, his brothers show up and he realizes who they are. They don’t have Jacob’s other favorite son. Remember, he had those two sons from Rachel. He had Joseph and he had who?

Brent: Benjamin.

Brent: Benjamin, remember? Yes, Benjamin means son of my right hand. Benjamin’s not there. You can imagine Joseph was probably closest to Benjamin, I would imagine, the other son of his true mom and all that. The other favorite son of dad. You can imagine them being pretty close. He’s not there because Jacob’s not going to let his last favorite son out of his sight.

Marty: His father’s not there either.

Brent: Correct. Yes, Jacob is still home. He sent the sons on this basically a rescue mission to get food for the famine. Joseph, he channels a little bit of his inner Jacob and a little bit of deception. He says, I want to see this brother. Fohrman suggested he may not even believe that Benjamin’s even alive, especially the way they tell the story. Is it me that they’re talking about? Is it Benjamin? But we’re missing a brother. I want to see my favorite brother. You go bring him and then we’ll talk, but until then, I’m going to keep on your other brothers. This guy, they go back home to Jacob and now they have a real problem on their hands.

Because Jacob is not going to give up his favorite son again and lose this. He’s already lost another son. Now a second son, but he’s certainly not going to take a chance of losing his other favorite son and making it three. They come back and they say listen, we can go back to Egypt and get the other son back. We can take care of this famine business. Jacob initially says, “Absolutely not.” That’s where we’re going to jump into Genesis 43. I’ll go ahead and read this.

Now the famine was still severe in the land. So when they had eaten all the grain they had brought from Egypt--” This has been a while. Jacob said, no, and they essentially wrestled with this for a while. “Their father said to them, “Go back and get us some more food.”

But Judah said to him, “The man warned us solemnly, “You will not see my face again unless your brother is with you.” If you will send our brother along with us, we will go down and buy food for you. But if you will not send him, we will not go down because the man said to us, “You will not see my face again unless your brother is with you.”

Israel asked, “Why did you bring this trouble on me by telling the man you had another brother?”

They replied, “The man questioned us closely about ourselves and our family. “Is your father still living?” he asked. “Do you have another brother?” We simply answered his questions. How were we to know he would say, “Bring your brother down here?”

Then Judah said to Israel’s father, “Send the boy along with me and we will go at once so that we and you and your children may live and not die. I myself will guarantee his safety. You can hold me personally responsible if I do not bring him back with you and set him here before you. I will bear the blame before you all my life. As it is, if we had not delayed, we could have gone and returned twice.”

Then their father said to him, “If it must be, do this.”

At that point, Jacob finally agrees. Now the first time, Rueben came to him, and Rueben said, “Listen, we got to go back down to Egypt. There’s no way we’re going to get down there —he essentially said the same thing that Judah said — there’s no way we’re going to get down there and back without having Benjamin with us. You got to send Benjamin.” Rueben had told him, “I will” — Rueben who was the what, by the way?

Brent: The firstborn.

Marty: He is the bechor, right? He’s trying to seize this role that he’s always tried to seize in the story. He wants to be this firstborn. He tried to save Joseph’s life before. Now, he wants to save Benjamin’s. He says, “Listen, I know that you’ve already lost a son. If you don’t get Benjamin back, you can have my two sons and we’ll replace your two lost sons with my two sons. That’s my collateral I can offer you.” Jacob says no. Jacob said absolutely not. It’s not what I want.

Brent: Emphasis on the Jacob there. In that story, he is referred to as Jacob.

Marty: In this next story.

Brent: He’s referred to as Israel.

Marty: Why is the author deliberately using these two different names here? I’ll come back to that in just a moment because it’s Judah that’s going to kick that change off. When Judah comes and Judah starts having a conversation. Judah doesn’t make the same offer that Rueben made. Rueben made an offer of ‘if I lose your son, you can have two of mine.’ Judah says, “If I lose your son, Benjamin, I will put my own life on it.” I think that’s because, if you remember, do you remember in Genesis 38, Judah had to leave. Judah was with the brothers. Then after Joseph gets sold into slavery, Judah leaves the family. That’s where the Judah and Tamar story happened. Remember that?

Now, Judah is back. Somehow Judah is back in the family for this later story. Somewhere in between Judah learned a lesson with a Tamar story that he now employs here. Because Judah has a unique understanding of justice. If you go back to our last podcast and listen to the story of Judah and Tamar when she said, “Do you recognize these?” Judah had to come to grips with, “she is more righteous than I.” I now understand righteousness, I understand justice, I understand putting the world back as it should be. He takes this newfound knowledge, much like, might I suggest, Abraham did when he learned his valuable lessons.

He takes this newfound knowledge. He goes back to Jacob and essentially he says, “I understand you, I understand what you want is you want justice for the injustice. Let me put my own life on the line here” because it was essentially, [chuckles] he was the one that had this wonderful idea, if you remember, about what to do to Joseph. He says, “I will put my own neck...” This is what seems to get Jacob, as you point out, to become Israel, and surrender to what God’s wanting to do in this story. The first time he’s Jacob, and whenever I see Jacob, I feel like what the author is trying to tell me is this is the Jacob —

This is the Jacob who’s trying to look out for himself, who wants his favorite son, self-interest, Jacob. Whenever the author says Israel, I feel like it’s the author’s way of saying, this is the Jacob that is surrendering to the will and the plan of God. Judah puts his neck on the line. He gets Benjamin with them and they’re able to go back and it’s going to be this reunion of everybody showing up in Egypt and, ultimately, Jacob will also make his way back down there. This is where Joseph’s going to ultimately be confronted with who he is. Is Joseph a member of this family of God? Is he a part of Abraham’s beit av, in the household of God, or is Yosef a part of Pharaoh’s family and a part of Pharaoh’s household? Is he going to be a person of vengeance? He has his family right where he wants him.

If he wants to take it out on them, he’s got every opportunity now and he even struggles with that, it seems like through the story, really setting them up or he is going to be a person of forgiveness? The Hebrew word here they speak of is chesed — love, compassion, generosity, forgiveness. Who is Joseph going to be? There are a couple of things that I put here as a closing thought. This whole story of Genesis comes back around full circle.

The family of God that we learned about all throughout the story of Genesis, starting with Abraham, ending with Yoseph. These are people who understand justice and forgiveness. The family of God are going to be people who understand what it means to put the story and the world back together. They’re going to be people that even though they struggle with self-interest, they’re going to be people who are willing to ultimately tell a narrative of self-sacrifice.

That one act of Judah to, essentially, put his neck on the line and, essentially, save Benjamin, this narrative’s going to come back up throughout the story. There will be other stories in Torah and other stories in Tanakh. In fact, you can think ahead to David and Jonathan. Who is Jonathan going to be a descendant of, Brent?

Brent: Saul.

Marty: Who is a descendant of which tribe?

Brent: Benjamin.

Marty: Benjamin. Who is David a descendant of who?

Brent: Judah.

Marty: In that story, who saves who?

Brent: Jonathan saves David.

Marty: Right. Benjamin saves Judah. See, this story is going to keep coming back. The book of Esther is going to be the exact same thing all throughout Tanakh in the Hebrew scriptures. You’re going to see the family of God and the people of Israel and the people of Judah remembering going back in this story, back in their own narrative to the story of Yosef and remembering what lies at the heart of their family.

At the heart of their family, lies forgiveness, lies generosity, lies chesed and whenever they’re willing to stake their claim on that, whenever they’re willing to do for others, as Judah did for Benjamin. Benjamin multiple times is going to come back to this story and it’s going to be Benjamin that puts his neck on the line for Judah.

Then Judah’s going to put his neck on the line for Benjamin. Then Benjamin’s going to put his neck on the line for Judah. You have this play all throughout their scriptures of what forgiveness can do and its ability to put the world back together. Which is one of my last thoughts here on this podcast is the family of God is full of people who trust the story. Genesis started with a preface telling us what it meant to trust the story.

We were introduced to a family who did trust the story and it began with a man who would be willing to leave his home, but life is more complex than that. As this dysfunctional family continues to grow and the dysfunction continues to grow, this trust that was simple and profound ends up becoming more and more complex. At the end of the book of Genesis, it’s going to be about forgiveness.

The thought I have here is forgiveness is one of the ultimate expressions of trust. In fact, I wrestle with whether or not forgiveness is the ultimate expression of trust in this story. In order for you to lay down your right for vengeance and lay down your right to get even and lay down your right for what we would think of as attributive justice, you lay that down as one of the most ultimate acts of trust because you’re saying God’s got this. I can trust that God’s got this. I’m not going to replay Cain and Abel, not going to do it, not going to replay that story. I know how that story ends. Not interested in that tragedy, but I do believe I can do the right thing here. What’s so interesting is Joseph doesn’t replay Cain and Abel, Joseph forgives. It’s how the book of Genesis ends. This is going to be the setup. This was the introduction that’s going to allow us to understand what the narrative of God is all about.

Brent: It’s a pretty compelling story.

Marty: Ah, so good. I wish you could hear the eight-hour version of it. By the way, his teaching is called a few different things. Goats and coats is how it’s often phrased. There was a teaching on torahanytime.com or.org, but torahanytime had a teaching that was about goats and coats. It all sometimes be called “the sale of Yosef” as another one of the titles that he — “Understanding sale of Yosef” is another one of the titles that Fohrman gives to this teaching.

There’s a few different places where it’s in different forms. If you want to find it, if we can find any links, we’ll definitely put it in the show notes and it’s out there and he does a much more thorough job of making these points than I do.

Brent: Thorough is an accurate way [chuckles] to describe.

Marty: Rabbinic teaching at its finest.

Brent: All right. That’s it for this episode. If you live on the Palouse, we hope you join us for discussion groups in Moscow on Tuesday or in Pullman on Wednesday. If you want to get a hold of Marty, you can find him on Twitter at @martysolomon. You can find me on Twitter at @eiecb, and you can find more details about the show at bemadiscipleship.com. Thanks for joining us on The BEMA Podcast and we’ll talk to you again soon.