Genesis 34-50
Genesis 34-50
[00:00:00] Welcome to God's Full Story. This year, we're looking at every book in the Bible, piece by piece, one week at a time. Uh, we hope it's helping you understand the full story of scripture, and we hope it's strengthening your relationship with God. Uh, if you are enjoying the podcast, we would love to invite you to partner with us financially.
You can do so for as little as 3 a month by clicking the link in our description. Here's today's episode. All right, everybody. Welcome back to episode three of Genesis. Today, we're going to be taking a look at what is it? It's like chapters 34. Till the end, till the very end, to the very end of the chapter.
Uh, and we'll, we'll round out Genesis. So we will have completed quite a bit. Just want to remind you that you can, uh, go back to some of our previous episodes, like our original episodes to track along with like a daily of Genesis. So if you feel like, wow, I feel like they're just scratching their surface.
We're doing that on purpose. You can actually do the deep dive by, uh, going and checking out our old [00:01:00] daily episodes and walk through Genesis. Um, but Chelsea's going to bring us in here to, uh, the final part of Genesis. Well, what's interesting to me as I was reading this is that. We kind of talked about in the first, maybe the first episode, second episode, that we have the creation narrative and Noah and the Tower of Babel, all that happens in like 12 chapters.
And then we have this like sweeping narrative of the rest of like what we meant, what matters, Abram, Isaac, Jacob, and then Moses, who's the author of Genesis spends 13 chapters on Joseph. Which I'm just like, that doesn't seem fair. It's so interesting. You know what? It actually, Joseph does seem like somebody who just wants all the attention.
I'm just going to be honest about that. A little braggy. Isn't he like almost the youngest? Yeah, youngest child syndrome. Um, but what also stuck out to me is that. The [00:02:00] story of Joseph, like you think through the Sunday school lens and how I grew up hearing about Joseph, it can be very moralistic where it's just like, Hey, maybe don't brag to your siblings or, and, or you might get thrown into a pit or like, be faithful.
I know. That's what I teach my kids. I use that lesson almost every day.
Your brothers are going to try to kill you if you keep doing that. Gosh, parenting from Genesis. I'm going to start working on that book. Um, I even just being faithful and, uh, his obviously faithfulness to righteousness when he's tempted and things like that, it can be very moralistic, but there's so much more to the story than that.
And we've talked about before in our daily podcast, how Joseph is very much a Christ figure, but what really stuck out to me Um, this time reading through it is that it's not just him as a Christ figure, but it's really a, a gospel narrative, um, which is super interesting to, to think through that lens. [00:03:00] Um, it's a redemptive and just another redemptive act.
Um, the story of Joseph, that God, that God saves his people from suffering. He preserves them, uh, through Joseph. And what's crazy is that Joseph isn't even in the line of Christ and there's this big story about him. Um, Yeah. So it's interesting how much time is spent on him, but what stuck out to you guys about, about the story?
Yeah, when you were mentioning, uh, kind of the moralistic thing, I, I was, uh, thinking a little bit about that. When we approach the Bible primarily as what does it speak to me? That's why we, we moralize every story we try. And of course we want application, but there, there's so much more here. Like why would, Moses didn't spend 13 chapters on this just so we could have good Sunday school morals taught, but this was super significant for Israel as they're in the wilderness.
They've just come out of Egypt after 430 years in slavery This helps them to know their story [00:04:00] this helps them to know why Why they were in slavery in the first place this also shows them before they went into slavery God saved them Um, God actually rescued them, God actually preserved them and he did it through this crazy series of events so that Joseph could do it.
So I think for Israel, this is, this is, you see God's interactions in both good and bad things. Uh, not just don't be envious, don't be proud, but like this is God of the universe that is doing things. And sometimes even he's doing things over 430 years that spans multiple generations. So that, that's pretty, it's such a important backstory for.
The people of Israel, as they're in the wilderness waiting to, you know, go into the promised land, uh, this, this is how they got to that point. Okay. So speaking of that 430 years, one, like God told Abraham about those 430 years, Joseph was aware of those 430 years, I think, because [00:05:00] he instructs them to carry him with them.
Is that right? And then in the Exodus account, when they actually leave, they actually do take Joseph's bones. With them, like you talk about like incredible, uh, consistency across the narrative. Joseph is actually like involved in all of it, honestly. So I think, I think it's very interesting. Uh, I am resonating with your, uh, basically like turning into a moralistic thing.
Um, a pet peeve of mine and the Joseph story is always like, Okay. Like Joseph is great, but Joseph's definitely not Jesus. Like, let's not like, um, set Joseph up. Like he is the salvation of our sins and let's not strive to be. Like Joseph, let's strive to be like Jesus, right? Like let's represent Christ the world.
And obviously Joseph was obedient and Joseph is a pretty good example. I mean, like, there's a lot that happens to Joseph and he seems to be like [00:06:00] completely eyes fixed on God's plan the entire time. Um, but he also is just a person, like we are just a person. Um, ultimately we should have our eyes fixed on Christ and strive to live like he lived.
Yeah. I think as. Um, again, this is not like scripture. This is what scripture says. I think it's something that we can maybe infer, uh, but the reason a reason why so much time is spent on this story is to help the Israelites understand, like you said, Chris, like how God has preserved them through this miraculous chain of events, um, that didn't look great.
And then it did look great. And then it didn't look great and all sorts of things. Um, but I think it sets. In God's sovereignty, as he dictates scripture to Moses, it sets up this story of what it looks like for a loved son who's given a revelation or the word of God, something that is going to happen, a prophecy, um, shares [00:07:00] it.
He's shamed. He's rejected, um, by his own family, by his own people, um, for speaking out loud. Um, again, there's definitely, you could probably say, like, maybe don't do it like that, or maybe he didn't quite honor his parents in that way. Different things. Again, he's not Christ, but he's a Christian.
What's interesting is that like Potiphar, it's Joseph is successful, he, so to be successful in Egypt, he would have had to learn the language, learn the culture, um, et cetera. And then Potiphar is actually blessed. It says that Potiphar is successful because of Joseph. Like, Potiphar Potiphar's blessed through him.
Another indicator of how God's going to use the nation of Israel to bless other people. Well, the Egyptians were blessed, um, even more so than when it all comes to fruition and Joseph saves the nation of Egypt and makes it, um, such an important event. Trading posts and everything for that area at that time when that [00:08:00] famine comes.
Um, so it is this story, it's like a, a picture of Christ. Um, so I think that is one reason why Moses, Moses spends so much time talking about it. Um, but another thing that I, I said before is I see some similarities between, um, Um, you see, and in that story, you kind of see Judah makes a mistake, um, or we can talk more about that if you want to, but we don't have to, but Judah does make a mistake.
And I think that we see this picture of how he's changed, how all the brothers have changed over the years until they meet Joseph. What do you guys think about that? How have you seen, or how do you see The transformation of these brothers from the time of betrayal. Judah kind of has like a hesitation the whole way through, right?
Judah's the one that's like, Hey, [00:09:00] maybe we shouldn't kill him. How about we sell him into slavery instead? Uh, that's Reuben. Okay. Um, Judah is the one that offers his life for Benjamin. Okay. So he's like, take me instead. Okay. So it's like the, the redemption arc for Judah is that he goes from, One, to chuck his brother into a pit and kill him.
Yeah. Two, Sleeping with a prostitute who ends up being his daughter in law. Pretty big deal. And then saying, she's more righteous than I am. And I think that's actually, I've never understood that story, but now I'm like, I think that's actually like a, a climax in Judah's life where he's like, Oh, and he changes, we know about Ruben, who is the firstborn, who again, I think that I think the words in scripture like defiles his father's marriage bed or something like that.
It's like something weird happens. And so he's not, he does not get the firstborn blessing just like we've seen that over and over again. Judah now is that person. And I think he's a little [00:10:00] bit redeemed by the end of it because you see the righteousness when he's talking to Joseph at the end of the story and then he ends up being redeemed.
Um, plus as far as his line is the line of Christ. Do you ever wonder if like, uh, the 12 tribes sat around as they, they would hear the stories of the person they're named after and some of them probably like, Oh, sweet, like, I like this guy. Like, you know, and others are like, that's, that's what we came from.
That's where we started. Like it, it is such. And you see this everywhere in scripture that like, I mean, God just deals with such brokenness, but he, he uses very, very broken people all the time because he is ultimately the hero of the story, not the people. Um, but I think about that a lot, like, Hey, you know, remember what good old Dan did or remember?
Um, but there's definitely, there's definitely some good ones, but like some of these ones that we're just mentioning, it's like, and [00:11:00] what. Like, Jesus is the lion of the tribe of Judah, like, that, there, there's some serious dark, darkness in that story, and all, all of the things, like, it just goes back to, God connects himself with very, very broken people.
Judah is also the, the tribe that's like, preserved by God's grace for David's throne. Yeah. So it's like the, the ten tribes are like, peeled off. And Judah remains, so there, there's like, obviously, I mean, like, and Jesus is a descendant of Judah. Like clearly there's something unique about this tribe. Yeah.
And like you said before it, and again, why is this important for us? This is part of our spiritual ancestry because Joseph was righteous and faithful. He was able to save his brothers who were wicked towards him. Mm And offer redemption to them and offer salvation in a way to them, more physical salvation than anything else.
Um, and because of that, Judah is [00:12:00] preserved and Jesus is eventually born. God keeps having, God keeps performing these redemptive acts to preserve Israel so that there is a blessing for all the nations. It is incredible to read through Genesis and think of it as a narrative of like God being faithful to his promise.
Like, yeah, Joseph's cool, but, but there's no way that Joseph could have like purposely woven his life this way to end up in this role, to end up with this amount of influence and this amount of provision, like only God can do that. And if you think about what's happening at the end of Genesis, like. If you would have been experiencing that, it would have been one of those moments where it's like, Oh my word, like God promised a son to Abraham and that son became a nation, but that nation is going to die from famine.
Like this is it, this is over, this is done. And God's like, nah, actually I have this all figured out. It's okay. And there's been [00:13:00] so many moments throughout. I'm reading a lot of like, uh, first and second century, like writers right now. There's so many instances where it's like, I think the Christian church is done for.
I was like, no, it's not, it's going to continue on. And I think that's, I mean, does anybody say that today? I was just going to say, like, I think that definitely have thought it, but what's interesting is like a lot of times when people have thought that it is a real, genuine concern, like how will this thing continue unless there is an act of God.
And every time. There is an act of God. And so it's interesting. Like I'm so used to reading through Genesis, particularly the story of Joseph and hearing like how great Joseph is and he's great, but man, God is amazing. Yeah. Just like everything Christ escalates every good. person or good act that happens in the Bible that it all points to Jesus.
He's the escalation of all those things. He carries it so much [00:14:00] further than this person ever could because he's the incarnate son of God. And so when Joseph offers physical salvation for his brothers and family, Jesus offers us eternal salvation for our souls. Um, and it's hard to. Explain or comprehend from a perspective of not knowing Christ, because you're like, I would much rather have my physical life saved.
If you don't actually believe in what happens eternally. Um, but Jesus carries it so much further, um, in the most important ways. And I mean, it's so cliche to say his ways are higher than our ways, but you see this again and again, the stories of scripture you see, okay. So Joseph's brothers. Decided they were going to try to kill him.
He ends up in Egypt. Oh, now a famine is going to kill us all. Well, Oh, there's actually somebody already in Egypt. That's taking care of that stuff. It's going to rescue you from this [00:15:00] famine. You're going to get up to Egypt. Oh, we're saved. Oh, but now we're saved to go into 430 years of slavery. Like it's.
It's this, like, you're kind of like, wow, like how does all this stuff work together? And the only way that you can make any sense of it is just saying like, okay, God is active in what we perceive to be the amazing miracles and he's active in what we perceive to be the difficult circumstances that, that we face.
Cause even in the 430 years of slavery, God was accomplishing something that was going to continue to fulfill his plan and continue to move this forward. So it looks like you get rescued from one disaster and you're kind of, Put into a not so great situation of 430 years later in the beginning, it probably wasn't that bad, but as it went on, it got worse and worse.
And of course they were oppressed. And that's why Moses rose up. So much of the story of our faith is that cycle just keeps spinning because God delivers them from Egypt and then they're disobedient. And it's like, Oh man, now you're going to die in the desert. Like, well, actually [00:16:00] God's going to deliver them.
Just as we're sitting here talking about it's like, wow, that's really cool. Like that is what God continues to do. And sure. Like, like, obviously we experience our own lives with the hesitation that they would have experienced with their own lives. And you come up against things where it's like, man, I don't know.
How are we going to get through this? But like, what a crazy thing to think that you're not going to get through it. When over and over and over again, God has been faithful to himself, uh, and his people, despite his people, uh, to be faithful and to keep his promise. So I'm just super encouraged by the story.
I do want to, so thinking through what are some similarities between the brothers and. Maybe us as believers, because I think, of course, scripture points to Jesus. Of course, we want to see that, um, but we can also look at scripture and pull out truths for ourselves as well. So even in, even in the Old Testament.
So for the brothers who, like I said, have, they, I mean, they [00:17:00] murdered people in Shechem or whatever it's called. They have, uh. Slept with the wrong people. They aren't great. By a lot, by a lot. They sold their brother into slavery. These are not good guys. They just aren't. Um, but we see the change when they come back to Joseph.
And Joseph is kind of testing them in certain ways, but we see how they've changed. They really care for Benjamin. Who's now that who's the youngest and, um, clearly Jacob's favorite. Jacob still has favorites, even after all that. Um, they care for Benjamin and they care for their father. Um, and we see that demonstration of change by them offering their lives for Benjamin.
And, uh, I think Judah tells Jacob, like, if, if Ben, if Benjamin doesn't come back, you can just like kill me and all my family. And Jacob's like, okay. Um, but we see that with ourselves too. Like we, we are redeemed and we change and the [00:18:00] sanctification process is a gradual process. We will, we'll have our hearts change from this wicked, um, leaning and.
We even see how the brothers, uh, suspect that maybe Joseph would, would, like, betray them in the end. When Jacob dies, they're like, they offer some kind of deal where they're like, Oh man, Joseph's going to kill us. Um, but Joseph's like, no, he offers them insurance and says like, everything that you planned, everything that you did was part of God's plan, which is amazing that Joseph even has that, like, that thought.
That's another thing. I talked about that. Last week with Jacob and Esau where like Jacob didn't know what was going on in Esau's life, but clearly God was working in Esau's life Yeah, these brothers had no idea what was going on in Joseph's life. Like today we read the story We're very familiar with the story if you've been in church for a long time.
You've heard the story many times You know what's going on, but they didn't know what was going on. So Joseph doesn't [00:19:00] know their hearts And they don't know his heart and God's been like moving and working in all of them, bringing him to this place of like beautiful reconciliation. Granted, Joseph makes some work for it a little bit.
I think we tend to like underrepresent sibling rivalry, maybe there a little bit, there's a little bit of something going on there, but there's again, like incredible redemption and reconciliation. I just, I just. I think it's very difficult for me to read through some of these stories and be okay with holding grudges for a long period of time that doesn't seem to be, uh, what we're allowed to do.
Yeah, it's, it's pretty incredible. Uh, even the, so the brothers having the suspicion that That, uh, Joseph is like, can I get them in the end? Um, they're like, Hey, we'll be your servants. And Joseph is like, no. And he actually says, am I in the place of God? And then like offers forgiveness and reconciliation.
But again, [00:20:00] Jesus escalating it. Jesus is in the place of God and he can offer reconciliation and redemption. And it's just another picture of how you're right. Joseph is not Christ, but it's just a, it's a beautiful. understanding of what Christ can do even above and beyond what any human was able to do in this, like, story arc of scripture.
So you're saying we can see foreshadows of the gospel? I think so. I think. Huh. I think you landed on something. I think we might see that again and again. Probably. It's probably not gonna be the last time I gush about Joseph. Um, But another thing that caught my attention was Jacob, and then we can wrap this up.
But Jacob, uh, his story ends so interestingly. He, when he comes to Pharaoh, he just talks about how, like, I've had a long life and I'm broken down by grief. And it's like, man, Jacob! But, uh, He ends up living another, [00:21:00] like, 17 years, I think, and, uh, blesses his sons, um, and those blessings are a little bit unexpected, but his story ends a little bit different now that he's seen his, like, long lost son, um, and has been able to reconcile with them, um, But yeah, it's just interesting how his story ends too.
And they, they don't take Jacob with them into the promised land. Right. We said, we mentioned Joseph goes. When he dies, they go on a journey and bury him with Rachel. I think Rachel. I think it wasn't in a cave where some of Abraham's maybe even Abraham. I think there's a connection back to that. If, if I recall, there's definitely a cave involved here.
It is bury me with my father's in the cave that is in the field of Ephron, the Hittite in the cave that isn't, oh, sorry. And the cave that is in the field at Makhpala to the east of Mamre in the land of Canaan, which Abram bought. Okay. So Abram bought it. [00:22:00] I knew there was a connection, which is essentially the promised land.
Yep. They buried Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca and Leah are buried there. So those guys make it into the land. So he says this, yeah, they do. Yeah. That's another promise fulfilled. What is the actual reference? Like, where are you reading from? Sorry. That's Genesis 49, uh, beginning in verse 28. But he, so he says, he's like, bury me here.
And when Jacob finished commanding his sons, he drew up his feet into the bed, breathed his last, and was gathered to his people. That's the way to do it. Here's where I want to be buried. Peace out. It's like I'm gone. Sounds like he like, put up the recliner and gave up the ghost. Sounds good to me. Oh man.
Man, if only we could all be Jacob. All right, guys. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Um, we're excited to dig into Exodus next week and we'll see you then. [00:23:00] Bye.
