The Grand Sweep - Large Print. J. Ellsworth Kalas

      List the emotions experienced by Joseph and by his brothers in their crucial meetings.

      Prayer Time

      I will pray daily for these persons who need God’s guidance or intervention in their lives:

      How the Drama Develops GENESIS 28–45

      The drama continues to unfold in its own complicated, uneven way. Complicated, not because God is difficult but because we humans are so often erratic in the way we handle God’s gifts and opportunities. And complicated too because we live in a world where evil is a factor. We may try earnestly to pursue God’s purposes with pure hearts, but we have to do so in a setting where others seek to thwart those purposes and where the very forces of history and culture are against us.

      Jacob obeys his parents’ wishes, and also the plan for a special, separate people, when he seeks a wife from the land of Haran. But then the story gets complicated, and it is not an entirely pretty story; but this is where the story will have to unfold, in a setting where women are often treated as property and where people deceive even as they negotiate, a culture of multiple wives and concubines. It will be interesting to see what good can be brought out of such a world as this.

      The development of our drama proceeds mainly, in these chapters, on two matters. The first is Jacob’s confrontation with God (and with himself) in the wrestling with the divine messenger before the reunion with his brother Esau. It is here that Jacob is in some special ways transformed; he loses, and yet he prevails. So it is with every conversion. It is also here that Jacob’s name is changed to Israel, the name that will become historic and to our very day identify his descendants.

      Before going on, let me insert a parenthesis. I’m referring to the strange story of Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38. It’s a soap-opera kind of thing. But it has unique significance to us because the descendant of the unseemly union between Judah and Tamar becomes an ancestor of our Lord (Matthew 1:3).

      But the second major matter for this period is the story of Joseph—and also, of course, of Joseph and his brothers. It would be a fascinating tale even if we saw no eternal significance in it. Here is a boy who is his father’s favorite, and the father unfeelingly flaunts that favoritism. The boy is also extraordinarily talented, and he keeps that no secret either. So we’re not surprised his brothers want to be rid of him.

      Then, a roller coaster of events: quick success, victimization, imprisonment, faithfulness in a hard place, years of waiting, then—suddenly, it seems—he is dramatically elevated to the second place in the land. In the process, of course, Joseph is the administrative savior of the Egyptian people in a time of famine and the preserver of his own family as well.

      How does Joseph fit into our continuing drama? First, in this (as he himself declares) he was God’s instrument to keep his family alive: “God sent me before you to preserve life” (Genesis 45:5). This is the first instance of God’s intervening on behalf of the family of Israel. The Jewish feast days of Passover and Purim celebrate the continuing story of preservation—and many would say that it has continued through the holocaust of the twentieth century.

      Joseph also has a special role as the father of Ephraim and Manasseh. These two sons are “adopted” into Jacob’s family, and Ephraim becomes the symbol of the ten northern tribes so that the prophets often refer to those tribes simply as Ephraim.

      Seeing Life Through Scripture

      How does God work in our lives? To what degree is God involved in either personal or national history? The Hebrew Scriptures would not hesitate in answering that question. Indeed, for the Scriptures, it is not a question. God’s involvement in history is taken for granted. The only question is the manner by which God chooses to work.

      For Jacob, there is a personal confrontation at the ford Jabbok of the River Jordan. With all of his sense of abiding values, Jacob is nevertheless a man who needs to be brought up short by God. Earlier he experienced God at Bethel in an act of great mercy. Now he meets God as an enemy with whom he must contend. He leaves the scene limping but transformed. Many of us see Jacob in this story as our spiritual kin.

      And then there is Joseph. We like to see his story as an instance of virtue rewarded, but the biblical writer is more impressed with the fact that God was with him (Genesis 39:2, 21, 23; 41:52). The achievements are a result of God’s blessing, not of Joseph’s considerable talents. And providence is at work. Joseph has a remarkable way of being in the right place at the right time. His is a guided life, often without his really knowing it.

      The Sum of It All

      “God sent me [Joseph] before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God” (Genesis 45:7-8).

      When you see Jacob and his family setting out for Egypt, you are also laying the foundation for the book of Exodus. This move to Egypt is seen as a step in the making of “a great nation,” and Jacob is assured that his family will return in time (46:4).

      But the seeds of eventual trouble are already present. This family of seventy will become to the Egyptians a threatening nation; they follow an occupation that the Egyptians despise (46:34); and because of Joseph they are given “the best part of the land” (47:11), which in time will anger the native peoples.

      Joseph’s policies in 47:13-26 do not appeal to me, since they reduce the people to slavery, completely controlled by Pharaoh, but I am imposing the standards of another time; to the people of Joseph’s day, he was a savior from starvation. And, of course, the tax he imposed—20 percent—would seem hospitable today, especially since it really was nothing other than rent on the land.

      The blessing of Joseph’s sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, brings them officially into Jacob’s family. But they come not as Jacob’s grandsons but as his sons, so that they will be listed among the tribes of Israel and Joseph’s name will be removed (Numbers 1:10, 32-35). Ephraim is preferred over Manasseh, following a consistent pattern in which the younger is chosen over the older (for example, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau).

      PRAYER: Lord, may I have faith to see you at work in all of life. Amen.