Echoes of the Shema and Our Father's Footprints by Inch Morris A.;

Author:Inch, Morris A.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 4085815
Publisher: UPA

All I have needed is indicative of the fact that he was willing to accept much less than desired. If, that is, it served to help him cultivate a prized relationship with the Almighty. Less with God’s blessing was to be desired more than plenty without it.

Joseph again draws our attention, but in greater detail, in this instance as expressive of the Lord’s faithfulness. Now Jacob (Israel) was especially fond of Joseph “because he had been born to him in his old age, and he made a richly ornamented robe for him” (Gen. 37:3). This incited his brothers to hate, and never to speak a kind word to him.

Moreover, he had a dream which he shared with them: “We were binding sheaves of grain out in the filed when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.” “Dreams in the ancient world were thought to offer information from the divine realm and therefore taken very seriously.”22 It would thus appear that Joseph would exceed his brothers in prominence.

“Do you intend to reign over us?” his brothers protested. Whereupon, they hated him all the more.

Then he had another dream, in which the sun, moon, and eleven stars were bowing down before him. This appears to be a reference to his parents and siblings. When he shared this with his brothers and parents, his father rebuked him: “Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?” In the culture, the younger would sometimes prostrate himself before the elder, but not the reverse. Now while his brothers were jealous of the favor shown toward him, his father continued to reflect on the possible meaning of the dream sequence.

Now his brothers had gone to graze their father’s flocks near Shechem. Accordingly, Israel instructed him, “Go and see if all is well with your brothers and with the flocks, and bring word back to me.” He arrived at Shechem only to discover that his brothers had moved the flocks to Dothan. So it was that he followed them, intent on fulfilling his mission.

“Here comes the dreamer!” his brothers exclaimed. “Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.”

When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue Joseph. “Let’s not take his life,” he urged his brothers. “Throw him into this cistern, here in the desert, but don’t lay a hand on him.” He meant in this way to return his younger sibling to their father.

His brothers stripped Joseph of his richly ornamented robe, and threw him into the cistern. As bleak as was the prospect, we are encouraged to think that his hope was in the Lord (cf. Psa. 146:5).

As the brothers sat down to eat their meal, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt.

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