In this chapter we shall be looking at much the same pattern of events as in the last, but we shall be looking at them from a different viewpoint and with a different purpose. We trace the effect upon the characters of Joseph's brothers in consequence of the wrong they did him, for the process went on and on for years.
It will help briefly to recap the background.
Joseph was Jacob's blue-eyed boy, and when he found the company of his brothers too rough, Jacob took him out of it and started grooming him for management. The ten brothers thought it grossly unfair ... he was only eleventh in line! Joseph's ill report of them to his father, his wretched dreams - and his injudicious telling of them - all combined to generate in them a fierce jealousy and resentment. They could not see him as anything but a pimp and an insufferable prig. So when they had the chance to vent their spleen on him, while he was away from the protection of home and out in the open fields of Dothan, they did so. Their hatred was so intense they really meant to kill him. Only the intervention of Reuben and Judah got him off with his life. Look again at what happened.
i. Reuben
Reuben tried to soften the brothers' revenge, "Let's not take his life," he said. "Don't saddle yourselves with the guilt of Joseph's blood. Fling him in this pit here, in the open country."
His intentions were good enough. He meant to rescue Joseph himself ... later ... and restore the boy to his father. His motives for doing so were probably mixed: he had played about with one of his father's concubines - a gross insult to him. Being the eldest son, he may have felt he was being demoted for what he had done (the old man might even cut him out of his will!), and he would have felt a need to get himself back in favour. At any rate, he knew that what the brothers proposed was wrong. But because he was motivated by self-interest he lacked the courage of his convictions. Not once did Reuben say, "It's wrong." He tried a ruse. He tried to be clever, not clean. He compromised.
"Let's do an evil," he said to himself, "that I can later put right." He tried to steer things instead of opposing them.
When the Ishmaelite caravan turned up and the idea occurred to Judah that they might not only rid themselves of Joseph, but do themselves a bit of good into the bargain, Reuben was not there to stop them, or even protest.
Twenty-three years later, when their past started catching up with them, Reuben is whining, "I told you so. Didn't I tell you not to sin against the lad? But you wouldn't listen." But he never did say that. All Reuben had ever said was, "Don't do him a great evil - only do him a little evil." That is not the same thing at all. But all those years later Reuben still cannot admit his guilt. Conscience has made a coward of him. In his manhood, he is weak still.
We cannot cover up our sins, hiding them from ourself and everybody else, and not suffer the penalty. The penalty is paid, not in something that happens to us when we are at last found out, but in something that happens inside ourself - goes on happening, relentlessly, on and on - a steady degeneration of our character and personality.
When, years later, Benjamin's life was at risk, Reuben wanted to make amends. "Slay my own two sons if I don't bring him back to you. Put him in my hands, and I'll bring him back." He thinks, all those years later, that he can wipe out his past wrongs by doing a new right ... as though the scars of a swordsman's yesterday can be removed by his skill today. What Reuben does not know, but Jacob does, is that his word is no longer to be trusted. Jacob did not know the wrong Reuben had done all those years before; but he knew the kind of man Reuben had become: the man was not to be trusted.
The curse of unconfessed and unforgiven sin was upon him, and he knew it not.
That is the truth about life. Not the lies we believe ... that it was all a long time ago, and we were young then, and it does not matter now, and we have put all that behind us, and we have learned from our failures, and we are a better man for it all. Lies! ... we are not a better man for it. Unforgiven sin eats away like a cancer at the vitals of our soul for years. We think it has done us no harm; but it has. Reuben, like the rest hardened his heart against his father's grief to cover his own guilt, and he grew harder and meaner by the year.
Reuben was ready,
notice, at the end to sacrifice his sons - not himself. That
is the man Reuben had become. "Slay my two sons if I don't bring
Benjamin back," he says to his father.
Judah said, "Of my hand you shall require him if I
don't bring him back."
ii. Judah
Judah does show up in a rather more favourable light than Reuben.
Judah it was who all those years ago suggested that they sell Joseph for money to the Ishmaelite traders. Judah wanted to have his cake and eat it too. Get rid of the lad, and make a buck. Have your revenge, but have someone else do the dirty work. Let the Ishmaelites lose him. It is a philosophy that is with us still: have your fun - any sort of fun - just so you keep out of trouble.
So it is done. Joseph is sold. "It's no more than the insufferable prig deserved. But our hands are clean."
And back they all go to Jacob, and lie: and lie ... and lie ... and lie. For twenty-three years they maintain the deception that Joseph was killed by a wild beast, and to keep the skeleton safe in their private cupboard, they watch old Jacob suffer, year after year after year.
At the end of that time what do we find them saying to the administrator of Pharaoh's Kingdom? ... "We be honest men, my Lord."!
On their second visit to Egypt, when Judah makes an impassioned plea for Benjamin's life, he repeats the same lie they had made Jacob believe all those years: to Joseph he says, "My father said to us, 'You know that my wife bore me two sons; one left me, and I said, Surely he has been torn to pieces; and I have never seen him since.'" Even when his life depended on the truth, he is helpless but to keep up the deception.
Earlier, in ch. 42, we find that Judah, made careless by the success of his deception about Joseph, grew reckless in other ways, sowed his wild oats, and lived to see shame and disgrace brought on his own daughter-in-law by his actions.
Nobody was pulling strings in these men's lives, manipulating them. It is just that God created human life to rest on moral foundations, and nothing can prevent evil and good from having their due rewards. Unconfessed and unforgiven sin puts a curse on life. We may live in defiance of these laws for years. But there is nothing hidden that shall not be revealed. There is no release from the inexorable laws of retribution in this world - no release at all - except the forgiveness of God.
This is the supreme lesson the story carries as it moves to its climax.
In ch. 42 we watch Joseph putting his brothers through the mill. They fail to recognise him, and Joseph takes advantage of their ignorance and his own power to bring their sin to remembrance.
Until their consciences are awakened, until their sin is dragged out into the light of day, until they confess to the wrong they did, it cannot be forgiven, it cannot be cleansed. Before old wounds of guilt can be healed they must be reopened. There is no other way. And this is why God, Who longs to forgive us, makes as though He were stranger to us, brings us to a disturbing conviction of sin, speaks the harsh word of His condemning Law to us, until our consciences are stung back to life and we are made smartingly aware of all there is in us that has offended. Because God will have our relationship with Him founded on truth, He will not spare us this ... He will not.
As we follow the story we see how Joseph does this.
He puts them in the position where they are accused - falsely, but without remedy - of being spies ... just as they themselves had once accused Joseph - falsely, but without remedy - of being sent to spy on them!
"You are spies!' Joseph said to them. That is what they had said to him in Dothan. Joseph puts them most unjustly in the wrong, just as they themselves had once most unjustly put him in the wrong.
Life, under the rule of God, does that sort of thing.
And all the while Joseph's heart was bursting within him for love of these foolish, guilty, hurting, but beloved men.
Do we know that Christ suffers like that for love of us? Brother though He be to us, He may appear strange and rough, may cause us sorrow. He may "bind Simeon before our eyes" so to speak. But all the while He loves us with a love stronger than steel and truer than a plumb line. He puts money in our sacks, spreads food on our tables, arranges for strangers to meet us peaceably, takes a tender interest in those we love, wishes us grace from God, as Joseph did his brethren. He yearns over us with a love He dare not reveal till the work of conviction is complete, and He can at last pour the full tide of His affection upon us, without harm to ourselves or injury to others.
I know God does these things; He has done them with me. Loving us, He drags our sins mercilessly into the light of day, makes us smart under the shame of them till we think His love for us is clean gone for ever ... but all so that He can heal us of them with His full and free forgiveness.
"What shall we say to my Lord?" asks Judah, helpless, at the end. "What shall we speak? Or how can we clear ourselves? God has found out our guilt."
Then Joseph replies, "Come near to me. I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold in Egypt." And he kissed all his brothers, and wept over them, and after that his brothers communed with him.
We think to put away
our sins by covering them up, by 'putting them away' ourselves. But
they are never put away until God covers them. And this He
cannot do until we uncover them before His face, until we say, "What
shall we say to my Lord? How can we clear ourselves? God has found
out our guilt."
"He that covereth his sins shall not prosper ... But whoso confesseth
and forsaketh them shall have mercy." (Proverbs 28:13)
For Christ, like Joseph then says to us, "I am your brother, whom you delivered up to death by your transgressions. But now come near to me." And for us there is the kiss of peace, of peace with God. And after that we commune with him, while he says, "Grieve not for me. For God sent me before you, that in bearing all that I have borne you might be delivered, as at this day."
So the story presents us with a model of the way God restores us to a vital, open, loving relationship with Himself.
But there is a strange and puzzling sequel to the story: Genesis 50:15, "When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, 'It may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil we did to him.' So they sent a message to Joseph: 'Your father gave this command before he died, 'Say to Joseph, Forgive, I pray you, the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.' And now, we pray you, forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father."
Joseph wept when they spoke to him. His brothers also came and fell down before him (as the dream had so long ago foretold), and said, "Behold, we are your servants." But Joseph said to them, "Fear not, for am I in the place of God?"
It is as though the forgiveness and reconciliation that had been achieved all those years before had not really been achieved after all. What has gone wrong?
They have had ample evidence of Joseph's sincerity. They have been welcomed, even feted, by the Pharaoh himself; they have been given the lush pastures of Goshen in which to settle. Pharaoh said to Joseph, "The land of Egypt is before you; settle your father and your brothers in the best of the land; let them dwell in the land of Goshen; and if you know any able men among them, put them in charge of my cattle." (47:6) They have been given homes, provisions and responsible jobs in the Egyptian régime. "Thus Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen; and they gained possessions in it, and were fruitful and multiplied exceedingly. And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years." (47:27)
Seventeen years, no less, in which to be reassured. But the moment old Jacob dies, they hatch yet another lie between them, and go to Joseph with it in a pathetic attempt to ensure their safety. They still believe Joseph capable of revenge. They cannot believe in their forgiveness and reconciliation.
Why? I believe the clue is supplied by Joseph's own reply, "Fear not, for am I in the place of God?" They had received Joseph's forgiveness; they had not received God's. The degeneration in their character we have traced together has not been healed, despite the process through which they have gone with Joseph.
It underlines the point we have been at such pains to make, that until God forgives us, until God puts our sin away, it is not really put away at all. We think that if we put things right with the people we have wronged, that is all that is required. All will then be well. It will not. Things have to be put right between ourselves and God; only then will all be well.
The canker is still eating away at the brothers' characters. They are not healed. Seventeen years in which it seems that all is well with them; but they have not been made whole.
"Am I in the place of God?" asks Joseph. "I can't give you the release only He can give you." Their sins have been dealt with only on the horizontal level, the level of purely human relationships - not at the vertical level, the level of their relationship with God. And the degeneration, the curse of unforgiven sin, eats away at them still.
It is a sobering insight. What canker of unforgiven sin is still eating away at our nature because we have never really settled the issue with God?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|