Section 2 - Afterwards, Conclusions and Addenda
CHAPTER 1
AFTERWARDS
“So Joseph died, being a hundred and ten years old”, Genesis 50:26.
FOCUS:
The little fields and houses in the Delta of the Nile, nourished and nurtured these people of God, and Joseph, supervised, under God, their nurturing until his death, late in Genesis 50, when he was 110 years old. He was buried in Shechem, in the piece of ground that Jacob had given him, Genesis 50:22-25.
1. THE END OF THE PATRIARCHAL FAMILY
The old family firm was finished now, and the only real estate they possessed was a little plot, in the Promised Land, in Canaan, apart from the field that housed the burial cave. That Patriarchal Sepulchre was the only land stake they owned for the next nearly four centuries, from its purchase. This great formative period of Israel’s history laid the basis for the great national drama, The Great Trek, and is unfolded in Exodus, the next Bible narrative.
The Jewish people have been known as “the people of the air”, for they have no roots and grow, so to speak, “in the air”. There have been times in their lives when they have settled, or been allowed to settle in the Promised Land, but for their own wickedness, they have had the soil taken away, and have been blown in the wind to some other place.
While they were in this host country, Egypt, these bones of Joseph cried out for burial in the earth, and encouraged them to long for the Promised Land as a nation, their first putting down of roots. For now we leave them in Goshen, “only until after the famine”. Their impermanence did change to a more permanent base, but it was always known by those who knew the covenants that Egypt was impermanent, Genesis 15:13. They could have easily worked out how long they had left in Egypt. Even if the cynics might say that Moses wrote this after the Genesis time and could have contrived it all, there is the matter of the oral traditions being passed on, for they had the prophecy of God to Abraham in Genesis 15:13. That is how the Israelites learned of their impermanent stay in Egypt of 400 years.
So this story without end must end.
However it is a never ending story in that God is still looking, among this mute witness of His, to find faithfulness in individuals who will, with the saints, from among the Gentiles, “enter in”. The Jews, at the time of the end, will be given an opportunity to be saved, not only because of their conversion by water and the spirit, John 3:5, (those who are left after the coming final holocaust), when they recognise the Lord Jesus Christ whom they have pierced, but because of God’s love for these faithful patriarchs, to whom He made the Promises.
From their fall is come salvation unto the Gentiles - riches for the Gentiles (Romans 11:11-12). So to us is given an opportunity to share God’s glory in the end as well. That fall (2 Kings 17:17-20, NIV Study Bible), began with God’s gracious and mighty act in redeeming Israel from Egypt, where we now leave them. The violation of their basic covenantal obligations to Him we partake of, with them, as we violate our own, in sin.
The absence, to date, of archaeological evidence for, say, the position of Joseph in Egypt, is not confirmation of Joseph as a figment of someone’s imagination. We will patiently wait for the evidence. Discourses in this century of former centuries BC - of palaces, temple and Israelitish houses in Egypt - do not prove our faith. Archaeology does not prove anything, it embellishes truths.
2. CAPTIVITY
For we know that Joseph was in Egypt, that he was a freed, redeemed slave, that he had belonged to the community of the imprisoned, where his spirit was never chained, where the experience of the moment carried the past and the future, where each day lived, brought resonance and depth, and helped assuage the grip of fear.
Terry Waite described, in an Amnesty International Newsletter, 1997 that suffering in prison (for him - Lebanon) does not necessarily destroy, “as long as each life is lived as Christ asked us to”. We have as yet no experience like Joseph’s imprisonment. He desired nothing, he swallowed his own bitterness, and other people’s misery, as he turned around to see what he could do for them. His life in Egypt has many parallels with the story of Esther; both God given saviours for Israel.
The similarities of people in captivity, with their special life management skills are portrayed for us in Genesis, Exodus and Esther and Daniel and many other Bible sources. There are stories which have remarkable similarities, and some point to the similar stories, as weaknesses in the texts, rather than use of literary styles, such as the Midrash. We need to see differences as paradoxical, not as discrepancies which can undermine our faith. “Same but different” is a useful tool.
The rise of Israel, and then their captors’ efforts to bring about their submission was often thwarted by women (Exodus 1:17 and 2:10). Women do hold up “half the sky”. So it is that ordinary men and women can change the course of history too.
Joseph was an obedient slave, a patient prisoner, a confident prime minister and a saintly believer. He was a grand man, with a vision, always looking forward. It was a bold thing to believe that Egypt would not swallow his people, in its waves upon the nations, but that the independent river would flow eventually to its God appointed home. The slaves would be released, and Joseph, in his death, inspired and encouraged this philosophy. He did not allow anyone to trample on his dreams or his passion about his family and he kept his boldness for God.
There are now, in this text, two long sections as comments on the practice of SLAVERY and POLYGAMY. They are not digressions but are considered to be the two factors that enslaved this family to dysfunction, yet were the very means of establishing a large patriarchal family for the children of Israel, and for their safety from the dangers that pursued them.
And herein lays the paradox to be considered.
3. SLAVERY
In our time, we’ve heard of the work of Nelson Mandella who led by example, when the courage of others failed, who raised hopes when doubts arose, who insisted on being treated with dignity, whose expertise in conciliation overcame division, and eventually brought the ANC to power in South Africa, within forty years of the first demand. Of course there were imperfections, but his efforts brought the blacks from slavery, in that country. He had a vision, like Ghandi had a vision, and Martin Luther had a vision, a burning desire. That’s how it would have been for Joseph with God’s plan to save Israel in Egypt. He had a vision, but his vision was inspired by God, and so bound to succeed.
Slavery has been one of the curses of humanity, and Genesis 9:25, has been used to condone the use of one man for the benefit of another. It is only in our time that the church has ceased from that argument, at the insistence of those unbelievers who were tired of the injustices of those who should have known better. God never meant demeaning roles for some, and empowering roles for others.
The claim that the church has been counterculture, that is, maintaining a critical detachment from a society to better proclaim the gospel, has not always held true. In some regimes it has been too selective, thus promoting the evil. For example, Indonesian church leaders, not numerous, but educated, and with economic clout, are now being criticised, (1998), for collusion with the Soeharto regime, with whom they enjoyed a cosy relationship then, during the 32 years of repression.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of 1998, in South Africa, found the same, where, among other things, the church had provided chaplains for the military, often in uniform, thereby endorsing the military’s harsh attitude on apartheid. Courageous positions were taken, but the commission reports that, contrary to their own deepest principles of belief and Godly traditions, “many faith communities mirrored apartheid society, giving the lie to their profession of loyalty to God” and His service. Those beliefs and Godly traditions are meant to transcend social division.
Kyriarchy was not God’s ideal. But it was often the stance of the church.
Certainly we are redeemed slaves from sin, by the Lord Jesus Christ’s blood, not by the silver and gold of the world, 1 Peter 1:18-19, but to use the analogy, is not to approve of the substance. The NIV Study Bible on 1 Peter 2:18, suggests that the verses on slavery may apply to employees, or household servants. Nowhere does the New Testament condone slavery, only giving rules (like divorce), for the practices of the day. However the New Testament contains the principles that eventually uprooted slavery.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn said, in 1994, on his return to Russia said, “Slave mentality is still among the Russians who have given up in despair”. He felt that their new found freedom left them perplexed and unable to cope. The Russian State had cared for everything and they had never been taught to cope. “The trouble is that evil cuts through the heart of everyone of us, and who of us is willing to cut out a piece of his heart?” Solzhenitsyn praised God for his prison, for it was there that God became real in his life, and on the rotting straw, he felt the first stirrings of goodness, which he had thought he had before. He now knew that he had not cut out a part of his heart, then.
Sometimes God puts us alongside those who suffer as we do, and perhaps it is in slavery, or prison, that one finds those who have also suffered unjustly for His sake. Imprisoned and indigenous missioners, say in China, have often regarded their prison situation as a new mission field, to the despair of the authorities who mean it as a punishment.
Solzhenitsyn did not feel that he was “on hold” from God, for like Joseph, in his long years in prison, he felt God was there with him. So “bless you my prison”, he said, about his prison, described in “The Gulag Archipelago”.
It is the same for the person who left the prayer beside the dead child in Ravensbruck, “Remember, Oh Lord, the fruits we have brought, thanks to our suffering, caused by those of ill will”.
Gandhi felt that prayer was not so much an “asking of God”, but a “longing for the Father”, and so it is in intense times of stress, enough to say, “God be with me”. And for Joseph he was, in the slavery and in the prison.
It is evil that makes us want power over other people. There is no power in slavery or prison for one is at the mercy of the outside others, who desire the power.
It is interesting that in the racial unrest in America the black people are blaming the Jews, (and are being called anti Semitic), who’s wealth enabled them to be the slave owners, transporting the blacks from Africa to become the slaves in the American South. Also, they were the owners of the crowded tenements of the American cities to which they migrated when they obtained their freedom. Whether this is true, or a widely inaccurate claim, it indicates that minority groups are not necessarily united in purpose, and legitimate claims can be made for the Jews’ oppression of others, especially in overtaking their own land, where God has yet to give the inheritance.
4. POLYGAMY
Polygamy in many instances was degraded into slavery but, even in its very highest form, caused dissension and jealousy and disproportionate love in families where the neglect of those deprived, found it hard to forgive the injustices.
Alfred Tennyson, mourns the loss of love,
“And he that shuts Love out, in turn shall be
Shut out from Love, and on her threshold lie,
Howling in outer darkness. Not for this
Was common clay ta’en from the common earth
Moulded by God, and temper’d with the tears
Of angels to the perfect shape of man”.
The “perfect shape of man” includes woman moulded from his side, so the fault lies in the breaking of that mould and the unevenness of the love.
Even handedness is impossible, where God’s Genesis law of two becoming one flesh, is abandoned. Three, four, or more, cannot become one flesh.
God’s ideal is seen in the provision for the High Priest to marry only one wife, a virgin (Leviticus 21:13-14). So the man and the woman, both in the image of God, become united, and mirror Christ and his church. The provision in the law for a king (Deuteronomy 17:17) spoke of the foolishness of taking many wives. Nehemiah 13:26 speaks of the foolishness of King Solomon over his many wives. The story is detailed for us in 1 Kings 11. Polygamy among other things crippled Solomon’s steps as it did Abraham and Jacob. Abraham had to send away his concubines and their children to save the dissension in his household. Slowly the ideal of Genesis was broken down, due to circumstances, and things were tolerated that were at first rejected. And God himself had to accommodated Himself to this degeneration.
In Leviticus 18:18 there is a law that forbade the bigamy of jointly living sisters (as Leah and Rachel were). Not only did these marriages become polygamous, within the faith, but later there were marriages with proselytes. Then eventually there were foreign marriages, the ill advised “strange wives”, of Ezra and Nehemiah, where mothers spoke their own tongue to their children, Nehemiah 13:24. The Hebrew cultural heritage was in danger of being obscured by these practices, and certainly the worship of YHWH. It is obvious that men “drank” from the many “cisterns” that they collected. There was no law against multiplying wives, so there was no sin, but the consequences followed, and they paid a penalty. It all degenerated into the demeaning of women, but even in the beginning of patriarchal life, Lot had offered his daughters for prostitution, Genesis 19.8. The terrible story of the putting away of the strange wives in Ezra 10, must have been a great time of stress for those women and children, and not their crime.
Love is a generous, expanding, limitless thing, not jealous. But if it is love, that is expressed sexually, that is best nurtured “as one”. Then between them, they are partners, not only sexual, but spiritual as well, complementary to one another. They then cannot be divided by another, (mistress, concubine, second wife), not only for joys and sorrows, but for stimulation in thoughts and aspirations, and endeavours for a better world. Equal in civil and religious life and relationship to God, (be it, that one is the “head”), the two lives can be united towards the Kingdom.
Polygamy, or multiple wives, divides all that. Complementing one another, they cannot be.
A comment in the Logos magazine, February 1993, urges us not to go beyond God’s evident teaching, on one man and one woman, and explains away Robert Roberts’ accepting point of view, on the matter of polygamy, that “the ancients lived under a different order of things”, as a comment on the patriarchal epoch, which did not function, “as it was in the beginning”, and was changed again at the advent of Christ. This is again, reason, not excuse.
Susan Dowell’s research piece about the effects of the devaluing of women in the time since the death of Christ - “They Two Shall Be One - Monogamy in History and Religion”, is worthwhile in understanding the reasons for mankind’s reversal to the old way once more.
Australians, after the prevailing climate of conservatism, are now building fragmenting households and blending families as part of the millennium madness that seems to typify our Australian unstable family life, says the sociologist and commentator Hugh Mackay. Australians seem to be in a “more regulatory mood, apparently, about violence, than about sexual experimentation and family instability”. What a pity - we would condemn both as being socially harmful. May we keep our worshipping monogamous families more stable.
There are some clues about why polygamy developed as an acceptable family structure. In times of post war trauma, when men are scarce and/or nations need to be built up, it is logical, and some would say reasonable, to build a population with the practice of polygamy, whatever we think morally. Then people might equivocatingly excuse it.
Over 100 years ago, a little group of Australians were looking for Utopia. The failed shearers’ strike of 1891 led 600 disappointed people to travel to Paraguay with a renewed hope.
Paraguay, after 20 years of the “War of the Triple Alliance” in which 80 per cent of the men had been slain, needed workers and potential fathers and welcomed the new immigrants, granting them land. Well known Christadelphian Maud Pogson travelled, as a two year old, on the ship “Royal Tar” with an older relative, Dan Pogson (see October 1995 Shield Magazine, page 6). Mary Gilmore and Henry Lawson, from the Australian literary scene, were also prominent Australian participants in the scheme.
There were only 14,000 old and mutilated, and young Paraguayan boy children left in the country, so the 150,000 women had to resign themselves to almost two generations of polygamous society. Polygamy became culturally acceptable there as a necessity for repopulation.
Alas, the idea of adding fresh blood to the Paraguay nation failed because the Australian men, most of them single, had signed the “colour line” and would not inter marry. Australia itself had a “White Australia Policy”, and so the Australians were used to colour bars. They mostly returned to Australia, including Maud Pogson, who told the colourful tale. So the Paraguay nation was disappointed at the outcome of this venture. There is still a small Australian contingent in that country.
It is interesting to note, that there is no record of Joseph marrying any other wife, or of his having any other children. He did not pretend to be any better or wiser than his father, but he would have known the difficulties of polygamous marriages.
Although the practice of polygamy was underway by now, Goshen provided a secure healthy atmosphere which built a nation to God’s satisfaction from one large family for 64 years after Joseph’s death until Moses was born. (That is less than the time it took to build a nation in the Paraguayan story). 600,000 men beside women and children left Egypt under Moses, when Moses was 80 years old.
We need to remember that there are other ways to build up a nation and make it secure. Man’s imagination is limited, God’s is not.
5. EGYPT, THE HOST OF GOD’S PEOPLE - WHERE WE LEAVE THEM - AND NOW
Apart from Babylon, which emerged as a force much later, Egypt was the brightest and best at that time. They had an enviable education system, military might and limitless wealth. Accompanying it all, of course, (after Joseph), was a rotten and corrupt society, worse than any on the face of the earth at that time. And that was the Egypt which was host country to the Israelites.
Egyptians were well schooled in arithmetic, using decimal scales of notations, geometry, and trigonometry, being great land measurers. Astronomy and archaeology were also studied in Egypt. They had a proficiency in medical science, dentistry, anatomy, chemistry, metallurgy - gold, copper, iron and bronze were all used. Music, with many instruments soothed their souls. Moses was well educated according to high Egyptian standards of education.
Two millennia ago (almost) Egypt supported a university at Clonmacnoise in Ireland. The University of Alexandria in Egypt, over 5 extraordinary centuries, supported Ireland’s scholastic fame. Seamus Heaney (the Nobel literature prize winner for 1995) being Irish himself, wrote an article about Clonmacnoise. It had 6 to 7 thousand students at a time. Irish schools were endowed by the rich, and were free to all.
When the Vikings, with the great movements of people, brought the dark ages to Europe, this university flourished. Knowledge elsewhere was restricted, and people fell into the long winter night of darkness. In AD 548 many of the tutors of Clonmacnoise had their education in Alexandria in Egypt.
In 300 AD, the great library in Alexandria was burnt down, by the Barbarians. It held the greatest collection of scrolls “worldwide”, for since the third century BC, the Greek ruler, Ptolemy, had helped build up the Egyptian collection by assembling as many scrolls as he could, or copying borrowed scrolls. Today, Australians are contributing towards restocking and rebuilding a new crescent shaped library, to replace that library, to be opened in the year 2,000. But, it can never be the same without those precious historical scroll records. Also in Alexandria, in about 200 BC, nobody is exactly sure, the Hebrews, commissioned by the Ptolemies, translated their Scriptures, beginning with the first five books, (of our Bible), into the Greek of the Septuagint.
God used this renowned education system for His own ends - beginning with His servant Joseph, and the settling of His people in Egypt. Joseph used the system, and refined it, and although he remained a Hebrew, he never abandoned, or neglected the service of Pharaoh, and thus supported the cause of the great Egyptian empire at the time. Joseph believed that the more conscientious he was to his duties, the more blessed his family would be, and that his diligence would enable God, eventually, to bring to pass the great dreams and promises that He had given to his people.
Later another Godly servant, Moses, was born in Egypt, and he lived and was educated in the royal palace. In time, the promises of restitution to the Promised Land came to pass, when God helped Moses to lead His great and mighty people from Egypt into Canaan, where the bones of their fathers await their inheritance when God wills that it will be so. Egypt’s sphere of influence with the children of Israel has reached a long way down the ages. For the gift of the Septuagint we have the Egyptians to thank for hosting the Hebrew scholars who translated that text, in that Alexandrian library.
However Egypt, fell into decline, when God felt its use as a bread basket, or punishment instrument had passed. Now in our time, with 96% desert, and a population of 67 million people, (85% of that Muslim), Egypt finds it very difficult to survive. In 1989, they
- Received 200 million US dollars in loans,
- Had 2.6 billion dollars debt,
- Received 27,000 tons of white flour as a gift from the Americans.
- 2 million babies were born,
- The budget deficit was 50 billion dollars.
Egypt is not the force it once was, and needs help to survive now.
God promised once to smite and then heal Egypt, Isaiah 19:22, 24, 25, and perhaps it will be a blessing with Israel and Assyria, once more.
6. THE LEGACY OF JOSEPH
Under God’s guiding hand, and with tremendous effort, this spectacular character, Joseph, son of Jacob, had set the stage, for the great and long trek out of Egypt. He did not wish for an Egyptian monument, or pyramid, which would have been considered appropriate for a man of his position. So his death state, and the manner of his burial, in its impermanency, reminded the Israelites of their impermanency, and honoured his God, to the Egyptians. Although dead, his mute witness to the Israelites stood through the testing times, and gave the Israelites courage, until they took him with them under Moses, all those years later, back to Shechem, Joshua 24:32, after the 40 years in the wilderness. We remember that someone had to care for the bones of Joseph, over the years before he was carried to Canaan. They would be mummified, and placed in a light wooden coffin, for portability, and probably stood upright, in the manner of Egyptian burial at the time, maybe in a special tomb, or cave, but probably following the Egyptian custom for people of limited means, in the family home. It would be no mean guardian, but someone very responsible and special, who lovingly cared for these bones. They were a reminder to them that God had a special place for them, and it was not here in Egypt, Genesis 50:24. “God will surely visit you to save you”. His death was not his destruction, for his body cried out to his kinsmen, and the messages of God, were there represented in his mummified form. (Probably the bones of his brothers, went as well, each with the tribe to whom they belonged, back to Canaan), Genesis 50:25. Joseph would have known that there may not be an accommodating Pharaoh, to allow them to take his body home to Canaan, at his death, as he had done with Jacob’s body. He would not have thought that it was an expedient thing for them to ask for, or do, when his prestige had died with him, so his instructions for his bones’ later return, were very explicit.
CONCLUSION:
The oath that Joseph asked of his brothers about his bones, helped the hoped for conclusion, and would have a tendency to turn their thoughts, from the sadness of his death, to their later deliverance, reminding them to keep faithful. Joseph knew that this was a necessary part of their sojourn, and so he devised this remarkable way to ensure this.
CHAPTER 2
CONCLUSIONS - FOR US
“And they embalmed him, and put him in a coffin in Egypt”, Genesis 50:26.
FOCUS:
The Genesis patriarchal story began with a note of hope, and now ends with the death and embalming of Joseph, and so closes the formative period of Israel’s history. This brings to fruition the promises to the fathers and the hopes they had, Genesis 50:26.
1. GENESIS LEADING INTO EXODUS
Now in Exodus the great national drama begins to unfold. The Israeli contemporary novelist, David Grossman has written an introduction on the book of “Exodus”, and this was reviewed by David Malouf, in a Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday Literary Supplement, 20th March, 1999. “Grossman finds layered significance in the text, for it is the history of an emerging consciousness: of the Jewish ‘penchant for the abstract’, the ability to ‘use a dream to rise above real affliction’ but also ‘a taste for wandering tempered by an intense longing for a promised land’- a place in time, in the future, where existence will be merged with identity. One of the questions he asks himself, is whether Jews are a people of place or time, and he finds in this, in their refusal to be defined ‘within borders’ in a world that is ‘all definitions and borders’ the sense of discomfort they cause others, or fierce hostility. In their forty years in the desert they were offered the privilege, as he puts it, of ‘redefining and redeeming themselves’; by accepting chronological time, they created the notion of history, of identity as fate - and saddled the rest of us with the same fearful responsibility. ... The value of his reflections for us is the way they open the text to general questions about the human condition; to what it means to believe your story has significance; to the responsibility of time, identity, history, and obedience to a humanising code; most of all, to accept the difficult privilege of reinventing and redeeming ourselves”.
The lessons from Exodus are the lessons learned in this Genesis story as well, and our fortified spirit remains to redeem ourselves and reinvent ourselves as well.
2. SAVED - AND THEN LOST
Worship and life for the Jewish race were vitally connected to encourage men in their looking forward with hopeful expectation, and to carry out the twin expectation of missioning about God and His name and His purpose. Men could not serve God if their lives were not spent in harmony with Him. Great divine blessings would then flow to them, and all nations would be blessed as the promises foretold. Sadly the lesson was not learned well, and Israel went off to idolatry.
Their time in Egypt, where they eventually became victims, their crucible of Egyptian slavery time, was a lengthy preparation for the “cocoon” stage of the wilderness. Abraham’s and Jacob’s and Joseph’s dreams prefigured the dreams of the nation. Other tribes moved around looking for sustenance, but the children of Israel moved around with a great longing, and still do, with their talent to be sustained by dreams, which has inspired them through the terrible torments that came upon them. This helped to perpetuate their existence, so that today their nation is characterised by a great sense of endurance. They are the stuff that dreams are made of, and the Promised Land is their longing, though they know not the true purpose. Throughout their tenure in the land, when Egypt was far behind them, and they were “hatched” from the wilderness, champions were raised up to rally the scattered forces, but light and darkness had a struggle on the Hebrew nation as a whole, and darkness descended and won out. God’s people were out of line when the plumbline test was applied to them: they were found crooked (Amos 7:7-9). They knew God was angry with them and advised each other not to pray, or use His name, for it was too late (Amos 6:10), and they were scattered. Their return to the land, puzzles the thinkers among them, for some still call it the Promised Land as if it still is not theirs, and that because of that, they are not yet like other nations, who can realise their potential. We know, as well, that it is not theirs to inherit, that it is God’s land, until He gives it to the blessed ones. The nation seems, to them, inevitably tainted by the “curse of the eternal”. It has a hope of growth, without ever reaching a sense of fulfilment, and with no credible sense of identity, and never able to define its borders. It has an inability to grasp the nettle and to become of age. The nation is still vulnerable to tragedy, but the nation covers that with the sense of vitality that few other nations display.
If the patriarchs and the prophets had not been raised up, the world would have been submerged in idolatry and immorality, and evil would have totally polluted the earth. No one would have been left to testify to God. As it turned out, God, with only a Jewish remnant, invited the peoples or gentiles in. “We see clearly that the Hebrew nation was not a development from within, but a seed from heaven, developed and matured by the grace of God”, and the patriarchal family “was not a poetical paradise without a tempter, and without sin; it was a battlefield where good and evil were in perpetual conflict”, from “Heroes of Israel” - William Blaikie, page 25. What a pity that seed never resisted the sin and evil and never took on the great potential, of which it was capable. The “curse of the eternal” is upon them still, and will never leave them, until they know Him. The memory shards remain to chide them, but they do not listen. God’s purpose with that nation remains, and so they are in the crucible still. The seeds of sweet success still now turn to a bitter harvest.
3. TEXTS AND SOURCES
Texts and sources have been discussed several times in this “Kith and Kin” text, but this concluding section may be helpful as well.
In the black tents of Mamre and later in the small white houses of the Delta, it was by word of mouth that these great stories were told, in the effort to conserve the nation. Some were mindful to “note them down”, and so these precious toldoths were kept in safe keeping with the mummified bones. The ancestral guidelines of history saw that the traditions were fixed in the minds of the people long before it was fully written down by the man Moses, through whom the Hebrew history entered into its second great epoch or phase.
It is not inconceivable, that Moses could have also used the library at the trade centre city of Ebla in North Syria, (discovered in 1967), where clay tablets were stored by a wealthy king, in chambers beneath his palace - thousands of great historical records of that area from 3000 BC were kept there.
To some people it is important to consider the texts, and how they were arrived at. In the Pentateuch, it may be interesting to note how much Moses heard and recorded, how much was recorded for him already, and how other parts may have been priestly points of view, which he edited and included, but it is important to view that what is left for us, in the final text, is God’s record for us. God has used multiple sources and writers and editors, to provide us with a complete revelation, and what is necessary for us. Its present unity is built up of inspired parts, by many inspired people.
How they were inspired is unknown to us, and it may be that we believe that the word fell into the minds of the writers to be written down for our learning. However, it is also possible that the inspired word came by the aforementioned methods. It does not really matter. We do know that the collection that is now in our Canon is the result of many tortuous and grand proclamations by many church fathers over the two millenniums. The historical research on these pronouncements, and the process of how we got our Bible, is now readily available, (and discussed earlier in this text).
In our time, we need to distinguish what is permanently valid, and what is time bound, in these theological, moral questions. Ancient Mediterranean and modern Western values are different and we need to understand the differences, for we would not impinge on people some of the rules for first century worship, which are not applicable today, such as the avoidance of gold jewellery, or braided hair.
4. DYSFUNCTION - AND SIN - AND THE WAY OF ESCAPE
Dysfunction seems to be on every side, in this world of ours, as it was in the Genesis story. Humanity does misbehave itself and evil speaks out, even when we don’t intend it. We need to deal with our feelings of conscience over the evil we do, for it cripples us too, as it did Jacob’s family. A seething silence is not creative, but neither are boiling rows. Constructive family management is vital. All families are dysfunctional at one time or another, no family is ideal - we are ambitious for material things, we enjoy gaining something at another’s expense, we are impatient for uncertain issues to be resolved, we like to achieve things by our own efforts. It seems when we know God wants to bless us (as He promised them), we cannot respond adequately to Him (as they could not).
We need to clean up our house, or it will be destroyed. If our house is in danger of destruction, we need to remember that, beside the Tree of Disobedience, the Tree of Life did grow. New life belongs to God. He offers that to us. “My child”, He says, “Begin again”. He really wants a temple from us. We must think about the temple God has asked us to build now.
We need help from one another. Cut asunder we are less effective, but cemented together as worshipping communities we can work together in love for His sake, even if we are both sides right. The conflict of right and right is a tragedy of history. We need to learn to accept each other.
These dysfunctioning families of God were God loved, because they knew of that dysfunction. They were trying to put things aright. They really wanted well function, as we do ourselves. Jacob himself acknowledged the sins, in the blessings on his sons. Jacob being an instrument of Providence, recognised a greater instrument under God, in his son Joseph.
Dysfunctioning families and dysfunctioning worshipping communities are acceptable to God as long as they are working towards well function.
Viewed from our end we may see our deepest trouble as our best experience.
Our corrections are for His sake, and we are saved “for Christ’s sake”, like Lot was saved for Abraham’s sake.
5. SIN
Adversity is no evidence of iniquity, nor prosperity of righteousness, as Job found, and the seeming imbalance of it is, to us, illogical. The imbalance is the effect of sin, which came with the first transgression. Sin spills over into the lives of all of us, and we become anti Christ when we sin. So that’s where we need to begin, that first sin, our first sin.
For sin is its own reward. “God gave them up ... to a reprobate mind ... and uncleanness and vile affections”, Romans 1.
- Before the sin, there was covenant mutuality and solidarity where man and woman lived together in harmony and joint partnership with God, doing His express will.
- That was broken, when together, in their partnership, they rebelled against God, and that harmony, with mutuality and solidarity, all with God, was torn away.
- It will end where God intends it to end, in harmony again, with full restoration of the covenant mutuality and solidarity of man and woman in joint partnership with our Lord Jesus Christ, according to His absolute will, expressed in the beginning.
- He will heal us, then, if we are worthy of His attention.
- If this is indeed His will and purpose for us, surely the role for us now is quite clear. To the best of our endeavour we must emulate that now.
6. THE WAY OF ESCAPE
For,
With his own blood he bought us,
And for our life he died.
So, that, in the end,
The night of weeping,
Will be the morn of song,
When with the vision glorious,
Our longing eyes are blessed,
And with the Christ victorious
We will be at rest.
We need to believe and trust -
Believe in the sun,
Even when it is not shining,
In love, when feeling is not,
In God when He is silent.
We need to believe that justice will role down like a mighty stream, and that righteousness will flow like a mighty river.
With these allusions to Psalm 23 we can pray:
“My Lord, I have no idea of the road ahead, I know not where or when it will end. I hope I am following Your will, but I can only trust that I am. I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You, and I hope that I have that desire in all that I do. I know that if I do this You will shepherd me, and bring me to green pastures, and beside still pools, along the righteous path, though I may not realise it. Therefore I will trust You always to comfort and lead me with Your rod and staff, though I seem lost and in the shadow of death. So I will not fear. Even with my enemies present You may prepare me a meal. There are wonderful blessings, and goodness and mercy, all the days of my life, if only I will use them. There is oil for anointing and an overflowing cup in Your house forever. So Lord, You and I together can help me walk aright”.
I shall not live until I see God, and when I see Him I shall never die. So –
Lord remember me, when you come into your Kingdom, remember me, when you come into your Kingdom.
SOURCES - BOOK FIVE
Section 1: Jacob and Joseph in Egypt.
Chapter 1
1. Ellicott, Charles John - “Commentary”, Cassell and Company, London, 1884.
2. Speaker’s - “Commentary”, Bishops and Clergy of the Anglican Church, John Murray, London, 1887.
Chapter 3
1. Swindoll, Charles - “Joseph”, Word Publishing, Tennessee, USA, 1998, ISBN 0 8499 1342 X.
2. Ellicott, Charles, John - “Commentary”, op cit.
3. Lord Byron, George Gordon - “The Prisoner of Chillon”, 1816.
Chapter 4
1. Mann, Thomas - “Joseph and His Brothers, Joseph the Provider”, Berlin Books, Vienna, 1936, translated from the German by H. T. Lowe-Porter, Sphere Books, London, 1968.
2. Speaker’s - “Commentary”, op cit.
Chapter 6
1. Bruce F. F. - “The Canon of Scripture”, Chapter House, UK, 1988, ISBN 0 948643 05 6.
2. Crane, Frank (compiler and introduction) - “Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs” and “The Lost Books of the Bible”, and “The Forgotten Books of Eden”, World Bible Publishers, USA ,1926, ISBN 0 03385 2.
3. Mann, Thomas - “Joseph and His Brothers, Joseph the Provider”, op cit.
Chapter 7
1. Mann, Thomas - “Joseph and His Brothers, Joseph the Provider”, op cit
2. NIV Study Bible, Scripture taken form the Holy Bible, New International Version, Copyright, 1973, 1978, 1984, International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zonderman Bible Publishers, Michigan, 49506, USA – “Verse Comment”.
3. Henry, Matthew - “Commentary”, William Collins, London, UK, n. d.
4. Companion Bible - “Verse Comment”, Lamp Press, London, UK, n. d.
5. Lawson, George - “The Life of Joseph”, Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh, UK, 1988, ISBN 0 85151 161 9.
Chapter 8
1. Hillman, James - “The Force of Character, A Study on the Meaning of Ageism”, Random House, Sydney, 1999, as yet unpublished.
2. Donne, John - “Death”, seventeenth century English poet, and celebrated preacher, quoted by Swindoll, Charles - “Joseph”, op cit.
3. Ellerton, John - Funeral Hymn, 1826-1893.
Chapter 9
1. Biddulph, Steve - “Raising Boys”, Finch Publishing, Tower Books, Sydney, Australia, 1997, ISBN 0 64631 4181.
2. Bruce, F. F, “I and 2 Corinthians”, Oliphant, London, UK, 1971, 0 551 00600 5.
3. Bible Review Magazine - “Eve”, August 1999, Red Oak, IA, USA, ISSN 877555 6316.
4. Dowrick, Stephanie - “Forgiveness and Other Acts of Love” Penguin, Melbourne, Australia, 1997, ISBN 067087 3608. Quote from poem left at a World War 2 Concentration Camp, permission to quote poem attempted, without success.
5. Whittaker, H. A - “Joseph the Saviour”, Christadelphian Office Publication, Birmingham, 1980.
6. Rabbi Brasch, retired, comment, January 1999.
Section 2: Afterwards
Chapter 1
1. NIV Study Bible - “Verse Comment”, op cit.
2. Waite, Terry - Amnesty International Newsletter, Sydney, Australia, 1997.
3. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, South Africa, 1998.
4. Solzhenitsyn, Alexander - “The Gulag Archipelago”, 1918-1956, comment on his return to Russia, 1994.
5. Tennyson, Alfred - “To - (person unknown)”, English poet, 1809-1892.
6. Logos Magazine, Adelaide, Australia, February, 1993.
7. Dowell, Susan - “They Two Shall Be One - Monogamy in History and Religion”, Collins Religious Division, London, 1990, Copyright, ISBN 0 00 5992115 X.
8. Mackay, Hugh - Comment, June 1996.
9. Shield Magazine, Adelaide, Australia, October 1995.
Chapter 2
1. Malouf, David, reviewer, used with permission, Sydney Morning Herald, 20.3 99, on Grossman, David – “Exodus”, popular contemporary commentator on twelve Bible books, Text Books, distributed by Penguin, Australia, 1998, ISBN 1 87547 82 0.
2. Blaikie, William - “Heroes of Israel”, Thomas Nelson and Sons, London, UK, 1894.
TIME/AGE CHART OF THE PATRIARCHAL FAMILY
This Time/Age chart is compiled from Chronikon Hebraikon, compiled by John Thomas, and Companion Bible. The opinions vary on the actual dates of these histories, and especially the different dynasty Egyptian dates are uncertain. Another helpful source is “Contemporary Age Reference Chart of Early Biblical Characters”, compiled by Dennis Arthur, Brisbane, 1989.
Therefore the use of ages seems a better way to understand the passing of time, though it is not infallible. After all, pinpointing the actual time in history is not as important here, as understanding the relationships between the characters, in this Hebrew family dynasty. We can also find ages confusing, with uncertainty as well, for it is well to note, Sarah's age is the only woman's age mentioned in Scripture.
Abraham, is probably 50 - leaves Ur with Sarah and his family.
Abraham, 75 - and Sarah leave Haran, leaving his father's family there.
Abraham, now 76 - and Sarah sojourn in Egypt for 8 years - first “say you are my sister” incident.
Abraham, 84 - returns from Egypt.
Abraham, 85 - marries Hagar.
Abraham, 86 - Ishmael born.
Abraham, 99 - Sarah 89, their names are changed from Abram and Sarai - covenant of circumcision: Abraham and Ishmael and all born in the house, and all slaves – promised baby for Sarah.
Abraham, 100 - Sarah 90, second “say you are my sister” incident in Gerar.
Abraham, 100 - Sarah 90, Isaac born.
Abraham, 120/30 - Isaac 20/30 (age unclear) near-sacrifice incident.
Abraham, 137 - Sarah 127 dies - Isaac 37.
Abraham, 140 - Isaac 40 marries Rebekah - Abraham takes, or has taken Keturah.
Abraham, 160 - Isaac 60 and Rebekah have twins, Jacob and Esau.
Abraham, 175 - dies - Ishmael 89 - Isaac 75 - Jacob and Esau 15 - Esau sells his birthright to Jacob.
Isaac, in Gerar - the third “say you are my sister” incident.
Isaac, 100, - Esau 40 marries two Hittite women.
Isaac, 123, - Ishmael 137 dies - Jacob and Esau 63.
Isaac, 137 - Jacob and Esau 77, deceitful/blessing incident.
Isaac, 151 - Jacob 91 - Joseph born in Haran to Rachel, Zebulun and Dinah (twins?) to Leah.
Jacob, and Esau 98 - meet when Jacob and family return from Haran.
Jacob, and Esau, 104 - Dinah 14 raped.
Jacob, 108 - Rachel dies - Benjamin born, Reuben forfeits (rightfully) the birthright to Joseph.
Jacob, 109, - Joseph 18, sold into Egypt.
Jacob, 110, - Isaac 170, meet at Hebron (some think this is their first meeting since the deceitful/blessing incident for none in between is recorded - 33 years).
Joseph, 28, - in Egypt interprets the butler's dream.
Isaac, 180, - dies - Jacob 120 - Joseph 29 (in Egypt).
Jacob, 121, - Joseph 30 interprets Pharaoh's dream.
Jacob, 129, Joseph 38 manages the famine food distribution,
Joseph's brothers plead for food.
Jacob, 130, - goes down into Egypt to Joseph with family.
Jacob, 147, - dies after 17 years in Egypt - Joseph 56 - Benjamin 39.
Joseph, 110, - dies in Egypt.
Moses, born 64 years after Joseph's death.
MULTI GENERATIONAL TRANSMISSION
Sarah/Rebekah/Rachel - all childless for many years.
Sarah/Rebekah - both schemed to fulfil God's promise.
Abraham/Isaac - both denied wives in “say you are my sister” incidents.
Isaac/Jacob - both particularly attached to their mothers.
Isaac/Jacob - both went to former family home for marriage.
Abraham/Isaac - both made treaties with Abimilech and Phicol.
Rebekah/Laban - both acted deceitfully - one for, one against Jacob.
Sarah/Rebekah/Tamar - all put in a negative position, where the promised seed line could have been disrupted. The record tells us how the first two were protected by God. Tamar went specifically to seek that seed line.
Jacob/His sons - both used goat skins for deception.
Jacob/Laban - both tried out-performing the other.
Rachel/Leah - both had a compulsion to earn the right to love.
On-going abuse - among siblings on Joseph - by Reuben on the concubine - on Tamar, murder, treachery, physical, emotional and sexual abuse.
So much of the abuse in all of these families was perpetrated by the ungodly motive of power. However, in the end, valleys will be exalted and mountains shall be made low, the crooked places shall be made straight, and the rough places plain, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. May the day that the prophet Isaiah envisaged, soon come.
