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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND CONTRIBUTING RESOURCES
Author: Teresa Seputis ts@godspeak.net http://www.godspeak.net
Editor: Elvi Glass

A Prophet's Eye-View Of Bible History"

Lesson 12
The Restart (part 5 of 5)
Joseph

By Teresa Seputis

This period of history covers the lives of Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. We already covered the first four (Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) in previous lessons. This lesson will look at Joseph's life.

Joseph

Joseph was a very pampered and cocky teenager who had managed to totally alienate his ten older brothers. When he was 17, he brought his father a bad report about his older brothers and got them in trouble with Dad. On top of that, he was clearly his father's favorite and this upset his bothers to the point where they could not speak a kind word to him. His dad made him a very ornamented robe and gave it to him to wear. Each time his brothers saw it, it reminded them that he was the favorite and aggravated them. Then Joseph had a prophetic dream where he claimed that he ended up ruling over all of his brothers -- and he was sure to share it with his brothers. Then he had a second dream where is father, mother and all of his brothers bowed down to him -- even his father rebuked him for sharing that one.

Joseph was God's elect, but God had a lot of fine tuning to do in him. God allowed some of this refinement to come through very difficult circumstances. It started when his father sent him out to check on his brothers, who were grazing the flock a long ways from home. When his brothers saw him coming, they plotted to kill him. Instead they sold him as a slave to a caravan that was passing by. They told his father that he'd been killed by a wild animal.

Joseph was sold in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard. God was with Joseph in slavery and everything that he put his hand to prospered. Portiphar noticed how God prospered Joseph, so he promoted him and put him in charge of his entire household. Joseph was a young and handsome man, and Potiphar's wife took a liking to him. She wanted Joseph to sleep with her, but he had too much integrity to do that. So she plotted and schemed and caught him by his cloak in the house when no one else was in it. She propositioned him, and he refused, leaving his cloak in her clutches and running outside.

The saying "there is no fury like a woman scorned" certainly seemed true in Joseph's case. Potiphar's wife falsely accused him of trying to rape her and as a result Potiphar had him thrown into prison. This brought Joseph to a new low.

Joseph had been cocky and arrogant with his brothers. He was in the wrong for behaving that way -- but he got a much harsher punishment than he deserved -- he did not deserve to be sold into slavery for being cocky. He had contributed, at least a little, towards the situation by alienating his brothers. But when he was thrown into prison, he had not done anything wrong at all -- in fact he was thrown into prison for having integrity and refusing to sleep with his master's wife. So this setback was very difficult for him. Joseph had been falsely accused and he was quite miserable in prison.

God continued to be with him, even in jail. He was soon put in charge of running the day to day affairs of the prison. During this time, two of the Pharaoh's officials offended Pharaoh and were imprisoned. Both had dreams and Joseph accurately interpreted the dreams for both of them. The chief cupbearer dreamed of a vine with three branches and he took the grapes from the branches and squeezed them into a cup and gave it to Pharaoh to drink. Joseph told him that he'd be restored to his office in three days. And he added this charge to it -- when you are restored remember me to Pharaoh because I am innocent of the charges against me. The chief baker's dream indicated that he would be executed in three days.

Three days later, the cupbearer was reinstated and the chief baker was executed, just as Joseph had predicted. But the cupbearer conveniently developed amnesia and forgot all about Joseph. Joseph was stuck in prison for another full two years. That was a very unpleasant time for him, but it was also a time where God refined his character and matured him spiritually.

Then Pharaoh had a dream that no one knew how to interpret. Seven healthy cows were grazing and then seven ugly and giant cows came up beside them and ate them. Then there was a second dream where seven full heads of grain were eaten by seven thin heads of grain. Suddenly the cupbearer remembered how Joseph had interpreted his dream for him, and told Pharaoh about Joseph. Joseph was whisked out of prison, cleaned up and presented to Pharaoh. He interpreted the dreams for Pharaoh -- there would be seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine.

Then Joseph gave Pharaoh some free advice: get a trusted administrator to store up some of the grain during the time of plenty so that they could sell it to the people during the time of famine. Pharaoh thought that was a great idea and decided Joseph was the best man for the job. In an instant Joseph went from being a prisoner and a slave to being the second most powerful man in Egypt. Joseph was thirty when this happened -- a full ten years after he had been sold to Potiphar.

Joseph married and had two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, who would later become fathers of two of the twelve tribes of Israel. Joseph built storehouses and stored up huge quantities of grain during those seven good years. The famine started, and it was incredibly severe. It hit many nations besides Egypt. People from all over the world started coming to Egypt to buy grain.

The famine began to effect Jacob's family, so Jacob sent his ten oldest sons to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph. Joseph had become the governor of Egypt. He had learned to speak perfect Egyptian, he dressed like an Egyptian and he "looked the part." He spoke to his brothers through an interpreter, and they did not recognize him.

Joseph could not resist giving his brothers a hard time. First he accused them of being spies and threw them into jail for three days. (Could he have been trying to give them a taste of what his three years in jail had been like?) Then he told them he'd let all but one of them go, and asked them to return with their youngest brother and then he'd know that they'd told the truth about all being one man's sons, and he would let the other jailed brother go free as well. The boys started bickering, unaware that Joseph could speak Hebrew. Reuben, the only brother who tried to spare Joseph when the others wanted to kill him, told them that God was punishing them for what they'd done to their brother. Joseph was so moved by this that he had to go into another room and cry privately.

So Joseph held Simeon in prison and the others returned home with their grain. When they got home, the found the money they'd paid for the grain in the sacks with the food. They were afraid they'd be accused of stealing the grain. Jacob chose to let Simeon rot in an Egyptian prison instead of risking Benjamin's life by sending him to Egypt. Eventually the food ran out, and he was forced to send the boys back to Egypt for more food -- and they refused to go unless Jacob would send Benjamin with them. He finally agreed, but was not very happy about it.

When they got back, Joseph had Simeon released from prison and returned to them. They were told they would have lunch with Joseph. There they presented gifts to him and bowed down before him -- a fulfillment of his earlier prophetic dream. After lunch, they were sold their grain and began their trip home. But Joseph had his steward plant an expensive silver goblet in Benjamin's sack. He sent police to pursue and arrest them for stealing the cup. When they were back before Joseph, he told them that he would only arrest Benjamin, the one they'd caught with the cup, and others could go free. Then Judah sort of pleaded for his brother, explaining that he was the favorite son and it would probably kill their elderly father if he were arrested. Judah offered to take Benjamin's place in prison or as a slave.

That broke Joseph's heart -- and he could no longer play games with them. He revealed himself to his brothers, and there was a tearful reunion. Joseph forgave his brothers for selling him into slavery, explaining that God had turned it around for good by making him able to save the family from the famine. He also told them that the famine would continue for another 2 years, so he had the whole family relocate to Egypt, where he could provide for them. When his father arrived in Egypt, he rushed to meet him and had a very tearful and happy reunion.

Joseph lived to be 110 years old and he lived long enough to see his great-grandchildren.

We learn a lot of lessons from Joseph's life. One of them is that the prophetic can be a bit tricky. Joseph's prophetic dreams came true, but many years later than he expected and not at all in the way he anticipated. Another lesson we learn is that God will sometimes allow seemingly bad things to happen to us for His plans and purposes. He may allow us to go through several difficult years, but He will eventually turn our circumstances for His glory.


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-- Do not republish without written permission from <copyright@godspeak.org> --

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