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Tag: pharaoh

  • A River of Redemption Flowing from Eden – Joseph

    Joseph Unlike Moses

    “Can we find anyone like this, a man who has God’s spirit in him?” … Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I am Pharaoh and no one will be able to raise his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt without your permission.” Pharaoh gave Joseph the name Zaphenath-paneah… – Genesis 41

    None can dispute that Joseph and Moses were both redeemers of the Hebrews, but they were very different men. The Lord called Moses to bring Israel from Egypt, but used Joseph to save both Egypt and Israel. Joseph, or Zaphenath-paneah as he was known in all of Egypt, preceded Moses by some generations. You will encounter two very different men by comparing the beginnings of their contrasting lives.

    Moses

    We read in Number 12: Moses was a very humble man, more so than anyone on the face of the earth. The Lord, speaking to Aaron & Miriam said:

    “Listen to what I say:
    If there is a prophet among you from the Lord,
    I make myself known to him in a vision;
    I speak with him in a dream.
    7 Not so with my servant Moses;
    he is faithful in[a] all my household.
    8 I speak with him directly,
    openly, and not in riddles;
    he sees the form of the Lord.

    What could be more humbling than standing before the form of the Lord, hearing the words of the Almighty directly?

    Moses was born into humble circumstances, raised in knowledge of both power and lowliness and willingly obeyed the Lord’s commands. Though brought up as a prince of Egypt for two decades, his mother sewed humility into Moses’ heart, as his servant nursemaid.

    Because he was a prince, Moses could easily escape to Midian for twenty more years to live a humble life in freedom. His choice to defend Hebrew slaves would have been self-indictment of disobedience to the King’s commands and conviction resulting in his own death. A return to Egypt at age eighty in obedience to the Lord showed only humility in the face of certain powerful opposition from Pharaoh.

    Moses is raised, educated and served by slaves in an Egyptian palace of perhaps the most powerful man on earth in his time. Joseph, by contrast, comes to Egypt by birth, but as a seventeen-year-old slave.

    Joseph

    Unlike Moses, Joseph was by no means a humble young man. He was blessed with good intellect and great favor, but learned humility later in life. He lived in the land of Canaan and tended sheep with his brothers. 

    (Do you recall from our previous post what Pharaoh thought of shepherds?) Joseph would not only enter Egypt as a shepherd, but as a captive slave.

    Genesis 37:

    3 Now Israel [Jacob] loved Joseph more than his other sons because Joseph was a son born to him in his old age, and he made a robe of many colors for him.

    Trouble waiting to happen. This teenager, Joseph, is favorite of his father (his mother, deceased) who makes him look like an administrator over his adult working brothers. Joseph is anything but humble and in fact appears to his brothers to be full of himself, even arrogant.

    5 Then Joseph had a dream. When he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. 6 He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: 7 There we were, binding sheaves of grain in the field. Suddenly my sheaf stood up, and your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf.”

    8 “Are you really going to reign over us?” his brothers asked him. “Are you really going to rule us?” So they hated him even more because of his dream and what he had said.

    We know God’s purpose for Joseph and that the outcome would finally prove Joseph’s dream to be true. In fact, Joseph would become a redeemer of Egypt because of his dreams from the Lord.

    … So Joseph set out after his brothers and found them at Dothan.

    18 They saw him in the distance, and before he had reached them, they plotted to kill him. 19 They said to one another, “Oh, look, here comes that dream expert! 20 So now, come on, let’s kill him and throw him into one of the pits…

    … his brothers pulled Joseph out of the pit and sold him for twenty pieces of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took Joseph to Egypt.

    Joseph, betrayed by his brothers for twenty pieces of silver, becomes a slave in Egypt.

    The Lord was with Joseph

    How can you say that the Lord is with someone betrayed, taken into the hands of God’s enemies and condemned to exile? The evil hand of his own brothers perhaps betrayed him to eventual death. Why does God allow it?

    As Joseph’s story unfolds we learn the answer of the Lord from the very words of Joseph to his brothers.

    Genesis 39:

    2 The Lord was with Joseph, and he became a successful man, serving in the household of his Egyptian master. 3 When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord made everything he did successful, 4 Joseph found favor with his master and became his personal attendant. Potiphar also put him in charge of his household and placed all that he owned under his authority…

    … the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house because of Joseph. The Lord’s blessing was on all that he owned, in his house and in his fields. 6 He left all that he owned under Joseph’s authority…

    But Joseph again suffers unexpected consequence due to false accusation by his master’s wife.  His master then obligingly sends Joseph to prison.

    21 But the Lord was with Joseph and extended kindness to him. He granted him favor with the prison warden. 22 The warden put all the prisoners who were in the prison under Joseph’s authority, and he was responsible for everything that was done there. 23 The warden did not bother with anything under Joseph’s authority, because the Lord was with him, and the Lord made everything that he did successful.

    Although Joseph must remain in Pharaoh’s prison, in fact by the Lord’s purpose he is given authority.

    Dreams and Prophesy

    Prior to this and before betrayal by his own brothers Joseph had had another dream, which turns out to be prophesy.

    Genesis 37: “Look,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun, moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”

    10 He told his father and brothers, and his father rebuked him.

    Now in prison Joseph has another prophetic dream. Remember, he is in charge of and this time no doubt respected by his fellow prisoners.

    Genesis 40:

    5 The king of Egypt’s cupbearer and baker, who were confined in the prison, each had a dream. Both had a dream on the same night, and each dream had its own meaning…

    9 So the chief cupbearer told his dream to Joseph… 16 When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was positive, he said to Joseph, “I also had a dream.

    18 “This is its interpretation,” Joseph replied. “The three baskets are three days. 19 In just three days Pharaoh will lift up your head—from off you—and hang you on a tree.

    And so it happened that not only was the baker hanged, but the cupbearer was released, forgetting about Joseph. 

    Genesis 41:

    At the end of two years Pharaoh had a dream… 9 Then the chief cupbearer said to Pharaoh, “Today I remember my faults… 

    12 Now a young Hebrew, a slave of the captain of the guards, was with us there. We told him our dreams, he interpreted our dreams for us, and each had its own interpretation. 13 It turned out just the way he interpreted them to us: I was restored to my position, and the other man was hanged.”

    14 Then Pharaoh sent for Joseph…

    This brings us to the historical scenario where the Lord shows a coming famine, seven years into the future. The King of Egypt trusts Joseph to help them prepare. The severity of the middle east famine will eventually bring Israel to send his other sons from Canaan to Egypt for grain.

    A Prophet of Two Lands

    The Lord’s purpose in Joseph’s captivity and rise to power in Egypt is to save two lands from famine and prepare Israel for the promised land. As you know, he is brought before Pharaoh and interprets dreams of prophesy.

    15 Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I have had a dream, and no one can interpret it. But I have heard it said about you that you can hear a dream and interpret it.”

    16 “I am not able to,” Joseph answered Pharaoh. “It is God who will give Pharaoh a favorable answer.”

    It is always God who brings true prophesy. The truth of Joseph’s predictions make Pharaoh a believer in the Lord God!

    “Can we find anyone like this, a man who has God’s spirit in him?”

    39 So Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Since God has made all this known to you, there is no one as discerning and wise as you are. 40 You will be over my house, and all my people will obey your commands. Only I, as king, will be greater than you.”

    Contrary to Culture

    “Only I, as king, will be greater than you,” Pharaoh states. He is not a god, but a most-powerful man dependent upon God and his true Prophet. 

    Note that the changes ahead for Egypt will take fourteen years. Israel’s sons will enter the land as immigrants in need, bowing humbly to this leader, second in command to the King.

    So he placed him over all the land of Egypt. 44 Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I am Pharaoh and no one will be able to raise his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt without your permission.”

    45 Pharaoh gave Joseph the name Zaphenath-paneah and gave him a wife, Asenath daughter of Potiphera, priest at On.  And Joseph went throughout the land of Egypt.

    Joseph’s Administration
    46 Joseph was thirty years old when he entered the service of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Joseph left Pharaoh’s presence and traveled throughout the land of Egypt.

    To be continued…

     

  • The Curse of Disease and Death – 3

    The Curse of Disease and Death – 3

    Moses & Joseph, Two Paths to the Palace

    Joseph suffered prior to his blessing more like Job than Moses. He had no choice in his suffering, except his choice of response. Isn’t that how our suffering most impacts others, by our godly response? Blessed be the Lord!

    In part two of this series about our attitude toward disease and death we examined Moses’ story from Exodus. Unlike Job, Moses chose to leave the riches of the palace of Pharaoh where he was raised. Moses could have followed a royal path which may have made him Pharaoh. He chose instead to identify himself with his people and his God.

    You may be familiar with how Moses came to live with the daughter of Pharaoh to be raised as her son.

    Exodus 1:

    15 Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, 16 “When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him…

    22 Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”

    Moses’ birth story begins in Exodus 2 with a baby protected in an ark of wicker retrieved from the bullrushes by none other than Pharaoh’s own daughter. As stated previously. Moses was raised in a palace only to leave at age forty then return again at age eighty to challenge Pharaoh on behalf of the Lord. Moses would live out the remainder of his 120 years in the wilderness.

    A careful reading of Exodus 2 will reveal that the Hebrews were persecuted by the Egyptians because they were afraid of them, for they had been blessed by the Lord. A look back into Genesis will reveal a much different path to Pharaoh’s palace by a man the Lord used to bless the Hebrew nation in Egypt, Joseph.

    Jacob (Israel) From Canaan to Egypt

    Genesis 37:

    Jacob lived in the land of his father’s sojournings, in the land of Canaan…

    .. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was pasturing the flock with his brothers..

    So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan.

    18 They saw him from afar, and before he came near to them they conspired against him to kill him. 19 They said to one another, “Here comes this dreamer. 20 Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits…

    26 Then Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? 27 Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.” And his brothers listened to him. 28 Then Midianite traders passed by. And they drew Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver. They took Joseph to Egypt.

    Joseph Sold

    The whole story contains many more exciting details for the reader (or listener). Most of us first heard of Joseph during our childhood instruction in the Bible. As for Joseph, the hopelessness of the situation would seem to be insurmountable, that is, except that the Lord redeems Joseph for His own purpose.

    Death had seemed certain more than once. Even in survival as a slave, Joseph would suffer injustice yet be redeemed by the Lord.

    Genesis 39:1 Now Joseph had been brought down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, had bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there…

    20 And Joseph’s master took him and put him into the prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined, and he was there in prison.

    Genesis 41:

    After two whole years, Pharaoh dreamed.. seven other cows, ugly and thin.. seven ears of grain.. he sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt and all its wise men. Pharaoh told them his dreams, but there was none who could interpret them to Pharaoh.

    An official who remembered Joseph’s interpretation of a dream now tells Pharaoh of Joseph. The Lord showed Joseph the meaning of Pharaoh’s dream. (You don’t think you could have guessed from visions of cows eating other cows and random pictures of grain, do you?)

    The Lord brings famine to both Canaan, home of Jacob and Joseph’s brothers. Jacob’s son Joseph prepares Egypt for the same seven years of severe famine ahead and manages stored resources for the people to whom he was sold.

    a 2017 famine FYI

    Mandari fishermen on Nile River in South Sudan

    I mentioned in Part 2 the importance of the 4160 mile long (6670 km) Nile River basin to life in Egypt. (The Jordan river valley was also important to Canaan and the small countries bordering the Jordan to a lesser extent.) Both crops and herds of animals must have both the water and the grain which grows in these fertile areas. Yet when drought comes and the rivers dry up many suffer. Many die, both animals and people die due to lack of water and too little food.

    Did you know:

    UN: World facing greatest humanitarian crisis since 1945

    [ctt title=”Millions suffering in famine and war. Many will die in 2017. Why does the world ignore it?” tweet=”https://ctt.ec/dNle1+” coverup=”dNle1″]

    Humanitarian groups fear this could be just the beginning: a lack of water – blamed partially on the El Nino weather phenomenon – has killed off livestock and crops, leaving 6.2 million people in urgent need of help.

    The greater causes of suffering relate to war, civil war, greed, oil, extremism, religious differences which cause one sect (of several) to oppose other sects to the death (so to speak) and in fact starve them out.

    Is genocide of African terror so different in 21st c. S. Sudan, Yemen, Somalia and so many other shoreline divided rich and poor so different from ancient Pharaohs ordering deaths of opponents?

    [ctt title=”http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-39238808” tweet=”Genocide by starvation and war. The terrors of extreme local and religious hatreds.” coverup=”1UNA2″]

    The Lord Prevails

    Returning to Joseph’s story, let us recall how we do not know or understand the ways of the Lord. Not until the end of the story of Job do we learn that the Lord brings Job double blessing. Job didn’t know why he suddenly suffered. We knew from the beginning that satan was behind Job’s suffering.

    Pharaoh caused the great suffering of the Hebrew people in Moses’ time. The Lord brought suffering to Egypt. Pharaoh opposed the Lord; not as a man, but as if a man or a leader could be a god to his own people suffering though plagues and death.

    A Nero, Hitler or Muhammed murdering innocents is no less opposed to the Lord! Even kings of Israel and kings of Judah “did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.”

    Yet Joseph, a slave in Egypt promoted to the palace, becomes a type of redeemer for the people of the lands he loved. Yes, the lands Joseph loved – both Goshen, a state of Egypt where the Lord would multiply the Hebrew people, and a promised land along the Jordan from which he unwillingly emigrated.

    Forgiveness and Redemption

    Joseph’s story reveals first a reunion of forgiveness with his brothers who sold him into captivity.

    But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. – Genesis 50:19-20

    Joseph’s reply to his brothers from his own position and power:  “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God?”[ctt title=” A redeemer does not judge his enemies, but leaves judgment to the Lord.” tweet=”Neither Moses nor Joseph redeemed Israel, but the LORD.” coverup=”367rc”]

    The curse of sin: War, Disease, Famine, Suffering & Death

    From Adam to this very day: many hurt, many suffer, many will die.

    Who is your Redeemer, dear brother, beloved sister – who will redeem you from the enemy of your sin?

    Christ Jesus, He IS! For our Lord shed His Blood of Sacrifice for us while we were yet sinners, enemies of the Lord.

    Like Israel, a man with twelve sons and like a people enslaved by injustice, the Lord has passed over a sinful flesh condemned to die in our sin.

    Christ Jesus IS risen to eternal life and as our Redeemer and Judge the Lord pours over us the Blood of His own righteous and immeasurable outpouring of His own love for our eternal soul.

    Joseph’s brothers eventually bowed down before their brother, humble before the Lord.

    Won’t you bow down before Christ Jesus, loving Lord and Savior of the Hebrews and of the Nations?

     

     

  • Two Sinful Souls = One Imperfect Marriage

    Two Sinful Souls = One Imperfect Marriage

    Genesis 24:16 KJV And the damsel was very fair to look upon, a virgin, neither had any man known her: and she went down to the well, and filled her pitcher, and came up.

    Looking beyond the ‘ideal marriage,’ suppose at the time and place of your marriage it was said:

    I now pronounce you sinners, husband and wife.”

    Of course, that’s not how we do it.  The marriages and customs of the Old Testament are unfamiliar, yet marriages remain flawed by sin since Eden.

    The sin of the husband impacts his wife and the sin of the wife affects her husband. They are one in the sins of both.

    Women of faith of the Bible have, perhaps, received much grace in that we read little of their sins and failings or their infidelities to their husbands. The leadership and responsibility of marriage falls on the husband. The Biblical model of marriage shows obedience of the woman to her father, followed by obedience to her husband after she is given in marriage.

    Think about this; how different this is from our contemporary practice of ‘equalness,’ rather than completeness.

    Job’s wife and Lot’s wife may come to mind along with others, but for the most part the Bible documents many sinful acts of many sinful men of faith.  We must learn and discern (for both husband and wife) from both their faithfulness and their failings.

    The story of the virgin above is of Rebekah. It is not Isaac’s witness here, but a servant of Abraham. Abraham sends out a servant to arrange a marriage for his son. It is a contract (typically) between two fathers – a joining of two families. Abraham has already had the problems of having more than one wife! Without going into God’s purposes through Hagar (apart from his purposes through Sarah), let’s take an earlier look at the husband: Abram.

    The Call of Abram

    Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you…

    4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.

    Abram is not a young man when he began his journey with Sarai to an unknown land at the leading of God.

    5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan…

    7 Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him…

    10 Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land.11 When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance, 12 and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but they will let you live. 13 Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.”

    The beginning of trouble: Abram instructs his wife to lie.

    14 When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. 15 And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. 16 And for her sake he dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.

    17 But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. 18 So Pharaoh called Abram and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? 19 Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for my wife?

    Here is a fair question to the liar, Abram, a guest in his land from the Pharaoh of Egypt.  “Why did you not tell me that she was your wife?” 

    19b Now then, here is your wife; take her, and go.” 20 And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him, and they sent him away with his wife and all that he had.

    God helps to keep their marriage, but Abram is not finished in trying to fulfill God’s promise his way.

    Sarai and Hagar

    Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar.

    Pharaoh had treated Sarai as a betrothed of his household (harem, if you will). Sarai had even been given this young slave girl to serve her. As Sarai was to become the wife of Pharaoh (as he supposed),  she was given honor by her husband to be. But it was not to be; for God warned Pharaoh in a dream that Sarai was already the wife of this sojourner in his land, Abram. Therefore, Pharaoh returns his possession, Sarai his betrothed, to Abram, her rightful husband.

    Along with her, Pharaoh gives back to Abram Sarai AND all her possessions, including Hagar.

    "Sarah Leading Hagar to Abraham" Matthias Stomer - 1637
    “Sarah Leading Hagar to Abraham” Matthias Stomer – 1637

    Problem (for this older couple).

    16:2 And Sarai said to Abram, “Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.

    Is this not reminiscent to Adam listened to his wife, Eve? (Genesis 3:12)

    3 So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife. 4 And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress.

    5 And Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me!” 6 But Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your servant is in your power; do to her as you please.” Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her.

    “But honey, you told me I could.”

    Blame, not responsibility.

    Now Abraham has two wives and one son, Ishmael, the beginning of much more lasting trouble.  Remember this all started with a lie that resulted in the opportunity for Abram to know a second wife.

    Abraham and Sarah and Hagar: it didn’t work.

    The story of their marriage, with Hagar as the lesser wife (concubine, as later they are called) is not the ideal.  His wife, Hagar and his son Ismael were torn from him, a consequence of his own deceptions and manipulation of his wife’s second person interpretation of God’s direct promise to him.

    So Abraham arranges a marriage for Isaac.

     

    Coming soon:

    The story of the competition of children for a mother’s and a father’s affections is topic of another dysfunctional family of faith of the next generation.

    Genesis 25:28 Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.

    Next: We will skip a generation to more and multiplied problems of multiple wives in the marriages of Jacob.

    Marriage: To be continued…

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