I spent this week with Joseph on his journey and in the pit. I wanted to feel and think what Joseph felt and thought. Listen to
Joseph’s thinking, as he approached his brothers. It has been a long walk from Hebron to Shechem to Dothan. My father wanted me to visit my brothers to check up on them because he does not trust them. I know how this makes my brothers feel, when father shows favoritism to me. I also know how they feel when they see my coat of authority over them. They hate me. Then to make matters worse, God gave me two dreams that my family would bow down to me. This caused my brothers to hate me even more. As I see my brothers speaking on that distant hill in Dothan, I know they are talking about how much they hate me. That is what they always talk about when I am around. But, all I can do is be faithful and obedient to my father, Jacob. This is pleasing to my father and to God. I am on this journey because I want to be obedient. Let’s see what the brothers were thinking and saying as they watched Joseph approach them from a distance. Gen 37:17b-20
So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near Dothan. But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him. “Here comes that dreamer!” they said to each other. “Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.” The plan of the majority of the brothers was cold blooded murder. They would kill Joseph and lie to their father that he had been killed and eaten by a ferocious animal. They wanted to kill Joseph and kill the dreams of Joseph. Gen 37: 21-24
When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. “Let’s not take his life,” he said. “Don’t shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the desert, but don’t lay a hand on him.” Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father. So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe—the richly ornamented robe he was wearing— and they took him and threw him into the cistern. Now the cistern was empty; there was no water in it.
For whatever motive, Reuben did not want to kill Joseph. In fact, he planned to eventually return Joseph to his father, Jacob. Reuben had good intentions toward his brother, in the pit. The problem was that Reuben wanted to rescue Joseph and at the same time please his brothers. So he convinced the brothers to just let Joseph die out in the desert, in a pit, with no water. Then
Reuben would return later and rescue Joseph. Gen 37:25
As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt. With Joseph in the pit, the brothers sat down to eat their meal. In this text, we are not told what was going on with Joseph in the pit, while the brothers were eating. But listen to what the brothers say later in Egypt about Joseph in the pit, in Gen 42:21. - 21They said to one another, “Surely we are being punished because of our brother. We saw how distressed he was when he pleaded with us for his life, but we would not listen; that’s why this distress has come upon us.” Seventeen year old, Joseph, was in the pit listening to his brothers talk about his death while they ate their meal. This was beyond what Joseph could grasp, and from his brothers, of all people. He was terrified and he was begging and pleading with his brothers to spare his life. And his brothers did not even listen to him, but just kept on eating their meal. Bitterness and hatred makes people hard and insensitive. Gen 37:26-28 Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.” His brothers agreed. So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt.
Plan A was to kill Joseph and throw him in the pit.
Plan B was to just throw Joseph in the pit and let him die without water. Reuben had a separate plan to eventually rescue Joseph. Then along came a caravan of merchants. Judah came up with the idea of selling Joseph to this caravan going to Egypt.
Plan C would get rid of Joseph without killing him but killing his dreams, that they would bow down to him. Joseph was sold for 20 shekels of silver, the wholesale price of a slave, to be resold in Egypt for 30 shekels of silver, the retail price. Back to Reuben. Gen 37:29 When Reuben returned to the cistern and saw that Joseph was not there, he tore his clothes. He went back to his brothers and said, “The boy isn’t there! Where can I turn now?”
Reuben had good intentions but no courage. He intended to rescue Joseph, but he did not have the courage to stop the brothers early, in their conspiracy to murder Joseph. So, he tried a half-hearted approach to the rescue that would not upset the brothers, in the short-term. But it left Joseph vulnerable to the whim of the brothers. Where did Reuben turn for a solution to the loss of Joseph? – His brothers. Reuben was faced with another choice. Do I tell on the brothers and myself, or do I go along with the cover-up? They all agreed on the cover-up. Gen 37:30-36. Then they got Joseph’s robe, slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in the blood. They took the ornamented robe back to their father and said, “We found this. Examine it to see whether it is your son’s robe.” He recognized it and said, “It is my son’s robe! Some ferocious animal has devoured him.
Joseph has surely been torn to pieces.” Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and mourned for his son many days. All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. “No,” he said, “in mourning will I go down to the grave to my son.” So his father wept for him. Meanwhile, the Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard.
Jacob had used deception to get his way with his father, Isaac.
Now Jacob’s sons had used deception to cover-up selling their brother into slavery. Generational sin is a powerful thing. We don’t know what the brothers thought and felt about what they had done. There is no record of remorse on the part of the brothers. However, they thought the problem of Joseph was solved. With Joseph a slave in Egypt, there would be no bowing before Joseph, like the dreams foretold. The only real downside was that Jacob was in mourning and would be in mourning for 20 years. Jacob cared about and loved Joseph.
But, who else really cared about Joseph? When Joseph was in the pit he was alone, terrified, and pleading with his brothers for his life. But his brothers did not care about him. People who are victims of others and victims of a sinful world, want to know, who cares about me? We live in a world where it is hard to find people who care. We live in a world where people are willing give money and even time to help people we don’t know. But at the same time, we often ignore people we do know who are in a spiritual or emotional pit and need to be rescued. We can, at times, be like the brothers who are simply calloused to the needs of the people closest to us. The brothers may have helped a friend or neighbor they barely knew, while being hardened to Joseph, their brother, in the pit, while they ate.
We give money and time to send to the Philippines or give to relief work in Haiti and this is a very good thing. But what about those people we know personally, who are living in a spiritual and emotional pit? Do we hear their distress? Do we hear them pleading for life?
We may not be callous and cruel like the brothers. We may be more like Reuben. Reuben had good intentions but did not have the courage to take responsibility and take action to save Joseph.
For those we know living in a spiritual or emotional pit, let us have courage to take responsibility and action to be part of their rescue from sin and despair. There are 3 options.
• We can be callous like the brothers, to those we know and
even love. We can just keep eating while they are dying in a
pit wondering if there is anyone who cares.
• We can be like Reuben with good intentions, but no courage
to take responsibility and action to help others we know get
out of their pit.
• Or, we can care enough for those we know around us to
take the risk of involvement and let down a rope into the pit to pull someone up from sin and despair.
That rope is Jesus. Jesus is the one who can save sinners in despair. We know people who are wondering if anyone cares about them. And, we know Jesus who demonstrated his love for sinners by dying on the cross. We have the responsibility, to care enough to hookup those in a pit of sin and despair … with Jesus.
Jesus is the one who cares. Do you care?
