Day 42 – Joseph & his Revelation

• Today’s wonderful passages are, for me, the highlight in the already marvellous story of Joseph, and are worth savouring. Did you enjoy reading them?
• We open Genesis 44 with the eleven brothers preparing the goods that Joseph had given them. What did Joseph command his servants to do to Benjamin’s bag? Why? How did the brother’s respond when it was found that the silver cup was in Benjamin’s bag?
• As the brothers once again returned back to Joseph’s house, who stepped up to speak to beg for Joseph’s forgiveness? You may remember Judah from previous readings, and up to now he’s not been shown in a good light. In Genesis 38 (which we skipped in our reading plan), Judah showed poor choices in his sexual conduct. You might recall Genesis 37:26, which is the moment when Judah encouraged his brothers to sell Joseph. He’s changed quite a bit since then, hasn’t he? What does this tell you about God’s capacity to forgive?
• In Judah’s long speech to Joseph (in the second half of chapter 44), he refers to his father. In the notes yesterday we thought about how difficult it must have been for the brothers to live with their parents whilst still keeping up the pretence that Jacob was dead. How do Judah’s comments show you their care for their father at this point?
• What does Judah offer towards the end of chapter 44?
• Joseph, in chapter 45, cannot bear to test his brothers any more, and emotionally tells them who he is. Imagine you were one of the brothers hearing this news. What might you have felt? What questions and thoughts must be going round in your mind?
• Does Joseph show any sort of anger towards his brothers, or vice-versa? Does this surprise you? How does Genesis 45:5 show that Joseph had a remarkable understanding of God’s upper story plan, and astonishing forgiveness towards Judah and the others?
• How does the elderly Jacob respond to the news? How do you think he felt?

Today’s passage in Acts shows an early Christian called Stephen speaking to the Jewish leaders about how the Old Testament pointed to a coming Messiah, and how Jesus was the fulfilment of the promise. We read some verses from the same chapter on day 18. At the time, I suggested you might want to read on and look at the whole of chapter 7, and I’d encourage that again if you didn’t. You’ll get a glimpse of some of the wonderful stories we’ll be looking at during the next few months.

There are plenty of connections to Jesus in today’s verses. The most striking one, I think, comes in Genesis 44, as Judah talks of “baring the blame before my father” if Benjamin didn’t return with them. Instead, he offers himself so that the innocent one, Benjamin, could go free (don’t forget, Benjamin wasn’t with the brothers when they sold Joseph back in Genesis 37).

This offer of substitution – the life of one to rescue another – should be pointing you directly and unequivocally towards the greater substitution Jesus made as he pledged his own life to save ours. Jesus, too, “bore the blame before his Father”, to let us “go back”; not to Canaan, of course, but to a restored relationship with our Heavenly Father.

And just to finish, a fun extra titbit of information. In one of the Bible’s many delicious reminders of God’s complete control, it was actually from Judah’s tribe (his future family) that Jesus would eventually be born. Matthew 1 tell us this. God’s amazing, isn’t He?