Twice Betrayed

      You are from a large family.  You are one of twelve boys.  Your Dad married sisters, some of your brothers, are also your cousins.  It is a dysfunctional family.  Although no one has called your Dad a polygamist, he’s married to a few women, never divorced, and has a few women offered by his wives, on the side.  Your father has a favorite son; it’s no secret.  He doesn’t mind admitting.  His parents had favorites, too; as a child, he could have been accused of being a Mama’s boy.  At seventeen, you suffered from immaturity.  What boy hasn’t?  You love to tattle on your siblings; it got you in trouble, tattling as well as a little bragging.  

     Dad tried to solve the family drama; he once told you to check on your brothers in Shechem and report back to him.  It was like following a rabbit trail to nowhere.  When you arrived in Shechem, a dangerous place for your family thanks to two of your older brothers, a stranger approached to tell you that your brothers had moved on even further down the road.  You wanted to obey your Dad, so you continued until you saw them at a distance.  As you approached them, you had just passed a region full of smelly pits.  You had to watch your step to avoid falling into one.  You remembered an ancient story of how the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah had fled a battle amongst kings in the Valley of Siddim nearby.  Though these kings would have been familiar with the territory, which you were not, even they had fallen into these slimy (bitumen) tar pits.  

     You had much time to think as you journeyed to find your brothers.  These tar pits made you think of an old ancestral story.  Another man from generations past had used this pitch to waterproof a huge boat he built to survive a deluge.  You had heard that God instructed him exactly how to construct this vessel and use bitumen.  How smart he must have been to build this flood-worthy vessel, you mused. There were also cisterns throughout this area intended to hold water, but it was now dry, not much rain had fallen, so most of these crevasse were dry.  Some of them measured 20 to 30 feet deep.  You can remember leaning into such a hole and shouting your name.  The sound echoed off the walls repeating your words three or four times.  

     You knew that your brothers hated you.  Jealousy had proven to be the wedge that grew between you.  When you remembered back on this day, it was such a scary nightmare.  It wasn’t anything like the dream you had shared with your family just a short time ago.  This day marked the ill-fated day your brothers would gang up on you; outnumbering you ten-to-one, and toss you into that cistern.   How you survived the fall without serious injury, no one really knows.  It was creepy and dark, so dark that you couldn’t make out what was moving, brushing up against your leg.  You shuttered just thinking about what poisonous snake could have killed you within moments.  Your face and arms covered with silky hair-like fibers, you wondered about spiders too.  There was no way to climb out.  Your limbs stiffened, you begged your brothers to get you out, but all you could hear was laughter.  Their taunting laughter.  Just five head-lengths above you, they casually were enjoying the lunch you brought them.  Didn’t they care what harm might come upon you?  Not even remotely funny, you felt like cursing them, if it weren’t for total disbelief that they could be so cruel. 

     Panic set in as you heard them discussing your death.  Had you heard correctly?  Would they really take your life?  Thank goodness for one of your older brothers who talked them out of it.  He said your life was worth more alive than dead.  More voices came from above.  They dropped a knotted rope and told you to climb out.  You couldn’t accomplish that fast enough, but when you arrived at the top of the pit, they sold you for 20 silver shekels.  Your life was only worth a slave’s rate to them.   They tied your hands and bound a rope around your waist as you shuffled through the sand dragged by the caravan of men and animals.  It was a long journey, maybe 200 or more miles, about three to four times the distance you had traveled to find your brothers.  As you thought about your brothers, you realized you wouldn’t even cross the street to see them now.  If Dad only knew what they had done, you thought.

     Soon you arrived in an unfamiliar setting.  Green and lush vegetation surrounded you.  The buildings, so different from the regions you’ve traveled before.  It wasn’t long, and you would discover your fate.  You breathed a sigh of relief as you found yourself working for a pretty significant family.  You decided to hold your head up and give this new life the best you had to offer.  You didn’t want to get on the wrong side of anyone again.  How exhausting it had been to travel with the thoughts of how much your brothers hated you.  A bit homesick for Dad, you wondered if you would ever see them again.  If you ever made it back, how could you face the brothers that had betrayed you?

     It wasn’t long, and you began to receive some advanced assignments.  You were even allowed to make some important decisions for this household.  You were recognized and respected for your hard work.  You were pleased that someone recognized the value you had to offer.  You never received this level of respect back home.  You thanked God regularly for making things turn out so well for you.  You missed hearing Hebrew; you longed for more familiar ways of life.  As much as you would have loved to understand the reason why you found yourself in these circumstances, you felt that continuing to wonder may only lead to trouble.  You accepted your situation with an understanding that God knew, and that was enough.  

   

     The owner’s wife had started to notice you.  You weren’t sure you liked the way she looked at you.  She started making unwelcome suggestions.  You tried desperately to ignore her advances.  You even tried to reason with her;  you couldn’t betray the master who had cared so well for you.  You told her so.  It was a horrible situation.  Her infatuation turned to anger, as you refused what she desired.  She had you thrown in prison.  How could she falsely accuse you of a crime you hadn’t committed.  They tried you as an adult; this was not the first time you felt betrayed.  You questioned, what is wrong with people?  With no way to make sense of it, you decided to make the best of a bad situation.  It paid off.  You can thank God for that too. 

     One day while in prison, you heard a couple of cellmates talking about dreams that they each had.  Before you knew it, you were explaining their dreams to them.  It turned out good for one man, but bad for the other.  When the one was released, you asked him to remember you before the household-master.  He forgot, and you stayed in prison for two more years.  Eventually, things got better.  Given a new name, and a prestigious position, you could take no credit for how circumstances had changed in your favor; this was entirely what some might label a “God-thing.”    

     Just as circumstances had revealed favor, you were puzzled by the strange feelings that crept into your heart the day your brother’s arrived back in town.  You had wondered how Dad was doing, was he still alive?  How old would Ben be now?  Your brothers needed what you had to offer, as easy as it was to recognize them, you found it odd that they couldn’t recognize you.  You decided to keep your identity a mystery.  The course of your entire life changed because of them.  How did you feel about what happened to you?  You had missed out on having a ‘normal’ albeit dysfunctional family life, but hadn’t God been good to you?  How would you respond to your brothers?  How eager would you be to introduce them to your family, your wife, and your two sons?  How had this experience shaped you into the person you are today?  Your name is Joseph. 

Behind the Story    

    In the narrative found in Genesis 37, we see that Joseph’s brothers threw him into a waterless pit.  The Hebrew word used to describe this hole in the ground is בּוֹר (bôr): which translates as a cistern.  Often cisterns were bottle-shaped shafts in the ground, narrow at the top and broader at the bottom.  Many remained covered by a stone cap to keep animals or people from falling into them.  The stone cap also would be used to keep the collected water contaminate-free.  At the time Joseph was thrown into the pit, the cistern was dry.  According to www.bible-history.com, a cistern was generally 15 to 20 feet deep, and the opening was only two to three feet in diameter.  The name of the location where Joseph found his brother’s grazing their sheep was called Dothan.  Dothan is translated to mean ‘city of pits,’ so it probably wasn’t difficult for Josephs’ brothers to locate a hole in which to cast him.  Identifying the exact location where this event took place could be highly speculative.  Although difficult to identify the precise pit, Jubb Yussef is commonly referred to as Joseph’s well.  This cistern is approximately 30-foot-deep with a 3-foot diameter opening.  Can you imagine being thrown into a 30-foot-deep hole and landing unscathed? 

     Joseph was sent by Jacob to check on his brother’s welfare because they were believed to be grazing their animals near Shechem.  If you remember from a story found in Genesis 34, Shechem is the location where Dinah, Jacob’s daughter, had been defiled by Haram.  Although Jacob and Haram’s family had made a covenant with one another, Simeon and Levi slaughtered the men of Shechem to avenge their sisters’ shame.  At the time, this caused Jacob great distress over the safety of his family.  Joseph’s brothers already had a track record for shedding blood.    

     From the time of Cain, who murdered his brother under the pretense of jealousy, here are Joseph’s brothers who were willing to do the same.  If Jacob had trained his boys in the ways of the Lord, they would have understood the penalty, blood for blood.  Genesis 9:6 says, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.”  The fact that they were willing to kill for the sake of a little bragging, a little tattling, and a coat of many colors, a symbol of favoritism, shows just how strongly the emotion of jealousy can lead a person down a path of destruction.  

     Reuben, the eldest, was concerned for his brother’s plans to harm Joseph, and he requested that there be ‘no bloodshed’ in Genesis 37:22, but it was his idea to put him into the pit.  We read that Reuben planned to come back and rescue his brother, but upon his return, he learned that his brother was no longer in the pit.  Reuben had already lost favor with his father by laying with his father’s concubine, Bilhah was the Mother of two of Reuben's brothers: Dan and Naphtali.  Bilhah was also the maidservant to Rachael (Josephs’ mother).   Because of his adulterous relationship, Reuben would eventually lose his birthright to Joseph (1 Chronicle 5:1).  It was Joseph, not Reuben who spent the final moments with their father.  

     When Reuben returned to recover his brother, he found him missing.  He tore his clothing and going to his brothers, and he said, “The boy is gone, and I, where shall I go.”   He seemed to be more concerned for his own skin than the skin of his younger brother Joseph.  Reuben even played along with the scheme of his brothers to cover up what they had done.  Later Reuben would discuss the matter of his claim to innocence in front of Joseph, assuming he would need a translator to understand Hebrew.  Joseph did not.  Reuben said, “Did I not tell you not to sin against the boy?  But you did not listen.  So now there comes a reckoning for his blood.”  (Genesis 42:22 ESV)   We learn from the Biblical account that Reuben would have four sons, Hanoch (meaning dedicated), Pallu (meaning distinguished), Hezron (meaning the dart of joy), and Carmi (meaning my vineyard).  As the brothers returned to Egypt a second time, Jospeh made the request that Benjamin his youngest brother would return with them.  Reuben knew their father would not agree.   Reuben offered his father two of his sons to do with as he will if they did not return with Ben.  Might it have been less significant to Reuben that he sacrifice two of his own sons rather than offer his own life?   

     On the other hand, another brother Judah, the fourth son of Leah and Jacob and a full biological brother to Reuben, would negoiate with his nine brothers to spare Joseph life rather than leave him in the pit to die.  We see in Genesis 37:6, he says, “What profit is it if we slay our brother and conceal his blood?”  It was through this prompting that Joseph’s brothers would sell Joseph to the Ishmaelites for 20 pieces of silver rather than kill him.   Twenty shekels of silver would have been the going rate for a slave in the 18^th century according to the code of Hammurabi (source apxaioc.com – Institute of Biblical Archeology).  The proceeds from the sale could feed a small family for several months at that time.  Although Judah had gone along with the scheme to have their father believe that wild anials had devoured Joseph, what separated Judah from his brother Reuben was his willingness to become the substitutional sacrifice for his brother Benjamin.  This was the price he had agreed would be paid if anything prevented Benjamin from returning to their father.  Unlike Reuben who offered two of his four sons.  Jacob agreed to Judah’s terms and allowed Benjamin to accompany his brothers to Egypt during the famine.  It is the substitutionary arrangement of Judah that foreshadows Jesus' substitutionary sacrifice on our behalf. 

Discussion:

1.  This story provides an opportunity to evaluate how one might respond when betrayed by a family member or a close friend.  If you’ve been on the receiving end of betrayal, have you responded like Joseph?

2.  This story provides an opportunity to evaluate our feelings about injustice.  If you, falsely accused of a crime that you did not commit, were incarcerated for it, how would you respond?

3.  Joseph’s brothers lived with the shame and guilt over what they had done to their brother and even mistrusted how he might treat them once their father died.  What effect can a hidden sin have on someone’s life?

4.  Have you experienced a turn of events in your life where someone intended something for harm, but later you could recognize it as something good?  How could you have responded differently in the interim before the good became apparent?

5.  We cannot downplay the fact that Joseph had a near brush with death.  How do you think that experience changed the way he viewed his life?

6.  What is the benefit of forgiveness that Joseph must have experienced?