LESSONS FROM THE LIFE OF JACOB #63 : JOSEPH #2
written by: Pastor Christopher Choo
Lesson 3564
LESSONS FROM THE LIFE OF JACOB #63
JACOB'S FAVOURITE SON: JOSEPH #2
Yesterday I pointed out how Jacob now favored Benjamin over his other sons since he believed the lie of his other sons that Joseph was dead.
It is Jacob at his lowest point of life!
Let us recap Jacob's story. As far as he knows, Joseph is dead. That’s the lie his sons have led him to believe, showing him the blood-stained “coat of many colors” (Gen. 37:31–33).
He mourned Joseph's death and “refused to be comforted” despite the hypocritical
attempts of his sons who knew full well that Joseph was alive somewhere.
When Joseph as the prime minister of Egypt demands that Benjamin be brought to Egypt,
Jacob even manages to disinherit his other sons in one bleak sentence regarding Benjamin: “My son shall not go down with you, for his brother is dead, and he is the only one left. If harm should happen to him on the journey that you are to make, you would bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol” (Gen.42: 38).
What Jacob’s sons felt on hearing that Benjamin was the only son left to him we can only conjecture. It is indicative of the dysfunctional nature of this patriarchal family, and we are tempted to say to poor Jacob: “You have brought all of this upon yourself!”
What lesson can we glean from this messy episode?
Jacob has become spiritually blind and forgotten that God has made a covenant with him (Gen. 31:44).
Dark misfortune can sometimes do this to all of us — make us distort everything and turn everything in upon ourselves. It is the way of self-destruction that leads to such dark places as the closing cry of Psalm 88, which could be rendered, “Darkness is my only friend.
How different are the words of his son Joseph later in the narrative: “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Gen. 50:20). One has reckoned with God and another had not. One has viewed things from a divine perspective and another from a human perspective.
In this, we see the nobility of Joseph's character over Jacob's.
And yet in God's mercy, Jacob and Joseph would reconcile in Egypt - thus giving Jacob a new lease of life and closure before his death.
