Bad Things
Joseph started at the sound of the door bursting open, and the hasty footfalls of some assistant, breathless, rushing in and skidding to a halt announced without words that something important was going on. Smiling reassuringly at the two young boys, his sons, with whom he had been playing on the floor, the pharaoh’s right-hand man excused himself, cleared his throat, and rose. Tugging his tunic, he finally turned, rounded the lounge, and considered the man who had just poured in.
His chest was heaving. Sweat was beading on his forehead and polished head. And his white eunuch’s robe was disheveled enough that Joseph guessed he had run - probably even sprinted - all the way from the grain depot, some three miles away.
The look on his face, though, was what caught Joseph’s attention. In his eyes were a strange combination of excitement and anguish, and as he stood there, it was absolutely clear that he could barely wait to spill whatever news he had brought.
“What is it?” Joseph prompted, cocking his head as he approached the messenger. The man opened his mouth to report, but before he could utter even a sound, Joseph knew.
His brothers had returned.
Of course, the messenger and other attendants knew only that he had instructed them to alert him as soon as this particular party of men from Canaan arrived. The look in this man’s eyes revealed that they had grasped how important - and horrible - this was to him. But they didn’t - they couldn’t - know all of the history that went with it.
Joseph, on the other hand, could never forget. And now, as his eyes met those of the messenger, those memories flooded back along with a tsunami of emotions.
They had all been so angry. And Joseph remembered being startled when nine of the eleven rushed him. The fury in their eyes had seemed supernatural to him, and as they debated what they should do with him - drop him into a cistern, beat him, tear him apart and dispose of the body - he remembered his eyes growing wider and wider. Because as many times as they had teased him as a child, he instinctively knew that this time they weren’t kidding.
Joseph’s heart pounded as his brothers formed a ring around him and began shoving him back and forth between them, all the while herding him toward the cistern where they had left all their stuff, a couple hundred yards away. Taunting him, they sneered, “Dreamer!” and demanded, “Do you really think we would bow down to you?” He tripped, and someone’s foot connected with his ribs. And again.
As Joseph lay there, gasping for breath in the dust, he was suddenly aware of a hand on his shoulder and someone kneeling beside him. He turned his head and squinted into the afternoon sun to recognize his brother Reuben, eldest of the clan of Israel, stooped there, shouting at the others. “Stop!” the man cried desperately. “Let’s not take his life. Don’t shed blood. He is, after all, our brother.”
For a moment, Joseph felt relief as it seemed that the rest of the mob hesitated long enough to listen to the eldest, their default leader. Spitting, Joseph started to raise himself up, but the searing pain of what he figured was at least one broken rib was enough to keep him where he was. And then the others retorted, “Oh, come on, Reuben!” Judah exclaimed. “Haven’t you had enough of this snot-nosed ‘daddy’s favorite son’? And besides, if we let him go now, he’ll just run back to Dad and rat us all out.”
Joseph shook his head in protest and tried to volunteer that no, he would not, if they would just let him live. But there was still not enough wind in him to get it all out, and the pain only made things worse. “I promise, I won’t,” he sputtered.
Reuben looked down on his younger brother, his shadow casting across Joseph’s face, and Joseph saw his face change from concern to resignation, and then to resolve. Then, after a horribly brief moment, Reuben said, “All right. But let’s not kill him. We’ll throw him in that cistern over there. Let him sit in there for awhile.”
And before Joseph knew what was going on, two of them had grabbed his arms, hoisted him up, and were dragging him toward their camp. As reality dawned, Joseph kicked and twisted, hoping to wrench himself free so he could run, but his side simply roared with pain. He didn’t really have the strength to cry out for help, much less put up a real fight.
And then, abruptly, they picked him up, getting his feet under him, and simply hurled him into a pit in the middle of the desert.
Joseph remembered slamming to the floor of the dry cistern, and then against the far wall. The pit was really only eight or ten feet deep and six or so feet across, but as he had fallen into the center of the thing, pain exploding throughout his body, he had known already he would never be able to escape. He had laid there for hours while the muffled sounds of his brothers eating - celebrating, even - drifted down the hole to him. And the sun simply beat down on him.
“Take me to them,” he mumbled without really thinking, and immediately, the messenger nodded. One of the nannies appeared almost instantly, and two other servants hastened from the room as he simply followed the young eunuch from the room, onto the veranda, and toward the main house.
As he went, Joseph caught a glimpse of his brothers’ donkeys tied just inside the front gate. Seeing them, he was reminded of the two weeks he had spent with his hands bound, being pulled behind a caravan of donkeys as the Midianite traders to whom his brothers sold him wound its way to Egypt, where he was sold again to Potiphar.
Joseph shook his head at the bittersweet memories of Potiphar’s house. The man had been captain of pharaoh’s personal guard, and it had only been a couple of months before Potiphar had promoted Joseph. Within two years, he had been made Potiphar’s household manager. There was nothing that his master owned which did not fall under Joseph’s purview. Except one thing, which went without saying: Potiphar’s wife.
Then she started hitting on him.
At first, Joseph was flattered by her kind words. Then one day she brushed against his shoulder, and red flags started to fly. Soon, she was practically throwing herself at him, and while part of Joseph was honored, there was never even the slightest instant when he was tempted. He asked her, time and again, “How could I do such a great evil?” And yet she came, day after day, pleading with Joseph to go to bed with her, until one day, she grabbed him by the waistband, pulled him to herself, and demanded, “Sleep with me!”
Horrified, Joseph and wrenched himself free and rushed out into the courtyard, where he realized that his tunic had been ripped away. Finding himself essentially naked outside, Joseph rushed to his quarters to find clothes. When he returned to the main house to resume his duties, though, Potiphar was waiting.
Joseph had tried to explain, but his master would have nothing to do with it. The guards had already been summoned, and when they arrived, Joseph was hauled down to prison and locked in the deepest, darkest cell in the place. Potiphar had used his extensive influence to ensure that Joseph would never again see the light of day.
He had reached the house now, and as he passed through the back hallway toward the great room where he knew his brothers waited, Joseph found a wave of emotions pouring over him yet again. But it was essential that he retain his composure, and so, before entering the room, he paused to take a deep breath. Closing his eyes, he held the breath for a long moment before releasing it slowly, and when he opened his eyes once more, Joseph forced himself to be calm as the tall, wide double doors were swung open before him.
The great room of Joseph’s house was second in the land of Egypt only to the main hall of pharaoh’s palace. It was open and airy, with plenty of expansive windows opening onto the front courtyard and overlooking the city beyond, truly a spectacular testament to the prestige and power of Joseph’s position as the Egyptian king’s right-hand man. But as the heavy wooden doors closed behind him with a heavy thud, in Joseph’s mind, he was whisked back to a day when a sickeningly similar thud had shut him into a cell that could not have been less like this great space.
It had been weeks since the baker and the cupbearer had been taken from the jail to pharaoh’s birthday celebration. Joseph had calculated it all down to the last minute. The cupbearer would be restored, as God had revealed to Joseph through the man’s dream. A couple of days would pass, and the cupbearer, one of the most trusted officials of pharaoh’s entire kingdom, would have a chance to mention Joseph and recommend him for a job. And any time now, the guards would be coming to release Joseph from his cell and escort him to freedom once again.
But the guards never came. And as Joseph had sat there, finally realizing that the cupbearer had forgotten him, he had seen a procession just beyond the prison wall. A royal procession.
And there, walking beside the pharaoh’s personal litter was the very man Joseph had hoped would be his ticket out of this place.
Before Joseph had even known what he was doing, he was on his feet, racing toward the gate, yelling at the top of his lungs, desperately trying to get the man’s attention. He had heard the guards shouting at him to stop, to be quiet and return to the prison complex. But he raced on until, suddenly, something - or someone, rather - slammed into him from the side. The familiar pain of broken ribs had rushed through him once again, and the guards had bound him and drug him back to the warden’s office.
He would never forget the disappointment in the warden’s eyes. And yet, the manager of the prison was compelled to recognize that such a crazed thing was dramatically out of character for Joseph. The punishment, ultimately, would be a week back in his old cell.
As unforgettable as the disappointment in the warden’s eyes was, Joseph could still feel the thud of that prison door slamming home, shutting him once more in the coldest, darkest cell in the place.
As Joseph slowed to a stop, just above the main entrance of his home, he found himself just two steps above the very men who had started all of this misery. And they all, as one, bowed.
“What were you thinking?” he asked finally, deciding to play the part he had set for himself but really wondering what had been going through their minds that day so many years ago when they had first cast him into that pit. “Didn’t you think I could figure out what you had done?”
Judah, apparently the leader of the group, raised slightly and said, “What can we say? We’re your slaves, all of us.”
Suddenly, at the sound of that word, slaves, the anger simply evaporated from Joseph. He had been a slave. He knew what that was like. And now, as he stared at his brothers, their ill-fitting clothes which seemed to drape over their thin forms, and Judah’s slightly upturned face with his subtly sunken eyes and gaunt cheeks, things started to click.
Blinking to clear his head and keep himself focused on the part, Joseph said, “No, not all of you. Just the one who took my cup. All the rest of you may go.”
Judah looked up, a puzzled expression on his face, and stammered, “Sir, please. You asked us if we have a father or brother, and we told you all about our dad and this brother that you want to keep as a slave. This boy is special to our father. His brother is dead; he’s the only one of his mother’s sons alive, and our father loves him dearly. How can I return to him without the boy? I couldn’t bear to see his grief.”
In Judah’s eyes, Joseph could see very real anguish, and suddenly, he knew that Judah had seen his father’s grief in the past. There was guilt, too. From the knowledge that Judah and his brothers had been the ones that caused the grief. And now there was desperation; Judah wanted nothing to do with bringing such pain to his father again.
Fighting against the tears, Joseph cried, “Everyone, out!” Immediately, the servants vanished from the room, and his brothers, confused, looked about, clearly uncertain whether they should follow suit.
But Joseph stepped down to where Judah was, knelt beside his brother, and placed his hand on Judah’s shoulder. Weeping, he said, “I am Joseph! Is my father still living?”
Judah’s reaction was immediate. He jumped back and sat down unceremoniously on the floor. In fact, all of his brothers recoiled similarly, kicking themselves back in terror.
“Oh, no!” Joseph exclaimed. “Please, come near me. I’m Joseph, your brother, the one you sold into slavery in Egypt.”
They hesitated, so Joseph continued, a wave of peace and joy crashing over him now as everything finally made sense, “No, no. Don’t be worried or angry with yourselves. God sent me ahead of you to preserve life. This famine has five years left. He showed it to me. He sent me ahead of you to establish you as a remnant and keep you alive by a great deliverance.”
The others simply stared at him in disbelief. Indeed, although Joseph certainly wasn’t quite ready to smile and laugh about it just yet, he knew what was going on. “It was not you who sent me here,” he said, “but God.”
Objective: Call believers to recognize that sometimes being loved, called, and faithful means that we’re going to have to endure bad things, but to own that God can and will use those bad things to make a positive impact somewhere, sometime.
- Bad things happen (4).
- Relationships are broken (“come near me;” The first bad thing Joseph acknowledges is the broken relationship. His brothers pulled away from him. They were alienated from one another. The ultimate example of this is our alienation from God by sin.).
- People are betrayed (“the one you sold;” The second bad thing Joseph acknowledges is the betrayal. He was their brother, but they sold him into slavery. He should have been able to trust them, but they violated that trust.).
- We are enslaved (“the one you sold into Egypt;” The third bad thing Joseph acknowledges is that he was enslaved in a foreign land. Bad things have a tendency to do this to us, enslaving us in their circumstances, but probably even more so in their aftermath.).
- God orchestrates bad things (5-8).
- God sends us (“God sent me ahead of you” (5); Sometimes, God commissions us to go through bad things for a purpose which may or may not be clear at the time.).
- God has a purpose (“to preserve life” (5); “to establish you as a remnant... and to keep you alive by a great deliverance” (7); God doesn’t just send us into bad things for kicks. He always, always, always has some objective in mind. And while we may not understand that at the outset, or even in this life, ultimately, He’ll explain it all.).
- God redeems bad things (“He has made me a father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household, and ruler over all the land of Egypt” (8); God will always, always, always bring something good out of bad things that happen. Again, it might not be easy to see right now, but something good will come of it.).
- Conclusion: It Is Well With My Soul http://www.biblestudycharts.com/A_Daily_Hymn.html
Joseph started at the sound of the door bursting open, and the hasty footfalls of some assistant, breathless, rushing in and skidding to a halt announced without words that something important was going on. Smiling reassuringly at the two young boys, his sons, with whom he had been playing on the floor, the pharaoh’s right-hand man excused himself, cleared his throat, and rose. Tugging his tunic, he finally turned, rounded the lounge, and considered the man who had just poured in.
His chest was heaving. Sweat was beading on his forehead and polished head. And his white eunuch’s robe was disheveled enough that Joseph guessed he had run - probably even sprinted - all the way from the grain depot, some three miles away.
The look on his face, though, was what caught Joseph’s attention. In his eyes were a strange combination of excitement and anguish, and as he stood there, it was absolutely clear that he could barely wait to spill whatever news he had brought.
“What is it?” Joseph prompted, cocking his head as he approached the messenger. The man opened his mouth to report, but before he could utter even a sound, Joseph knew.
His brothers had returned.
Of course, the messenger and other attendants knew only that he had instructed them to alert him as soon as this particular party of men from Canaan arrived. The look in this man’s eyes revealed that they had grasped how important - and horrible - this was to him. But they didn’t - they couldn’t - know all of the history that went with it.
Joseph, on the other hand, could never forget. And now, as his eyes met those of the messenger, those memories flooded back along with a tsunami of emotions.
They had all been so angry. And Joseph remembered being startled when nine of the eleven rushed him. The fury in their eyes had seemed supernatural to him, and as they debated what they should do with him - drop him into a cistern, beat him, tear him apart and dispose of the body - he remembered his eyes growing wider and wider. Because as many times as they had teased him as a child, he instinctively knew that this time they weren’t kidding.
Joseph’s heart pounded as his brothers formed a ring around him and began shoving him back and forth between them, all the while herding him toward the cistern where they had left all their stuff, a couple hundred yards away. Taunting him, they sneered, “Dreamer!” and demanded, “Do you really think we would bow down to you?” He tripped, and someone’s foot connected with his ribs. And again.
As Joseph lay there, gasping for breath in the dust, he was suddenly aware of a hand on his shoulder and someone kneeling beside him. He turned his head and squinted into the afternoon sun to recognize his brother Reuben, eldest of the clan of Israel, stooped there, shouting at the others. “Stop!” the man cried desperately. “Let’s not take his life. Don’t shed blood. He is, after all, our brother.”
For a moment, Joseph felt relief as it seemed that the rest of the mob hesitated long enough to listen to the eldest, their default leader. Spitting, Joseph started to raise himself up, but the searing pain of what he figured was at least one broken rib was enough to keep him where he was. And then the others retorted, “Oh, come on, Reuben!” Judah exclaimed. “Haven’t you had enough of this snot-nosed ‘daddy’s favorite son’? And besides, if we let him go now, he’ll just run back to Dad and rat us all out.”
Joseph shook his head in protest and tried to volunteer that no, he would not, if they would just let him live. But there was still not enough wind in him to get it all out, and the pain only made things worse. “I promise, I won’t,” he sputtered.
Reuben looked down on his younger brother, his shadow casting across Joseph’s face, and Joseph saw his face change from concern to resignation, and then to resolve. Then, after a horribly brief moment, Reuben said, “All right. But let’s not kill him. We’ll throw him in that cistern over there. Let him sit in there for awhile.”
And before Joseph knew what was going on, two of them had grabbed his arms, hoisted him up, and were dragging him toward their camp. As reality dawned, Joseph kicked and twisted, hoping to wrench himself free so he could run, but his side simply roared with pain. He didn’t really have the strength to cry out for help, much less put up a real fight.
And then, abruptly, they picked him up, getting his feet under him, and simply hurled him into a pit in the middle of the desert.
Joseph remembered slamming to the floor of the dry cistern, and then against the far wall. The pit was really only eight or ten feet deep and six or so feet across, but as he had fallen into the center of the thing, pain exploding throughout his body, he had known already he would never be able to escape. He had laid there for hours while the muffled sounds of his brothers eating - celebrating, even - drifted down the hole to him. And the sun simply beat down on him.
“Take me to them,” he mumbled without really thinking, and immediately, the messenger nodded. One of the nannies appeared almost instantly, and two other servants hastened from the room as he simply followed the young eunuch from the room, onto the veranda, and toward the main house.
As he went, Joseph caught a glimpse of his brothers’ donkeys tied just inside the front gate. Seeing them, he was reminded of the two weeks he had spent with his hands bound, being pulled behind a caravan of donkeys as the Midianite traders to whom his brothers sold him wound its way to Egypt, where he was sold again to Potiphar.
Joseph shook his head at the bittersweet memories of Potiphar’s house. The man had been captain of pharaoh’s personal guard, and it had only been a couple of months before Potiphar had promoted Joseph. Within two years, he had been made Potiphar’s household manager. There was nothing that his master owned which did not fall under Joseph’s purview. Except one thing, which went without saying: Potiphar’s wife.
Then she started hitting on him.
At first, Joseph was flattered by her kind words. Then one day she brushed against his shoulder, and red flags started to fly. Soon, she was practically throwing herself at him, and while part of Joseph was honored, there was never even the slightest instant when he was tempted. He asked her, time and again, “How could I do such a great evil?” And yet she came, day after day, pleading with Joseph to go to bed with her, until one day, she grabbed him by the waistband, pulled him to herself, and demanded, “Sleep with me!”
Horrified, Joseph and wrenched himself free and rushed out into the courtyard, where he realized that his tunic had been ripped away. Finding himself essentially naked outside, Joseph rushed to his quarters to find clothes. When he returned to the main house to resume his duties, though, Potiphar was waiting.
Joseph had tried to explain, but his master would have nothing to do with it. The guards had already been summoned, and when they arrived, Joseph was hauled down to prison and locked in the deepest, darkest cell in the place. Potiphar had used his extensive influence to ensure that Joseph would never again see the light of day.
He had reached the house now, and as he passed through the back hallway toward the great room where he knew his brothers waited, Joseph found a wave of emotions pouring over him yet again. But it was essential that he retain his composure, and so, before entering the room, he paused to take a deep breath. Closing his eyes, he held the breath for a long moment before releasing it slowly, and when he opened his eyes once more, Joseph forced himself to be calm as the tall, wide double doors were swung open before him.
The great room of Joseph’s house was second in the land of Egypt only to the main hall of pharaoh’s palace. It was open and airy, with plenty of expansive windows opening onto the front courtyard and overlooking the city beyond, truly a spectacular testament to the prestige and power of Joseph’s position as the Egyptian king’s right-hand man. But as the heavy wooden doors closed behind him with a heavy thud, in Joseph’s mind, he was whisked back to a day when a sickeningly similar thud had shut him into a cell that could not have been less like this great space.
It had been weeks since the baker and the cupbearer had been taken from the jail to pharaoh’s birthday celebration. Joseph had calculated it all down to the last minute. The cupbearer would be restored, as God had revealed to Joseph through the man’s dream. A couple of days would pass, and the cupbearer, one of the most trusted officials of pharaoh’s entire kingdom, would have a chance to mention Joseph and recommend him for a job. And any time now, the guards would be coming to release Joseph from his cell and escort him to freedom once again.
But the guards never came. And as Joseph had sat there, finally realizing that the cupbearer had forgotten him, he had seen a procession just beyond the prison wall. A royal procession.
And there, walking beside the pharaoh’s personal litter was the very man Joseph had hoped would be his ticket out of this place.
Before Joseph had even known what he was doing, he was on his feet, racing toward the gate, yelling at the top of his lungs, desperately trying to get the man’s attention. He had heard the guards shouting at him to stop, to be quiet and return to the prison complex. But he raced on until, suddenly, something - or someone, rather - slammed into him from the side. The familiar pain of broken ribs had rushed through him once again, and the guards had bound him and drug him back to the warden’s office.
He would never forget the disappointment in the warden’s eyes. And yet, the manager of the prison was compelled to recognize that such a crazed thing was dramatically out of character for Joseph. The punishment, ultimately, would be a week back in his old cell.
As unforgettable as the disappointment in the warden’s eyes was, Joseph could still feel the thud of that prison door slamming home, shutting him once more in the coldest, darkest cell in the place.
As Joseph slowed to a stop, just above the main entrance of his home, he found himself just two steps above the very men who had started all of this misery. And they all, as one, bowed.
“What were you thinking?” he asked finally, deciding to play the part he had set for himself but really wondering what had been going through their minds that day so many years ago when they had first cast him into that pit. “Didn’t you think I could figure out what you had done?”
Judah, apparently the leader of the group, raised slightly and said, “What can we say? We’re your slaves, all of us.”
Suddenly, at the sound of that word, slaves, the anger simply evaporated from Joseph. He had been a slave. He knew what that was like. And now, as he stared at his brothers, their ill-fitting clothes which seemed to drape over their thin forms, and Judah’s slightly upturned face with his subtly sunken eyes and gaunt cheeks, things started to click.
Blinking to clear his head and keep himself focused on the part, Joseph said, “No, not all of you. Just the one who took my cup. All the rest of you may go.”
Judah looked up, a puzzled expression on his face, and stammered, “Sir, please. You asked us if we have a father or brother, and we told you all about our dad and this brother that you want to keep as a slave. This boy is special to our father. His brother is dead; he’s the only one of his mother’s sons alive, and our father loves him dearly. How can I return to him without the boy? I couldn’t bear to see his grief.”
In Judah’s eyes, Joseph could see very real anguish, and suddenly, he knew that Judah had seen his father’s grief in the past. There was guilt, too. From the knowledge that Judah and his brothers had been the ones that caused the grief. And now there was desperation; Judah wanted nothing to do with bringing such pain to his father again.
Fighting against the tears, Joseph cried, “Everyone, out!” Immediately, the servants vanished from the room, and his brothers, confused, looked about, clearly uncertain whether they should follow suit.
But Joseph stepped down to where Judah was, knelt beside his brother, and placed his hand on Judah’s shoulder. Weeping, he said, “I am Joseph! Is my father still living?”
Judah’s reaction was immediate. He jumped back and sat down unceremoniously on the floor. In fact, all of his brothers recoiled similarly, kicking themselves back in terror.
“Oh, no!” Joseph exclaimed. “Please, come near me. I’m Joseph, your brother, the one you sold into slavery in Egypt.”
They hesitated, so Joseph continued, a wave of peace and joy crashing over him now as everything finally made sense, “No, no. Don’t be worried or angry with yourselves. God sent me ahead of you to preserve life. This famine has five years left. He showed it to me. He sent me ahead of you to establish you as a remnant and keep you alive by a great deliverance.”
The others simply stared at him in disbelief. Indeed, although Joseph certainly wasn’t quite ready to smile and laugh about it just yet, he knew what was going on. “It was not you who sent me here,” he said, “but God.”
Joseph started at the sound of the door bursting open, and the hasty footfalls of some assistant, breathless, rushing in and skidding to a halt announced without words that something important was going on. Smiling reassuringly at the two young boys, his sons, with whom he had been playing on the floor, the pharaoh’s right-hand man excused himself, cleared his throat, and rose. Tugging his tunic, he finally turned, rounded the lounge, and considered the man who had just poured in.
His chest was heaving. Sweat was beading on his forehead and polished head. And his white eunuch’s robe was disheveled enough that Joseph guessed he had run - probably even sprinted - all the way from the grain depot, some three miles away.
The look on his face, though, was what caught Joseph’s attention. In his eyes were a strange combination of excitement and anguish, and as he stood there, it was absolutely clear that he could barely wait to spill whatever news he had brought.
“What is it?” Joseph prompted, cocking his head as he approached the messenger. The man opened his mouth to report, but before he could utter even a sound, Joseph knew.
His brothers had returned.
Of course, the messenger and other attendants knew only that he had instructed them to alert him as soon as this particular party of men from Canaan arrived. The look in this man’s eyes revealed that they had grasped how important - and horrible - this was to him. But they didn’t - they couldn’t - know all of the history that went with it.
Joseph, on the other hand, could never forget. And now, as his eyes met those of the messenger, those memories flooded back along with a tsunami of emotions.
They had all been so angry. And Joseph remembered being startled when nine of the eleven rushed him. The fury in their eyes had seemed supernatural to him, and as they debated what they should do with him - drop him into a cistern, beat him, tear him apart and dispose of the body - he remembered his eyes growing wider and wider. Because as many times as they had teased him as a child, he instinctively knew that this time they weren’t kidding.
Joseph’s heart pounded as his brothers formed a ring around him and began shoving him back and forth between them, all the while herding him toward the cistern where they had left all their stuff, a couple hundred yards away. Taunting him, they sneered, “Dreamer!” and demanded, “Do you really think we would bow down to you?” He tripped, and someone’s foot connected with his ribs. And again.
As Joseph lay there, gasping for breath in the dust, he was suddenly aware of a hand on his shoulder and someone kneeling beside him. He turned his head and squinted into the afternoon sun to recognize his brother Reuben, eldest of the clan of Israel, stooped there, shouting at the others. “Stop!” the man cried desperately. “Let’s not take his life. Don’t shed blood. He is, after all, our brother.”
For a moment, Joseph felt relief as it seemed that the rest of the mob hesitated long enough to listen to the eldest, their default leader. Spitting, Joseph started to raise himself up, but the searing pain of what he figured was at least one broken rib was enough to keep him where he was. And then the others retorted, “Oh, come on, Reuben!” Judah exclaimed. “Haven’t you had enough of this snot-nosed ‘daddy’s favorite son’? And besides, if we let him go now, he’ll just run back to Dad and rat us all out.”
Joseph shook his head in protest and tried to volunteer that no, he would not, if they would just let him live. But there was still not enough wind in him to get it all out, and the pain only made things worse. “I promise, I won’t,” he sputtered.
Reuben looked down on his younger brother, his shadow casting across Joseph’s face, and Joseph saw his face change from concern to resignation, and then to resolve. Then, after a horribly brief moment, Reuben said, “All right. But let’s not kill him. We’ll throw him in that cistern over there. Let him sit in there for awhile.”
And before Joseph knew what was going on, two of them had grabbed his arms, hoisted him up, and were dragging him toward their camp. As reality dawned, Joseph kicked and twisted, hoping to wrench himself free so he could run, but his side simply roared with pain. He didn’t really have the strength to cry out for help, much less put up a real fight.
And then, abruptly, they picked him up, getting his feet under him, and simply hurled him into a pit in the middle of the desert.
Joseph remembered slamming to the floor of the dry cistern, and then against the far wall. The pit was really only eight or ten feet deep and six or so feet across, but as he had fallen into the center of the thing, pain exploding throughout his body, he had known already he would never be able to escape. He had laid there for hours while the muffled sounds of his brothers eating - celebrating, even - drifted down the hole to him. And the sun simply beat down on him.
“Take me to them,” he mumbled without really thinking, and immediately, the messenger nodded. One of the nannies appeared almost instantly, and two other servants hastened from the room as he simply followed the young eunuch from the room, onto the veranda, and toward the main house.
As he went, Joseph caught a glimpse of his brothers’ donkeys tied just inside the front gate. Seeing them, he was reminded of the two weeks he had spent with his hands bound, being pulled behind a caravan of donkeys as the Midianite traders to whom his brothers sold him wound its way to Egypt, where he was sold again to Potiphar.
Joseph shook his head at the bittersweet memories of Potiphar’s house. The man had been captain of pharaoh’s personal guard, and it had only been a couple of months before Potiphar had promoted Joseph. Within two years, he had been made Potiphar’s household manager. There was nothing that his master owned which did not fall under Joseph’s purview. Except one thing, which went without saying: Potiphar’s wife.
Then she started hitting on him.
At first, Joseph was flattered by her kind words. Then one day she brushed against his shoulder, and red flags started to fly. Soon, she was practically throwing herself at him, and while part of Joseph was honored, there was never even the slightest instant when he was tempted. He asked her, time and again, “How could I do such a great evil?” And yet she came, day after day, pleading with Joseph to go to bed with her, until one day, she grabbed him by the waistband, pulled him to herself, and demanded, “Sleep with me!”
Horrified, Joseph and wrenched himself free and rushed out into the courtyard, where he realized that his tunic had been ripped away. Finding himself essentially naked outside, Joseph rushed to his quarters to find clothes. When he returned to the main house to resume his duties, though, Potiphar was waiting.
Joseph had tried to explain, but his master would have nothing to do with it. The guards had already been summoned, and when they arrived, Joseph was hauled down to prison and locked in the deepest, darkest cell in the place. Potiphar had used his extensive influence to ensure that Joseph would never again see the light of day.
He had reached the house now, and as he passed through the back hallway toward the great room where he knew his brothers waited, Joseph found a wave of emotions pouring over him yet again. But it was essential that he retain his composure, and so, before entering the room, he paused to take a deep breath. Closing his eyes, he held the breath for a long moment before releasing it slowly, and when he opened his eyes once more, Joseph forced himself to be calm as the tall, wide double doors were swung open before him.
The great room of Joseph’s house was second in the land of Egypt only to the main hall of pharaoh’s palace. It was open and airy, with plenty of expansive windows opening onto the front courtyard and overlooking the city beyond, truly a spectacular testament to the prestige and power of Joseph’s position as the Egyptian king’s right-hand man. But as the heavy wooden doors closed behind him with a heavy thud, in Joseph’s mind, he was whisked back to a day when a sickeningly similar thud had shut him into a cell that could not have been less like this great space.
It had been weeks since the baker and the cupbearer had been taken from the jail to pharaoh’s birthday celebration. Joseph had calculated it all down to the last minute. The cupbearer would be restored, as God had revealed to Joseph through the man’s dream. A couple of days would pass, and the cupbearer, one of the most trusted officials of pharaoh’s entire kingdom, would have a chance to mention Joseph and recommend him for a job. And any time now, the guards would be coming to release Joseph from his cell and escort him to freedom once again.
But the guards never came. And as Joseph had sat there, finally realizing that the cupbearer had forgotten him, he had seen a procession just beyond the prison wall. A royal procession.
And there, walking beside the pharaoh’s personal litter was the very man Joseph had hoped would be his ticket out of this place.
Before Joseph had even known what he was doing, he was on his feet, racing toward the gate, yelling at the top of his lungs, desperately trying to get the man’s attention. He had heard the guards shouting at him to stop, to be quiet and return to the prison complex. But he raced on until, suddenly, something - or someone, rather - slammed into him from the side. The familiar pain of broken ribs had rushed through him once again, and the guards had bound him and drug him back to the warden’s office.
He would never forget the disappointment in the warden’s eyes. And yet, the manager of the prison was compelled to recognize that such a crazed thing was dramatically out of character for Joseph. The punishment, ultimately, would be a week back in his old cell.
As unforgettable as the disappointment in the warden’s eyes was, Joseph could still feel the thud of that prison door slamming home, shutting him once more in the coldest, darkest cell in the place.
As Joseph slowed to a stop, just above the main entrance of his home, he found himself just two steps above the very men who had started all of this misery. And they all, as one, bowed.
“What were you thinking?” he asked finally, deciding to play the part he had set for himself but really wondering what had been going through their minds that day so many years ago when they had first cast him into that pit. “Didn’t you think I could figure out what you had done?”
Judah, apparently the leader of the group, raised slightly and said, “What can we say? We’re your slaves, all of us.”
Suddenly, at the sound of that word, slaves, the anger simply evaporated from Joseph. He had been a slave. He knew what that was like. And now, as he stared at his brothers, their ill-fitting clothes which seemed to drape over their thin forms, and Judah’s slightly upturned face with his subtly sunken eyes and gaunt cheeks, things started to click.
Blinking to clear his head and keep himself focused on the part, Joseph said, “No, not all of you. Just the one who took my cup. All the rest of you may go.”
Judah looked up, a puzzled expression on his face, and stammered, “Sir, please. You asked us if we have a father or brother, and we told you all about our dad and this brother that you want to keep as a slave. This boy is special to our father. His brother is dead; he’s the only one of his mother’s sons alive, and our father loves him dearly. How can I return to him without the boy? I couldn’t bear to see his grief.”
In Judah’s eyes, Joseph could see very real anguish, and suddenly, he knew that Judah had seen his father’s grief in the past. There was guilt, too. From the knowledge that Judah and his brothers had been the ones that caused the grief. And now there was desperation; Judah wanted nothing to do with bringing such pain to his father again.
Fighting against the tears, Joseph cried, “Everyone, out!” Immediately, the servants vanished from the room, and his brothers, confused, looked about, clearly uncertain whether they should follow suit.
But Joseph stepped down to where Judah was, knelt beside his brother, and placed his hand on Judah’s shoulder. Weeping, he said, “I am Joseph! Is my father still living?”
Judah’s reaction was immediate. He jumped back and sat down unceremoniously on the floor. In fact, all of his brothers recoiled similarly, kicking themselves back in terror.
“Oh, no!” Joseph exclaimed. “Please, come near me. I’m Joseph, your brother, the one you sold into slavery in Egypt.”
They hesitated, so Joseph continued, a wave of peace and joy crashing over him now as everything finally made sense, “No, no. Don’t be worried or angry with yourselves. God sent me ahead of you to preserve life. This famine has five years left. He showed it to me. He sent me ahead of you to establish you as a remnant and keep you alive by a great deliverance.”
The others simply stared at him in disbelief. Indeed, although Joseph certainly wasn’t quite ready to smile and laugh about it just yet, he knew what was going on. “It was not you who sent me here,” he said, “but God.”