Joseph, the son of Jacob, will save his family. Joseph is the beloved son, even the favored son. This causes division in the house among the sons of Jacob. From the outset of this week’s Torah portion, וַיֵּשֶׁב/Vayeshev, “and he settled,” Joseph is arrogant, even naive. He dreams dreams (Gen. 37:19) of his family bowing to him. He is designated by Jacob as the heir apparent by the “robe of many colors” (Gen. 37:3). Finally, the family is shattered by the actions of Jacob’s other sons. 

Jacob sends Joseph out to his brothers who are tending the flocks at Shechem (Gen. 37:13). Joseph, however, begins to wander (Gen. 37:15) in the fields, losing his way. Suddenly “a man” found Joseph wandering and points him in the right direction (Gen. 37:17). The man who found Joseph sends him for where his steps were ordered to go: a pit (Gen. 37:24). 

The family fractured further as the brothers conspire against their Joseph. This decision, while birthed in anger and bitterness, would lead Joseph to the place where those initial dreams of greatness and prominence would be realized; and in their realization, the salvation of his family, and the brothers who rejected him.

Imagine for a moment the heart of Joseph. His brothers conspire against him, first throwing him into a pit, and then selling him into slavery. They bloody his “robe of many colors” with deception, breaking Jacob’s heart, and Joseph goes off into the unknown. 

Over many years Joseph will travel from his prominent position at home in relative safety, into a pit, in order to be raised and sold, carried away into exile, sold again to find himself imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. He would spend twelve years in the darkness of prison, favored though he be, he was still waiting for his purpose in life to begin. 

Then, seemingly in an instant he is raised from the prison to the presence of pharaoh, and just as quickly he is set upon a throne. From this throne Joseph would save his family, and the known world, just as his dreams indicated all those years ago. 

Even while Joseph was being sold, accused, and imprisoned, he kept faith in God. In Genesis 39:9 Joseph says to Potiphar’s wife, “There is no one greater in this house than I, nor has he kept back anything from me but you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” A sin against God? So the Lord was present in Joseph’s heart and mind, even in the midst of his long trial? 

Years later Joseph recognizes that the Lord used the disfunction of the family, his own arrogance, and his brothers rage to ultimately save their family and the known world (Gen. 50:19-20; cf. Ro. 8:28-29). The Lord worked their sin and heartlessness all for their good, and transformed them in the process. 

In his darkest hour, the young, naive and arrogant Joseph seems to realize that he is part of the covenant Lord’s plan, something greater than himself. He saw the end of that plan in the safety of his father’s house, but it took exposure to the crushing harshness of hostility to bring forth the measure of the man who would forgive his brothers, and step into the reality of that dream of salvation. 

Dear reader, at times it can be extraordinarily difficult to see the point, the purpose, or meaning in the Lord’s plan when we are in the thick of the valley overshadowed by death. The Word teaches us from the lives of those faithful saints who came before to remember in the midst of trial, whether it be a moment or a season, that it will all work out for His glory. 

I know. To say there are difficult, hard, trying, exhausting, and depressing seasons seems to somehow belittle that time. Still, I have yet to find a time in those seasons when faithfulness to the Lord in the midst of it was wasted. How does the apostle Paul encourage us? 

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16). 

“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (Gal. 6:9). 

Joseph never gave up, and he never gave up faith. What did Joseph see bowing to him in his dream? “Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf arose and stood upright. And behold, your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf” (Gen. 37:7). What are sheaves but stalks of reaped grain. What did Joseph reap because he never gave up faith? His family, and there they stood gathered together long since the hope of seeing that day had faded, and now they stood in safety once again. This time in Joseph’s house.

We do not know why we are enduring trial while we endure it, but in due season the Lord will reap a mighty harvest because He continued to faithfully tend to the grain of wheat that fell to the ground (Jn. 12:24). 

Maranatha. Shalom.