In this week’s Torah portion of Miketz, “at the end,” Joseph, who has lingered in prison for many years is finally freed and brought before Pharaoh. The Torah notes something so incidental it seems like a trivial detail to include: 

“Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they quickly brought him out of the pit. And when he had shaved himself and changed his clothes, he came in before Pharaoh” (Gen. 41:14). 

Joseph “changed his clothes.” 

When Joseph is first introduced, he is the favored son of the covenant family. The son of Jacob, and heir apparent. While his family are shepherds, Joseph is regal, adorned in a colorful long-sleeved garment. Even Joseph’s dreams attest to the fact that he is not like his brothers, after all they will one day bow to him. 

While Joseph languished in prison those thirteen long years, he would have worn the garments of a prisoner. In Genesis 41:14 he is delivered out of that pit, he shaves his face and he changes his clothes. The word for clothes in this verse is שִׂמְלָה/śimlâ, meaning garment, apparel or wrapper. Joseph in an instant, after years of waiting will see the outer wrapper of his identity changed. Yes, he will take on a more regal appearance, but after these many years of suffering, the outer wrapper will actually reveal the inner changed man, as you will read next week. Yet, the change is not complete.

Jacob placed the long-sleeved garment on Joseph before Joseph was prepared to wear it. The Torah says of Pharaoh, “Then Pharaoh took his signet ring from his hand and put it on Joseph’s hand, and clothed him in garments of fine linen and put a gold chain about his neck” (Gen. 41:42). 

What Joseph’s dream could not reveal when he was seventeen were the years of brokenness he would endure before a foreign Pharaoh adorned him in that regal wrapper. When Joseph changed his clothes before meeting Pharaoh, we are taught that Joseph was a changed man. Yet, his transformation was not yet complete, as it would take a king to set him and adorn him for his mission. 

In Ephesians 4:17-32, the apostle Paul is summarizing the hallmarks of the messianic life: turning away from previous condition of the mind, and embracing something that is contrary to your nature, the new nature in Christ. Paul does this with the language of clothes, as he writes, “clothe yourselves with the new nature created to be godly”…(4:24), and “therefore, stripping off falsehood”…(4:25). 

The language of clothing, of getting dressed and undressed, is something we can all relate to; so it is an effective picture for our understanding of the process of sanctification. In Ephesians 4:29-32 Paul describes how the new clothing looks, “the getting rid of,” and he concludes the section by writing, “Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted; and forgive each other, just as in the Messiah God has also forgiven you.” 

Just as Joseph put on new garments from the king to signify his new position as the viceroy of Egypt, the Body of Messiah must also put on new garments, Messiah Himself by the Holy Spirit, as Paul writes in Romans 13:14, “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires” (cf. Gal. 3:27). 

When Joseph was young, the garments of his dreams were neither his nor were they him. It was only after Joseph traveled through the depths of human pain and suffering that the word of a king raised him up. While Joseph did his best to make himself presentable before Pharaoh, it was not until Pharaoh clothed him in garments of glory that Joseph’s outer wrapper matched the new inner man. While Joseph saw himself in those dreams all those years before, the Joseph who was to come was not him at all, it was who he would be after the King of Glory led him through all the years of trial in order to prepare him to be called and appointed by an earthly ruler. 

Dear reader, Messiah Yeshua/Jesus has called you and appointed you. You have been clothed, not in garments of your own choosing, but His glorious garments of righteousness. The Holy Spirit has wrapped you in Messiah Himself. You, during those years of waywardness and sin, would not recognize that person you are today in Him. You may have tried to make yourself acceptable before the King of kings, but it is only when He calls you, and adorns you in His garments of righteousness that you are able to walk out and be the new man to a community in need (Eph. 3:16-21). You have been made new. Amen. 

Maranatha. Shalom. 

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.