A Great Back Story

Genesis 37 to 42 :o

I didn’t realize Genesis is divided into sections. 

The Joseph narrative is the 10^th such section. 

And now we know.

I love learning from the NIV study notes.

In Genesis 37:2 Joseph is introduced, and so begins the last cycle of the patriarchal narrative.

This sometimes makes me wonder why we don’t hear about the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.

The Notes say: “Joseph, more than any other, represented Israel, as a people who struggled with God and with men and overcame and a s a source of blessing to the nations.  It is through the life of Joseph that the covenant family in Canaan becomes an emerging nation in Canaan.

And we get to God’s purpose for Israel.  

It begins with the election and calling out of Abram from the post-Babel nations and ends with Israel in Egypt preserving the life of the nations.   So God would deliver Israel out of the nations (the exodus) and eventually send them on a mission of life to the nations….in the New Testament.

We see the back story a little bit.

God’s hands orchestrating.  

Molding and shaping the story.

Joseph is a compelling hero in a compelling epic drama.   The stuff great movies are made off.

His experiences mirror Israel’s national experience in Egypt.  

Initially, because of God’s blessing, Joseph attains a position of honor (in Potiphar’s house); he is then unjustly thrown in prison, his only crime being his attractiveness and moral integrity; and finally he is raised up among the Egyptians as the one who, because God is with him, holds their lives in his hands. 

Similarly, Israel was first received with honor in Egypt (because of Joseph); then she was subjected to cruel bondage, her only crime being God’s evident blessings upon her; and finally God raised her up in the eyes of the Egyptians (through the ministry of Moses) as they came fearfully to recognize that these people and their God did indeed hold their lives in their hands.  

And the famine talk:

The description of the famine in the time of Joseph echoes the author’s description of the flood in the time of Noah.  God saved only Noah and his family from the flood, so that Noah became the new father of the race.  With the call of Abram out of the post-flood and post-Babel nations, God once more singled out one man, now to be the father of his special people.  God promised that, through this man and his descendants, “all peoples on earth would be blessed”.  The author highlights the fact that in this new crisis hope rested with one of these descendants.   

Reading about plans and purposes in God’s story, in these individuals, again reminds me of my own story and that God is always at work.  Orchestrating, moving and shaking. 

You and I may not be saving the whole world in the way we go about our business, but the way we go about our days is full of touching lives, and hearts and souls.  

And so…we catch up.