Our study of the First Family of the nation of Israel left off with the wives of Israel (soon to be formerly known as Jacob) bickering, bargaining and competing  for One Night Only with Jakey-Jake, during what was known as the Womb Wars. Okay, they were only known as this on this blog…

Anyhoo, the penultimate result of the WWars, were the twelve sons of Jacob. Now, we’ve been knowing that Jacob had favourites. Rachel was his favourite wife, and thus Joseph, Rachel’s first naturally-begotten, was his favourite offspring. So favourite, in fact, that he got a special coat from his pappy. An obvious sign of favouritism that did not sit well with the older 10, as you can well imagine. Also also, Joey was a lil’ snitch (Genesis 37 verse 2).

If you’re keeping count:

• First-born of the wanted wife
• Favourite
• Snitch

But wait, there’s more. Joseph had (admittedly prophetic) dreams[i]. And also, at the age of 17, no wisdom. He revealed his dreams and bragged to his brothers and parents about them one day bowing down to him. Sigh.

(First-born of the wanted wife . Favourite. Snitch. Braggart.)

What happened next, was an extreme case of “getting even”. One day, Jacob sent Joseph out to the fields, to check up on his brothers and report back (snitch) to Pops.  Joseph decided to dress the part of emissary, in all his favouritism-earned finery, on his errand for his old man.

Now when they saw him from afar off, even before he came near them, they conspired against him to kill him. Then they said to one another, “Look, this dreamer is coming! Come therefore, let us now kill him and cast him into some pit; and we shall say, ‘Some wild beast has devoured him.’ We shall see what will become of his dreams!”[ii].

So, it came to pass that Joseph’s brothers jumped him, threw him into a pit and sat down to eat a meal. Reuben convinced them not to kill Joe, plotting within to rather take him back to Pops, maybe to curry favour with the old man. During that fateful meal, however, Judah convinced the brothers to sell Joseph to their cousins, the Ishmaelites. And tell Pops that Joe was killed by wild beasts, without actually killing him.

This family dynamic. Is messed up.

Daddy is playing favourites. Brothers are jealous. Baby bro is a snitch. Brothers are murderous. Cousins enslave Baby bro.

I will pause today’s reading right here, and circle back to a lesson that needs a constant retelling. Read that part again, the part where the brothers are conspiring. They hate your boy Joe soooooo much that they wanted to kill him. And, in their own words paraphrased, bury his dreams with him.

See, this is why there are some things that need to be treasured in our hearts. If the Lord gives you a mission/purpose/an inkling of a dream for your life, be careful who you tell it to. Even in your own family. By all means, pray about it, seek counsel about it, be about skilling yourself for it, but don’t brag about it. You have no idea what you will have to go through to get there, as we will soon see with Joseph’s story. You won’t make any allies by being puffed up about your possible destiny.

(Of course my disclaimer is always: is your dream Biblical/legal/ethical and God-honouring?)

Some dreams die because of being aired too early, and us not having the integrity to handle them. And as we saw with the Big Brothers, some people rejoice in ending other people’s dreams. Now, not many of us have blatantly malicious people in our lives, but we all have an enemy of our souls, who wants to distract us from what God intends for our life[iii]. That enemy will not hesitate to use any means necessary to achieve his goal. Stay woke.

To summarize what Joseph has taught us thus far:

• Try not to let your favouritism show. I don’t know who needs to hear that, buuuut… Let he who has ears hear a word)
• Move in silence like a real G. Don’t brag and broadcast your plans and dreams. Not everyone who hears you wants you to win.
• And don’t, please, abeg don’t go out to the field to meet your brothers in order to take back a report to your father, when your brothers already know of your snitching tendencies. It won’t end well.

What other enduring lessons did you get from Joseph’s story thus far? Let a sister know in the comments below. Until we meet again on thee blog for more lessons from Joseph’s life.

Copyright reserved Gugulethu Mhlanga 2020. 

Resources

1. The Holy Bible

2. The Tony Evans Bible Commentary

Footnotes:

[i] Genesis 37:5-11

[ii] Genesis 37: 18-20

[iii] Love the Lord your God, love your neighbour as yourself, and go into all the world, making disciples of all nations. In an extreme nutshell.