10TH January Morning
Genesis 37-38
Jacob has now settled in Canaan, the land that was promised to his grandfather. The first verse is interesting for it says: Now Jacob dwelt in the land where his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan. He dwelt in what was his as a stranger. He never knew that it was his. He dwelt as a tenant and took care of Canaan as any tenant would to the house that does not belong to him. He dwelt, not as a settler or a proprietor, but as a pilgrim.
This kind of attitude affected his altitude in this place. He never built permanent buildings. He did not establish any foundation, not even an altar or at least a designated place of worship. He had no business, in his land. The people in Canaan never felt his presence as Jacob the grandson of the great Abraham. His sons took their livestock as far as they could since all other places in Canaan (their country), was dominated by other people.
Sometimes God puts something into your custody but you still suffer like those who do not have. That is why the Chronicler emphasizes that Jacob lived like a stranger in the land of Canaan. Jacob was like a beggar who lifts up a golden-made container asking for silver copper coins. The reason for all this was that he lived in what was his like a stranger.
I have met many people in this world who are either careless or indifferent to what is theirs. They hire workers and the workers work more than the owners do. They live like strangers and pay little attention to what belongs to them. Eventually, the ought to be strangers come in, do what the owners have failed to do and with time, the real owners become strangers and the real strangers become the principal owners and royal lines are switched.
The first verse is one that makes me reflect on many histories of ethnic groups in many Countries in Europe, America, and Africa. The real owners lived in these lands like strangers, did nothing or literally did less than they were required to do, and when the real foreigners came and did what was required, they became the established owners to-date.
In the next book (Exodus), Jacob is going to leave his land for strangers and then go to what does not belong to him and then become an official slave and servant to those who took care to what was theirs (Egyptians). I do not know what God has given to you and I am not sure you know what it is. It might be in the form of resources like land, business, structures etc. Perhaps it is an office of administration, or may be it is a talent that God gave you but it is benefitting others and not you or your family.
Gradually, strangers are driving you out of what belongs to you and they will soon exile and establish themselves as rightful owners. Trust me, it took four generations for the descendants of Jacob teaming up with God to rectify the mistakes of Jacob.
We all need to stop living like strangers in what belongs to us. Do not let people on your farm be known by the community than you the owners. Let not the addresses read the names of tenants instead of yours the proprietors. In the house, daughters should work together with the house helps before parents wish these strangers were their biological children.
I could say more and more, but let me leave it at this by telling all of us that the consequence of living in what is rightful yours is two-fold: first you become a beggar, begging to be given some on what generally belongs to you and secondly, you are exiled and driven out of what is yours.
I always walk around town and see people littering wherever they pass, and some stuffing up the trenches that channel water and sewage. I see people abusing washrooms and all sorts of public utilities. All this is a mindset of people who are like Jacob, they live like strangers in what is actually what is theirs.
We now come to the man Joseph. Joseph at 17 years old was dreaming and having huge visions. Personally, I do not remember what was on my mind at age 17. Perhaps it was just the pressure of school and how to keep myself in school since I sponsored myself. Few people in their teens really dream and dream this big. The young man was the family dreamer and he always visualized himself ahead of his elder brothers. There is nothing wrong with dreaming and dreaming big, the only problem is that it is still dreaming.
Sometimes we need to dream a little bit and work more than we dream. Joseph was dreaming day and night and every time he dreamt, he never left home. God, through the jealousness of Joseph’s elder brother, had to drag him out of this place and from this mediocre family to a place where his dreams would materialize.
Personally, I think the hatred of the elder brothers just fit into the will of God on the life of Joseph. The only thing we should learn from the act of these brothers upon the life of their younger brother is that they were like robbers and thieves who kill those they steal from. Thieves and robbers are generally people who do not work and it is too naïve of them to steal and kill the working people since by that act they are killing the source of what they are to steal.
Let me go back to Joseph, the dreamer who dreamt but stayed where he was. We all have dreams but we must learn that the way to our dreams has the following: betrayal by your very own brothers, friends and all those you consider significant others; there is a pit that you might be thrown into occasionally; at a certain point you will be traded and placed on the shelves for sale; you will serve others in a foreign country; conniving people will accuse you of what you have not done; occasionally you will be put into prison and forgotten. But all this is just a way to your dreams.
If we are dreamers like Joseph was, then we must come to grips with the fact that, that is the way. Joseph was a dreamer who was dragged to his dreams by unlikely situations and this should teach us all dreamers that the easiest and quickest way to your goals is in your sleep. But in real life, there is a specific way to achievement.
Chapter 38 is amazing and, like any chapter of the Bible, I cannot exhaust it. Let’s talk about Judah. Who is this Judah? He is the 4th son born to Leah, behind Reuben, Simeon, and Levi (Genesis 35:23). He is, at the least, a profiteer. It was his idea to sell his brother Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver (Genesis 37:26).
It may have been economically advantageous for him to relocate to Adullam. He, like Reuben, fears to shed his brother’s blood, so he has some semblance of conscience (Genesis 37:27). Judah was a businessman who moved around looking for business and ended up transacting more sex than goods.
It is characteristic of all traveling businessmen to have unqualified sex on business trips. Like most of us sinners, we make many choices by sight at the expense of insight. Don Deffinbaugh put it thus:
Judah’s troubles began with an association with Hirah, an Adullamite. The events of the chapter as a whole inform us that Hirah was a close friend and a very poor influence on Judah. Wherever Hirah is mentioned there is trouble in store for Judah. While with Hirah at Adullam, Judah saw a certain Canaanite woman whose name is never given. She is only referred to as “Shua’s daughter” (verse 12, cf. verse 2). I take it from the fact that stress is laid on Judah’s seeing this woman (“and Judah saw there,” verse 2) that her outward appearance may have been his only consideration in taking her as a wife.
Since this seems to have been influential in Jacob’s selection of a wife, we need not be surprised at this. It was, then, a purely physical choice. Certainly, no spiritual considerations were taken into account. I could not help but look back to chapter 34 where we are told of Shechem taking Dinah. It is said of him that he “saw her, he took her and lay with her” (34:2). There is very little difference between those words and the description we have in verse 2 of chapter 38. Judah “saw” this woman and “took her” and “went in to her.”
Only the last expression differs, but both describe a physical union. The act which angered Israel’s sons to the point of murder is very much the same as Judah’s taking of a wife.
About the son, we see God killing two of them and as a Theologian, I would like to vindicate God on this. We know (those who do) that the Old Testament has one explanation of evil and that is Retribution Theology (evil equals to death or the least incurable disease – basically the idea that you get what you deserve). So in the Old Testament, wherever you see GOD KILLING, it is Retribution Theology. And this is what the book of Job revisits and redefines.
So what we see here in this chapter by the death of the first son, that God killed him because he was wicked, fits into that ideology about God. We all know none of us would survive if God was killing people because they were wicked. The second son, Onan, was culturally killed just like Annanias and Saphira were religiously killed in the book of Acts chapter 5 and the Holy spirit was implicated.
In the Ancient Near East, there was an ancient practice called “levirate law”, which was later formalized in the Law by Moses. It was the practice that if a man died without leaving a male heir, it was his brother’s duty to produce an heir with the widow. This would ensure that the widow would eventually have a son to care for her during her old age.
However, even though the surviving brother was the biological father, the inheritance of the deceased brother, including land, would belong to the widow (in Onan’s case, a Canaanite). On the other hand, the surviving brother would be responsible for providing for the widow and raising the child as if he were his own, until such time that the son could take care of himself and his mother.
In the case of Onan, he himself may have had no sons, so that if he died without an heir, everything he owned, including his own inheritance, would go to the son of Tamar. It is no wonder that he was hesitant to obey Judah.
I must then mention that if Onan was in our generation to know what we know about DNA, he would not have been killed for not having kids with this woman. But he was too buried in culture and he knew that tradition and culture determined to who the children belonged to regardless of the genes.
Many are like this Onan today and they die due to ignorance and God their creator laments in Hosea 4:6 that “…my people perish due to ignorance…”
Onan knew the seed to make children came from him, but culture dictated that after his seed is planted and it germinates, the plant is not his. Can you imagine how tradition and religion can be so deceptive? Do you see how the devil first kills critical thinking and logic in human reasoning? So Onan decided to waste his seed by pouring it to the ground rather than see them materialize and be denied to him as his children.
In a sense his logic was; I would rather lose them to the ground than lose them to the community, in the name of a man who passed on. This is what I call: THE LOGIC OF A PROSTITUTE. Always do some critical thinking before you make decisions.
The other person who makes headlines is Tamar. The woman who was used as an object, and who, in a very difficult and women oppressing community, was creative and fought for her rights. Judah had pledged something he was not willing to fulfill and Tamar sought revenge. Judah sinned and left evidence behind which implicated him when he made himself a judge over this woman.
Sin is a very absurd thing in our lives, and this story teaches us that whenever we sin, we leave evidence to implicate us and in the final judgment, we will have no defense against the evidence but to confess like Judah did that we are more guilty than those we accuse.
Our dirty laundry and skeletons can always be displayed in public and we are no more. That is why we are saved by grace and not by works. You and I are sinners like Judah, and sinners like Tamar, we all have fallen short of the glory of God and the only thing that can help us is God’s grace.
We must, finally, learn from the mistakes of Tamar that, this is not the best way of resolving conflicts. You do not sleep with your father-in-law just to teach him a lesson in fulfilling their promise. This is was a suicide and very absurd solution. It was like one of an H.I.V infected person who decides to spread it to all other innocent people related to the one who infected them. Imagine how evil people can be.
10TH January Evening
Genesis 39-40
Now we go back to Joseph and these two chapters are essentially a report on the training of a leader to be. The first lesson about this leader in training is that: the greatest lesson we have to learn is that before we become leaders, we first must be good followers. And not just followers but even servants.
God tests us as servants before He promotes us to being leaders (Matt 25:21). The greatest and most difficult examination paper that Joseph sat in his school of becoming a leader and achieving his dreams was in verse 6: Moses writes, “Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance”.
The Bible rarely gives physical descriptions. Moses records that Potiphar’s wife “looked with desire at Joseph.” The Hebrew reads, “she lifted up her eyes toward,” an expression that emphasizes her deliberate and careful scrutiny of him. Many men think they are more desirable than they actually are. But in this particular case, Joseph didn’t misread the signals—he was directly propositioned. Mrs. Potiphar’s pickup line was, “Lie with me.”
For a woman to be this straight forward she must have been quite the stud. As he crossed the room she followed him with her eyes, a smile of satisfaction crossing her face. He was one fine-looking man, young and strong, the way Potiphar had been when they first met, before too many court dinners had spoiled his waistline and before too many late night meetings with Pharaoh had placed permanent bags under his eyes. Yes, this Joseph looked like an excellent companion for a casual affair, a brief meeting between “a younger man and a bolder woman.”
Please notice, though, it was after Joseph’s rise to power and position that the physical attractiveness of Joseph registered with Potiphar’s wife. There is little chance that she would have had any interest in a mere slave. But a man who had great leadership abilities and good looks—well, that was an irresistible combination. There is nothing as tempting how you look being approved and recognized, not by yourself, but also by your environment.
With Joseph, it was not only how he looked but also his potential. He had to pass this exam in order to become the leader that he dreamt to be. He had to subject all his goodness and good looks to the primary principle of greatness which is none other than humility. He had to put all the good he was under a certain authority. He had to learn how to control a small power like himself before too much authority could be put under him.
Before God allows us to exercise authority, we have to be under authority and learn to submit and obey. So many Christians want to bypass this process of leadership. Yet, the essential elements of leadership and growth are; humility, patience, and self-control.
While we live in a generation where young men are running after and towards naked women, Joseph was this kind of young man who ran away from a naked willing and beautiful woman. While modern young men do not actually have tangible, excuses for their immorality Joseph had a number of them:
- Joseph came from a dysfunctional family (37:3).
- Joseph was hated and betrayed by his brothers (37:4-5, 8, 27-28).
- Joseph was sold into slavery (37:36; 39:1).
- Joseph’s brothers Reuben and Judah were immoral (35:22; 38:18).
- Joseph was a young man with hormones in full force (37:2).
- Joseph’s family would never know.
- The Egyptian culture was filled with sexual immorality
These factors would have led almost any man into sin, including myself, but not Joseph. He passed his exam. Will you pass your paper?
God bless you. I invoke TRUTH, KNOWLEDGE, and FAITH.
Am Pr. I.T.White. THE GOSPEL HAWKER
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