Home Life

by Roy Dickson, Melbourne, Australia | Category: The Life Of Joseph | Feb 1995

The background to Joseph's home life was often turbulent, yet underpinning it was the strength of the love between Jacob and Rachel, his parents.

This must have greatly helped to mould the upright character of the young Joseph until the tragic day when his mother died. So, to understand better Joseph's home life we need to look at his parents both as individuals and as a couple, and also to consider the influence of his brothers on the family.

Joseph's father Jacob bad received his father Isaac's blessing and the birthright before fleeing from the enraged Esau. This was all in keeping with the sovereign will of God, for even before Jacob and Esau bad been born, God bad already favoured Jacob (Rom. 9:10-13).

Jacob was a man on whom divine approval rested. Life, however, was not easy and he received many material blessings only after enduring harsh conditions and even deceitful treatment against him (Gen. 31:40,41). All references are from Genesis, unless otherwise indicated). He knew that God was watching over him and that his labour was not in vain (31:42).

The story of Jacob's and Rachel's love is neither conventional by western standards, nor by those of the day, where an arranged marriage and a dowry from the bride's parents were normal. For here "Jacob loved Rachel" (29:18) and willingly entered into Laban's service without wages for seven years. She would be his prize. The seven years flew past, so deeply was he in love with her (29:20).

To his astonishment, however, he ended up on his wedding night with Leah, Rachel's elder sister. Within a week Rachel also would become his wife on the condition of seven more years of service without wages. Jacob was content with Rachel and she with him while poor Leah knew little of her husband's love (29:30). Thus began the domestic tensions in Jacob's family which culminated in the events which befell Joseph.

The two wives envied one another, Rachel her sister's childbearing (30:1) and Leah Rachel's favoured position while she remained unloved (30:15). Almost despairingly, because of Leah's contempt for her, the childless Rachel appealed to Jacob for a child, producing an angry reaction from Jacob (30:1,2). So, despite the strength of their marriage, they had problems like any other couple. Inevitably the envy of the wives was to infect the children's attitude towards Joseph. By now, not only was Jacob's family growing, his flocks also flourished (30:42,43). God continued to bless him, but Rachel, his beloved, had no child.

At last, God "remembered Rachel" (30:22) and she bore Joseph. Overjoyed as Jacob and Rachel were, opposition still came their way, Leah towards Rachel, Laban towards Jacob (31:1) and in time the elder brothers towards Joseph. Such bitterness towards them was unjustified, for Jacob had always only loved Rachel, Laban had benefited from Jacob's shepherding (31:3840) whilst the brothers' hatred of Joseph was not based on any wrong he had done them (37:4). Despite all, to Jacob and Rachel Joseph was the long awaited and beloved son, Rachel's firstborn and Jacob's "son of his old age" (37:3).

The family of four wives (Rachel, Leah and two concubines), eleven sons and one daughter then moved lock, stock and barrel back to Canaan where Jacob after a twenty-year absence would seek a reconciliation with Esau.

To the young Joseph such events must have been puzzling, having to say goodbye to grandfather Laban, before crossing the desert to meet the unknown uncle. Whatever age Joseph was, he was old enough to bow to Esau (33:7). The other family members would certainly have under-stood the significance of Rachel and Joseph being presented to Esau last of all, as the chiefest and dearest of Jacob's family.

The new life in Canaan began and disaster soon struck. Firstly, the vengefulness of Simeon and Levi (ch. 34) caused Jacob great dismay, setting in motion a spiral of persecution against the sons of Jacob still seen today. Then, tragically, Rachel died in childbirth as Benjamin was born. Thirdly, and almost unbelievably, his eldest son, Reuben, had sexual relations with Bilhah, Jacob's concubine.

It is perhaps therefore no surprise that Jacob looked upon Joseph as the apple of his eye. Without the loving protection of a mother, young Joseph was exposed to the pitiless words of his elder brothers who hated him for his favoured place in their father's eyes. Hatred intensified when Joseph received from his father "a coat of many colours" (37:3), clear testimony as to Joseph's unique position in the heart of Jacob. This set him apart from the others as being worthy of higher honour than they. There is no record of anything Joseph had done to merit this honour, and it can only be under-stood as an expression of the love Jacob had always had for him.

So it is with God the Father's eternal love for God the Son: "For Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world" (John 17:24). When the Son of God came into the world, He too was publicly set apart by God by the anointing of the Holy Spirit (Is. 61:1; Mat. 3:16). God's favour was always upon His Son, and never was there a closer bond of love than existed between the Father and "the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father" (John 1:18).

Amazingly, the Holy Spirit inspired these words referring to the Lord as He walked amongst men, so that even during the days of His flesh He continued to be "in the bosom of the Father". True, He had left His Father's side to step down to earth, but the bond of love was in no way diminished and His absence from heaven did not annul His most favoured place in His Father's bosom.

The tension between Joseph and his brothers increased as they spent time together tending Jacob's vast flocks of sheep. For there Joseph saw first hand the evil things they did, and reported the information to his father. Our natural reaction may be to dislike tale-telling, but we can be sure his reports were accurate and not made out of a desire to gain his father's favour, for he already had this. Nevertheless, Jacob's approval of Joseph must have increased because of his faithfulness in contrast to the others' untrustworthiness. So, as a Man, the Lord also found favour in His Father's sight as the One who "went about doing good" (Acts 10:38; John 4:34). Joseph's brothers "could not speak peaceably unto him" (37:4). He listened to their verbal onslaughts day after day without losing his own dignity and responding in kind. Similarly, the Lord Jesus experienced the rejection of family (John 7:5), and when confronted with abuse retained His supreme self-control (1 Pet. 2:23). Up to this point the brothers, as we have seen, hated Joseph. After he narrated his first dream to them "they hated him yet the more" (37:5).

Joseph's two dreams clearly prefigured events when, as subject only to Pharaoh, he would stand supreme in Egypt, his brothers bowing before him, not recognizing in him their brother sold as a slave. The sheaves of the first dream (37:7) point to Joseph as the provider during a fearsome famine. The second dream (37:9), in which stars, sun and moon bow before him in person, reveals his future splendour and authority not only over his brothers, but over all his father's house. For the brothers, hearing the dreams, reopened their deepest grievance, that of Joseph's exaltation over them. The reality of course was that they would bow before him willingly (42:6).

When he told his father of the second dream, even Jacob was concerned by what he heard, and rebuked him. Perhaps this was an instinctive reaction against what seemed to be presumption, for the dream suggested that his parents also would bow before him. Chapter 37:11 reveals however the difference in spiritual character between Jacob and his other sons. For after rebuking Joseph, by verse 11 Jacob has perhaps recalled his own youth when God spoke to him in a dream as he fled from Esau. So as envy gripped the ten, Jacob in turn "kept the saying in mind" (37:11). Joseph did nothing amiss or out of character in narrating his dreams, because their origin was divine, foretelling how he would first save and

then have authority over his father's house.

The Jews stumbled at the utterances of the Christ as much as at the wonderful works which He did (Luke 4:28; John 8:58-59; Mat. 26:65), and yet every word which came from His mouth was entirely sanctioned of God (John 12:49).

The Lord spoke with the full authority of the Triune Godhead, and

yet He was rejected. In a day soon to come that authority over Israel, and indeed the world, will be made manifest.

Thus, we leave Jacob and Joseph, the beloved father and son, having merely glimpsed from afar Joseph's future authority over his father's house. In the meantime, the storm of the brothers' envy is soon to break.

Roy Dickson, Melbourne, Australia | Feb 1995
The Life Of Joseph