day no. 14.243: delegating demise

Genesis 37:26-27

Then Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? 27 Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.”

Judah's two concerns here are that killing their brother won't really benefit them and that their premeditated murder would cost them something. His solution? If we sell him, we can now profit to the tune of 20 pieces of silver. And we can avoid accruing a moral debt of bloodguilt by letting someone else deal with him. Problem = solved! God used Judah's bloodless logic to protect Joseph's life and in turn God was going to use these events to save the lives of these treasonous brothers.

day no. 14,242: engineering the inevitable

Genesis 37:18-20

They saw him from afar, and before he came near to them they conspired against him to kill him. 19 They said to one another, “Here comes this dreamer. 20 Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits. Then we will say that a fierce animal has devoured him, and we will see what will become of his dreams."

Joseph's brothers sought to put an end to their brother's dreams and in so doing put into motion the very events that would secure its fulfillment.

day no. 14,241: read the room, Joe

Genesis 37:8

His brothers said to him, “Are you indeed to reign over us? Or are you indeed to rule over us?” So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words.

Know your audience Joseph. Read the room. Either Joseph is a jerkwad or he's clueless. Either would understandably result in saying this kind of thing to people who already despise you. Now, Joseph is not wrong or lying here. His dream was real and it will really come to pass. And God will even use his telling of his dream to produce the events that will ensure that the dream becomes reality. But that doesn't mean Joseph is doing well to publish it in this way. While Joseph's brothers intended evil was used to produce good by the sovereignty of God, so Joseph's social ineptitude (outright arrogance) was also used for good despite its obvious shortcomings.

day no. 14,240: everything you wish you possessed

Genesis 37:4

But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him.

When someone whose attention we crave gives their affection to another, we often end up despising the other rather than the one we are striving to please because our deepest desire is still to be the object of their affection. So when a child desires to be loved by a parent and that parent freely gives their love to a sibling, the child hates the sibling, not the parent for the lack of love they feel. Or when a spouse commits adultery, the wounded partner often lashes out against the other woman or man instead of their spouse. When we want to feel loved by someone in particular and they give that love to someone else, we cannot bring ourselves to hate the one we wish loved us. It is imprinted too deeply to deny. So all that passion is redirected at the one who has everything you wish you possessed: your father's love, your spouse's eye, etc…

day no. 14,239: the Lord of the living

Genesis 35:29

And Isaac breathed his last, and he died and was gathered to his people, old and full of days. And his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.

Isaac lived a full life and now lives in the presence of the God Who calls Himself the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Someday he will rise in the resurrection of the righteous and live fully finally and forever in God's presence along with those who call on the Name of the Lord of life.

day no. 14,238: just desserts

Genesis 34:7

The sons of Jacob had come in from the field as soon as they heard of it, and the men were indignant and very angry, because he had done an outrageous thing in Israel by lying with Jacob's daughter, for such a thing must not be done

Dinah deserved better and Shechem deserved worse. The sons of Jacob could not make right the wrong done to their sister, so they tried to give Shechem the wrong his deed demanded.

day no. 14,237: God is my God

Genesis 33:3
(Jacob) himself went on before them, bowing himself to the ground seven times, until he came near to his brother.

Jacob walked on the street side of his wife and children. He put himself between the danger and his beloved. While one may take issue with the level of meekness he employed in approaching his brother, one cannot take issue with his level of responsibility in leading the way by facing the danger. Jacob could have avoided this perilous situation if it were not for his faith in following God's command for him to return. In this, we see a changed Jacob. He chooses the dangerous journey because God has chosen it for him and he protects his family at the risk of his own life.  

Genesis 33:20
There he erected an altar and called it El-Elohe-Israel.

The man who wrestled with God limped back and forth to gather the stones he needed to erect an altar that reached high into sky declaring boldly, "Israel's God is El!" (short for Elohim) In other words, "I, Israel (formerly Jacob), worship the one, true God. The only God that exists… He is my God! He isn't just God in general, He is my God specifically. I worship Him. God is God of Israel!"