Archive for category: Verse by Verse Genesis

Now, in chapter 37 we started a comparison between Joseph and the Lord Jesus. Now that we’re further along in the story, let’s pause to make some more comparisons:

Joseph was sent to his brethren.

The Lord Jesus Christ was sent to His brethren, the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Joseph was hated by his brethren without a cause, and this is what the Lord Jesus says about Himself, “They hated me without a cause.”

Joseph was sold by his own brothers, and the Lord Jesus was sold by one of His own brethren, Judas Iscariot.

Joseph was sold for twenty pieces of silver. The Lord Jesus was sold for thirty pieces of silver.

The brothers plotted to kill Joseph. The brethren plotted to kill the Lord Jesus. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him says John 1:11.

Joseph was put into the pit which was meant to be a place of death for him. The Lord Jesus was crucified.

Joseph was raised up out of that pit. The Lord Jesus was raised from the dead on the third day.

Joseph obeyed his father. The Lord Jesus obeyed His Father so that He could say that He always did the things which pleased His Father we’re told in John 8:29.

Joseph’s father had sent him to seek his brethren. We’re told that the Lord Jesus Christ came to do the will of His Father when he came to seek His brethren, the lost sheep of Israel.

Joseph was mocked by his brethren. When they saw him coming, they said, “Look, this dreamer is coming!” The Lord Jesus was mocked by His brethren. When He was on the Cross, they said, “If He be the Christ, let Him come down now from the cross.”

The brothers refused to receive Joseph, and the brethren of the Lord Jesus, the Jews, refused to receive Him.

They took counsel to kill Joseph, and we’re told they took counsel to plot the death of the Lord Jesus.

Joseph’s coat dripping with blood was returned to his father. They took the coat of the Lord Jesus and gambled for it.

After Joseph was sold into Egypt, he was lost sight of for many years. Christ ascended up into heaven. He told His disciples that they should see Him no more until His return.

Joseph was tempted by the world, the flesh, and the Devil, and he resisted. The Lord Jesus was tempted by the world, the flesh, and the Devil, and He won the victory.

Joseph became the saviour of the world during this period, in the physical sense. He saved them from starvation. The Lord Jesus Christ in every sense is the Savior of the whole world.

Joseph was hated by his brothers, and they delivered him to the Gentiles. He couldn’t defend himself, and he was unjustly accused. The Lord Jesus was also delivered by His own to the religious rulers who in turn delivered Him to the Gentiles. He was innocent.

Governor Pilate didn’t believe the accusation which was brought against the Lord Jesus. He found Him innocent, yet he scourged Him. And Joseph had to suffer although Potiphar probably knew that he was innocent. Potiphar had to keep up a front before Pharaoh as Pilate had to keep up a front before Caesar.

Joseph found favour in the sight of the jailer. And in the case of Jesus, the Roman centurion said of Him, “Truly, this was the Son of God.”

Joseph was numbered with the transgressors. He was a blessing to the butler, and he was judgment for the baker. The Lord Jesus was crucified between two thieves. One was judged and the other was blessed.

In the chapter before us we’ll begin to see why it was the will of God that Joseph be in prison at this time.

We begin Genesis chapter 40:1-3,

It came to pass after these things that the butler and the baker of the king of Egypt offended their lord, the king of Egypt. 

And Pharaoh was angry with his two officers, the chief butler and the chief baker. 

So, he put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, in the prison, the place where Joseph was confined. 

That was no accident but what does this reveal to us?

Well, it certainly reveals just how much power and how much of a dictator he pharaohs of Egypt were.

They could just throw whoever they wanted into prison whenever they fancied.

We’re not told what the baker did. Maybe he simply over cooked the scones. But on some unknown whim, Pharaoh put him into prison.

What did the butler do? Maybe he spilled a glass of Pharaoh’s wine on the carpet.

It’s more probable that there was a plot to murder the Pharaoh (perhaps by poisoning), and these two were suspects.

We don’t know why both the baker and the butler of Pharaoh were in the prison, but the important thing is that they are put where Joseph was. They were really there because God wanted them to meet Joseph. The LORD was within this whole round of events.

Joseph occupies a good position, even here in the prison. Everywhere he went, his ability was recognised. Proverbs 18:16 says, A man’s gift makes room for him, And brings him before great men.

This was certainly true of Joseph and God’s moving in his life with a very definite purpose.

How vital it is for you and me to see past our circumstances and understand that God has us exactly where we’re supposed to be no matter what we think.

Verse 4,

And the captain of the guard charged Joseph with them, and he served them; so, they were in custody for a while. 

Joseph’s still a prisoner yet he’s put in charge of these two important men. So, we point out again that even here he prospered in his circumstances. The end of Genesis 39 shows the authority and responsibility Joseph had in the operations of the prison, even though he was still a prisoner.

Now let’s have a look at something very interesting here.

This verse says, “The captain of the guard charged Joseph with them, and he served them”.

This favourable treatment of Joseph by the captain of the guard shows that Potiphar did not really believe the accusations his wife made against Joseph. How do we know that? Well, we know this because Potiphar himself was the captain of the guard were told in Genesis 39:1.

Notice also that although Joseph had a position of high authority in the prison, he didn’t use it to make others serve him. He used his high position to serve others.

Joseph’s acquaintance with these two is another crucial step in God’s plan but in the middle of it happening it would have been impossible for anyone to know this.

Now to verses 5 and 6,

Then the butler and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were confined in the prison, had a dream, both of them, each man’s dream in one night and each man’s dream with its own interpretation. 

And Joseph came in to them in the morning and looked at them, and saw that they were sad. 

Joseph obviously had an optimistic outlook. He always comes across as bright and sharp, and he finds these two chaps, who have very high positions with Pharaoh, sitting gloomily and dejectedly with very dark looks on their faces.

This shows us the heart of Joseph.

It shows us that despite all the horror of his circumstances he was not consumed with anger and bitterness. If he was he’d hardly have been concerned for the personal problems of others.

You’s think it would’ve been more likely for Joseph to think that because of all the wrong done against him, everything should center on his own feelings and hurts. Instead, he cared that the butler and the baker looked so sad.

Once again, Joseph shows us Jesus. An innocent Man came into our prison, the prison of humanity, and lived our hardships and temptations, suffering worse than any man, yet He never looks for our pity. He asks us, Why do you look so press in against us.

Verses 7 and 8 now,

So he asked Pharaoh’s officers who were with him in the custody of his lord’s house, saying, “Why do you look so sad today?” 

And they said to him, “We each have had a dream, and there is no interpreter of it.” So Joseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell them to me, please.” 

Here again Joseph’s quick to communicate the reality of God and give Him glory.

Later on, we’ll find another young Hebrew in a foreign court who’ll do the same thing. Daniel also gave God the glory.

We Christians need to do this today. Anything you or I do for the Lord should be done to the praise of God. Make sure that God gets the glory for it.

Maybe one of the reasons many of us are not blessed as much as the Lord would like to bless us is because when we do receive something wonderful, we take it for granted and we don’t give God the glory for it. We need to give God the glory. Joseph doesn’t hesitate to give God the glory! He says, “Do not interpretations belong to God?”

Joseph saw these men were disturbed by their dreams, and he approached them from a genuine desire to help their troubled minds.

He did have some experience with dreams after all. His two dreams about his future greatness antagonised his family and alienated him from them as we saw in chapter 37:5-11, and he was mocked as the dreamer in verses 19-20 of chapter 37.

Joseph was confident that God knew what the dreams were about. He never tries to make out that he himself is the interpreter of dreams.

Genesis 40:9-13,

Then the chief butler told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, “Behold, in my dream a vine was before me, and in the vine were three branches; it was as though it budded, its blossoms shot forth, and its clusters brought forth ripe grapes. 

Then Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand; and I took the grapes and pressed them into Pharaoh’s cup, and placed the cup in Pharaoh’s hand.” 

And Joseph said to him, “This is the interpretation of it: The three branches are three days. 

Now within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your place, and you will put Pharaoh’s cup in his hand according to the former manner, when you were his butler. 

Throughout the Bible we find many accounts of God leading people with dreams and not just His chosen people.

In light of this we may ask: Does God still speak through dreams today?

Well before the human race had the canon of Scripture, The Bible, God spoke in many ways. How else could he make himself and His purpose known to man?

Sometimes He spoke through an angel and sometimes through dreams just as he spoke to Joseph and Pharoah’s officers here.

Sometimes He spoke audibly to an individual. On the top of Mount Sinai God spoke audibly to Moses. Moses couldn’t see anyone because God is a spirit, as you know. In fact, Moses asked to see him! Now before anyone says that Moses saw God, he didn’t. What he saw was the glory of God. God manifested His glory. That glory, known as the Shekinah Glory, was visible in the tabernacle. Those were the only people that ever have had a visible presence of God.

God did speak in dreams in that day, and He used symbols that were meaningful to the ones He gave the dream to. A butler would understand about serving wine because that’s what he did for Pharaoh. Later on, we’ll find King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream of an image and he was certainly acquainted with images and idols so that would be something he could understand very well.

The church today doesn’t have a visible presence of God. God revealed himself to humanity through his Son, Jesus Christ, who is “…the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person…” as we see in Hebrews 1:3.

Jesus IS the Word, and the Word was made flesh.

“The Word”, The Logos, that verse 1 of the Gospel of John is referring to IS Jesus. Jesus is the total Message, everything that God wants to communicate to man. The first chapter of John gives us a glimpse inside the Father/Son relationship before Jesus came to earth in human form. He pre-existed with the Father (verse 1), and through Him was the creation of everything (verse 3), and “In Him was life…” (verse 4). The Word (Jesus) is the full embodiment of all that is God we see in Colossians 1:19; 2:9 and John 14:9.

God the Father is Spirit. He’s invisible to the human eye. The message of love and redemption that God spoke through the prophets had gone unheeded for centuries, so we see in Ezekiel 22:26 and Matthew 23:37.

See, people found it easy to disregard the message of an invisible God and just continued in their sin and rebellion. So, the Message itself, The Word, became flesh, took on human form, and came to dwell among us so we see in Matthew 1:23; Romans 8:3 and Philippians 2:5–11. How did this happen? What were the mechanics? We don’t know and we can’t possibly know. How God did this is so far and away above our understanding, but God knows, and we simply trust Him.

When Jesus came in human form He laid aside His glory.

As a side bar to this, people sometimes talk about how the Lord Jesus emptied Himself when He took on humanity, but it wasn’t His deity that he emptied Himself of. He was always and ever God. It was His glory that he set aside. The glory wasn’t visible in him while He was on earth.

Today we have the complete word of God, which the Old Testament patriarchs did NOT have. Before the written Word, God spoke to man in various ways. One of them was to speak audibly as He did to Moses and another way was through dreams. Today God is speaking only through His Word, The Bible.

Even if God did choose to speak to one of us through a dream or through some other method it would be nothing else than what He’s already given to us in the written word.

We don’t need dreams today because we have a more sure word of prophecy, the scriptures, which countless people have given their lives to preserve for us. But in that day, there were no written scriptures, and in Joseph’s day it was even before the law was given to Moses and written down.

We should never look for messages from God anywhere else than the Bible – It alone is God’s voice. From time to time God may choose an unusual way to speak to us. He may reveal something to us through our normal daily routines for instance, but it’ll never be outside of the Bible or never even be equal to the Bible.

Would God suddenly decide that because a person is too busy, or too lazy to study His Word that He would just bypass the written scripture, which has been given to us at such an incredible cost, and drop wisdom and understanding onto them supernaturally? It’s unlikely.

The Bible warns that false prophets can use dreams to try and authenticate their messages. See Deuteronomy 13:1-5 and Jeremaiah 23:25-28.

We’re surrounded by people today who regard themselves as modern day prophets or people who God favours above the rest of us by giving them some special revelation. In this day of unparalleled influence through social media we find these so called prophets everywhere, telling their account of what’s going to happen in the world or it’s institutions. They often use fear to try and lift themselves into some form of specialness by pretending they know something that you and I don’t. They’re special, you see. Many of these people have zero knowledge of the Word of God and they’re not interested in trying to get that knowledge. They simply want you and I to see them as special, and different. This is no more evident than in the area of end time prophecy. The amount of hogwash surrounding this area of the Bible is astounding. Many of these people have no understanding of the Bible or, at best, base their understanding on a scripture here and a scripture there rather than the whole counsel of God.

These people have no problem at all in trying to convince us that they’ve heard directly from God.

As soon as we hear those words, “God told me such and such” or “This such and such is about to happen” we should be very wary. One thing’s for sure they do NOT have our welfare at heart, it’s all about self and pride and trying to make us believe they’re a specially selected messenger of God. UNLESS their words come directly from written Scripture and in the correct context they’re always wrong and always will be.

God gave Joseph the interpretation of the butlers dream which was that the butler would be restored to his position with Pharoah in three days.

Verse 14,

But remember me when it is well with you, and please show kindness to me; make mention of me to Pharaoh, and get me out of this house. 

He says to the butler, “Now you’ll be out of here in three days, but I’ll be here until I rot unless somebody speaks up for me. I’ve interpreted your dream so now please don’t forget me!”

Now in verse 15, he gives the butler something of his background,

For indeed I was stolen away from the land of the Hebrews; and also I have done nothing here that they should put me into the dungeon.” 

The record doesn’t tell us, but the butler more than likely promised that he would speak to Pharaoh on Joseph’s behalf.

Now we’re at verses 16 and 17,

When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was good, he said to Joseph, “I also was in my dream, and there were three white baskets on my head. 

In the uppermost basket were all kinds of baked goods for Pharaoh, and the birds ate them out of the basket on my head.”

The baker was encouraged that his companion had a good interpretation of his dream and hoped for the same regarding his own dream.

The dream of the baker is in the form of symbols meaningful to him. He can understand a basket filled with cakes, biscuits, and bread rolls.

Now to Genesis 40:18-19,

So Joseph answered and said, “This is the interpretation of it: The three baskets are three days. 

Within three days Pharaoh will lift off your head from you and hang you on a tree; and the birds will eat your flesh from you.” 

Joseph interprets his dream for him but warns that it’s not good news. In three days, he’s going to be taken out and hanged, and the birds will eat his flesh.

Joseph was just as faithful to deliver the message of judgment to the baker as he was to deliver the message of deliverance to the butler. This is the true mark of a godly messenger, one who doesn’t fail to bring the whole message of God.

Many are willing to preach the butler’s sermon but are unwilling to preach the baker’s.

Now to verses 20 to 23,

Now it came to pass on the third day, which was Pharaoh’s birthday, that he made a feast for all his servants; and he lifted up the head of the chief butler and of the chief baker among his servants. 

Then he restored the chief butler to his butlership again, and he placed the cup in Pharaoh’s hand. 

But he hanged the chief baker, as Joseph had interpreted to them. 

Yet the chief butler did not remember Joseph, but forgot him. 

Poor Joseph!

This all seems like he’s back in a hopeless predicament again.

Here he is, not only a slave, but he’s been falsely accused. Innocent as he may be, those prison bars are just as real as if he were guilty.

The poor boy is here, and it’s the purpose of Potiphar to forget him. That’s his way of covering up the scandal that was in his own home. Joseph has to pay for Potiphar’s cover–up.

Joseph’s one glimmer of light had been that the butler would remember him to Pharaoh. This seemed to be such a marvellous way of getting the ear of Pharaoh, but the butler is so elated with going back to his job and being in favour with Pharaoh again that he forgets all about poor Joseph.

However, God wants to leave him where he is for now for a purpose. Suppose the butler had said to Pharaoh, “There’s this prisoner down there who’s innocent. He shouldn’t be there because he’s been falsely accused. And he interpreted my dream for me. I sure would appreciate it, Pharaoh, if you would let him out.”

Now suppose Pharaoh had let him out, don’t you see what would have happened? He would have hightailed it for home in the land of Canaan right at the time he was most needed. He was needed to interpret Pharaoh’s dream which in turn would change the known world.

God wants to keep him nearby, and prison is a convenient place to keep him because it won’t be difficult for Pharaoh to find him when he needs him.

In spite of all this discouragement, Joseph still believes that God was moving in his life, and there were fruits of faith which could be easily seen.

He was faithful in every relationship of his life. He was faithful to Potiphar. In prison he was faithful to the keeper of the prison. He was faithful to God, always giving Him the glory. We’ll see later on that he’ll be faithful to Pharaoh, and he’ll be faithful to his own brothers.

You see, Joseph’s faith made him faithful. My friend, I believe that if you are truly a believer, you’ll be faithful.

We’re living in a day when one of the tragedies is that there are so few people we can depend on, even Christians.

In my many years as a Christian I’ve experienced many people whose word is meaningless and who just can’t be relied on. However, one of my greatest thrills in life is to meet up and talk with my oldest friend Geoff who’s always faithful and dependable. Just one relationship of that kind makes up for a great many undependable ones.

We see so few men in true faithfulness to their positions, but we thank God for those few who are.

I always thank the Lord for the faithfulness of my wife without who my life would be a mess. I tell you when we’re in the presence of people like this they’re a great encouragement.

Joseph was that kind of a man. His faith made him faithful. It also gave him his optimistic outlook on life, even under all his trials and temptations. And it was faith that gave him his sympathetic and kindly attitude toward everyone.

Notice how kind he was to the butler and the baker. And later on, we’ll see his kindness to his brothers.

Another thing that his faith did for him was to make him a very humble man.

Just like we’re told by the great apostle Paul in Romans 12:3,

For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. 

Joseph gave God the glory for all his achievements. What a wonderful person he was!

What made him like this? Well, he believed God. He believed God as his father Abraham had believed Him, and this was the fruit that faith produced in his life.

Here he is, forgotten in the prison. But Someone’s not forgotten him; God ‘s not forgotten him, and He’s at work in his life.

Friend, this has a message for you and me.

I don’t know what your circumstances are right now, but I do know, that many of us are in a difficult and confusing place.

Maybe you don’t see the way out, and you wonder if God really cares about little old you. Well, my friends, that’s the very reason that God’s given us this story of Joseph. He wants you and I to know that He cares and that He’s moving in our lives despite what we see or feel and despite what the picture of this world’s telling us.

There are times, in fact most of the time, where it’s simply impossible for us to see how God is with us and how He’s moving in our lives to bring about good.

Could any of the countless millions who have been murdered, tortured, imprisoned, and rejected because of their belief and their stand for the Lord see with their eyes how God was in the back of their circumstances?

If you’re His child, He’s permitting things to happen to you for your own good. His chastisements are always for our good. Friend, we can’t miss! God is so completely and utterly wonderful!

The story of Judah and his family on the other hand, here in chapter 38, is given to show us about the main line which leads to the Messiah. Jesus will come through Judah. Because of this, the story of Judah relates directly to the ancestry of Jesus.

We can’t help but think that the sons of Jacob were certainly not very much of a comfort to him.

It looks as if all the sons were problem children, except for Joseph and Benjamin. And, Joseph was no comfort because his father was heartbroken about his disappearance.

All this reveals to us that Jacob spent too much time in Padan–Aram accumulating a fortune rather than teaching his children. We can see how different he was from Abraham. Remember what God said of Abraham in Genesis chapter 18 verse 19,

For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the LORD, to do righteousness and justice, that the LORD may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him.” 

Well, Jacob didn’t do that. He was so busy down there with Uncle Laban that he didn’t have much time for his boys and that was tragic because each one of them seemed to have been involved in something bad.

Probably there’s another reason for including this chapter in the Word of God here at this particular point.

Beginning with the next chapter, we go down to the land of Egypt with Joseph. God’s sending Joseph ahead so to speak, as He’s very clearly preparing the way for the coming down of the children of Israel into Egypt.

It would save their lives during the famine in Canaan, but more than that, it’d get them out of the land of Canaan from the abominable Canaanites into the seclusion of the land of Goshen in Egypt.

Had Jacob and his family continued on in Canaan, they would’ve dropped down to the level of the Canaanites. The old saying, “You become like the people you associate with most” would’ve come to pass.

Have you ever noticed what happens to a person who has a good, positive, well-balanced attitude when they stay a while among people who are whinging, whining complaining and self-centred? More often than not the well-balanced person is broken down to the level of the others, it seldom happens the other way around.

So then, this chapter is the story of Judah, whose line will be the kingly line among the tribes of Israel and, as we’ve said, it shows us the importance of getting the family of Jacob away from the degrading influence of the Canaanites.

We begin today with Genesis 38 and verses 1 and 2,

It came to pass at that time that Judah departed from his brothers, and visited a certain Adullamite whose name was Hirah. 

And Judah saw there a daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua, and he married her and went in to her.

So, Judah went down to do some business with this Adullamite, which just means a person from the city of Adullam, and when he got down there he saw this Canaanite woman, and he had an affair with her.

Verse 3,

So she conceived and bore a son, and he called his name Er. 

Judah called his name Er—and Judah certainly had erred; he had sinned.

To verses 4 to 6 now,

She conceived again and bore a son, and she called his name Onan. 

And she conceived yet again and bore a son, and called his name Shelah. He was at Chezib when she bore him. 

Then Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. 

This is the first appearance of Tamar. She gets into the genealogy of Christ this way! Now, look at this family. It is just loaded with sin and bad choices.

Now Genesis 38:7-10,

But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the LORD, and the LORD killed him. 

And Judah said to Onan, “Go in to your brother’s wife and marry her, and raise up an heir to your brother.” 

But Onan knew that the heir would not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in to his brother’s wife, that he emitted on the ground, lest he should give an heir to his brother. 

And the thing which he did displeased the LORD; therefore He killed him also. 

We’re never told what Er’s wickedness was, but obviously, it was evil enough that God brought immediate judgment upon him. Growing up with a father from such a troubled family and with a mother who was a Canaanite didn’t help this fellow Er to live a good, godly life.

In that day and in that culture if a man died before providing sons to his wife, it was the duty of his brothers to marry her and to give her sons. The child was considered the son of the brother who died because the living brother only acted in his place. This man Onan knew that the heir he was supposed to father wouldn’t be his.

This whole thing was done so the dead brother’s name would be carried on and also the widow would have children to support her. Without this support, she was destined to live the rest of her life as a destitute widow.

Remember the time here. There’s no social security or any other type of formal help for a widow. For a woman to find herself widowed without children to support her put that woman in a dire predicament.

See, Onan refused the responsibility to father descendants for his dead brother. He was more than happy to use Tamar for his sexual gratification, but he didn’t want to give Tamar a son that he would have to support but who would be considered to be the son of Er.

We can see here that this bloke Onan pursued sex as only a pleasurable experience. If he really didn’t want to father a child by Tamar, he could just not have had sex with her at all, but he wanted both the sexual pleasure and the freedom from the obligation to his dead brother and Tamar.

Although we, living in today’s world, might not see the magnitude of the wrong that was done here from the story itself we can certainly see it from God’s reaction. God killed him!

Now to verse 11,

Then Judah said to Tamar his daughter-in-law, “Remain a widow in your father’s house till my son Shelah is grown.” For he said, “Lest he also die like his brothers.” And Tamar went and dwelt in her father’s house. 

As we’ve seen, It was the custom of that day that when a man died, his brother was to marry his widow. Onan refused to do it, and he was smitten with death.

Now Judah has another son who’s growing up, and he tells his daughter–in–law to follow the custom of returning to her father’s house until the younger son is ready for marriage.

Now we come to verses 12 and 13,

Now in the process of time the daughter of Shua, Judah’s wife, died; and Judah was comforted, and went up to his sheepshearers at Timnah, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite. 

And it was told Tamar, saying, “Look, your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep.” 

Apparently, this deal that Judah had, which concerned seeing this Adullamite by the name of Hirah, was in connection with sheep. They were raising sheep and must have had a tremendous flock together. Judah goes up there to shear them while in the meantime, Tamar’s been waiting all this while at home. She’s waiting to be given this son Shelah as her husband.

Verse 14,

So she took off her widow’s garments, covered herself with a veil and wrapped herself, and sat in an open place which was on the way to Timnah; for she saw that Shelah was grown, and she was not given to him as a wife. 

Shelah was, of course, the third son of Judah. Tamar sees that Judah doesn’t intend to give her to him as his wife. Tamar didn‘t want to face what would be a very difficult existence trying to survive with no husband or children.

Tamar didn’t have the option of just finding another man to marry. She was under the headship of her father-in-law Judah, and he had to give her a husband. He determined who and when she could marry.

So she takes her own action.

Knowing that Judah would be away from home at Timnah, Tamar takes off her widow’s clothes and dresses herself as a prostitute with her face covered as was the custom of prostitutes.

She then goes and sits by the wayside at the place where prostitutes meet their customers. However, she planned to meet only one customer – Judah.

Verses 15 and 16,

When Judah saw her, he thought she was a harlot, because she’d covered her face. Then he turned to her by the way, and said, “Please let me come in to you”; for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law. So she said, “What will you give me, that you may come in to me?” 

Here we get a picture of Judah. He had propositioned the Canaanite woman, Shuah’s daughter. Now he does the same thing with Tamar. This is a pretty ugly story that we have here. Judah thought she was a harlot. She saw the opportunity of taking advantage of him, and she did it. She negotiates the price for Judah to have sex with her.

Verses 17 to 20,

And he said, “I will send a young goat from the flock.” So she said, “Will you give me a pledge till you send it?” 

Then he said, “What pledge shall I give you?” So she said, “Your signet and cord, and your staff that is in your hand.” Then he gave them to her, and went in to her, and she conceived by him. 

So she arose and went away, and laid aside her veil and put on the garments of her widowhood. 

And Judah sent the young goat by the hand of his friend the Adullamite, to receive his pledge from the woman’s hand, but he did not find her. 

In her disguise, Tamar successfully met Judah as she’d planned. After negotiating the price for sex, Tamar demanded a pledge of the future payment of the agreed-upon price (a young goat). So she wants some sort of collateral to ensure Judah keeps his word about the goat.

So he gave Tamar his staff and his signet and cord. This was like his signet ring or seal and the bracelet that held it along with his staff that would have had specialised, individual markings on it.

Then Judah has sex with her, and she conceived by him:

When Tamar conceived, it certainly wasn’t intended by Judah, but it was in Tamar’s plan; but, more importantly, it was in God’s plan.

Judah sent his friend, Hirah the Adullamite, into town with the goat to give to the woman who he thought was a prostitute and to redeem his belongings. Hirah asked the locals where the prostitute was that was there.

Genesis 38:21-24 says

Then he asked the men of that place, saying, “Where is the harlot who was openly by the roadside?” And they said, “There was no harlot in this place.” 

So he returned to Judah and said, “I cannot find her. Also, the men of the place said there was no harlot in this place.” 

Then Judah said, “Let her take them for herself, lest we be shamed; for I sent this young goat and you have not found her.” 

And it came to pass, about three months after, that Judah was told, saying, “Tamar your daughter-in-law has played the harlot; furthermore she is with child by harlotry.” So Judah said, “Bring her out and let her be burned!” 

That’s Judah.

Here’s the old double standard and God doesn’t approve of any of this, friends.

It’s here in His Word, but that doesn’t mean that He approves of it. His people, this Godly line who He’s given so much to are acting just like the Canaanites.

This was repulsive even to Judah, but we can see how he had adopted some of the customs of the Canaanites.

This is the reason He’s going to get them out of this land and take them down into the land of Egypt. There He’s going to separate them and isolate them in the land of Goshen to get them away from this terrible influence. This episode reveals the necessity for God to do this.

Judah’s acting in a way that’s bad to the core. The fact is, he’s quick to see the sin in somebody else, but he can’t see it in himself.

Oh how often we see this not only from those so-called perfect folk around us but in ourselves.

Hear what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 7 verses 3 to 5,

And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? 

Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? 

Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

We’re also reminded of the time when the prophet Nathan went to King David and told him the story about the fellow who had one little ewe lamb. When Nathan said the rich man came and took it away, David was quick to condemn the rich man. David asked for the rich man to be brought to him where he’d be executed.

David reacted just like Judah does here. David said he wanted the rich man stoned to death. Then Nathan declared that David himself was that man.

It’s interesting how we can all see sin so clearly in other people, but we can’t see it within ourselves.

The charge against Judah is really a double one.

His sin is bad enough in itself, but it was with his own daughter–in–law! This is the way the Canaanites lived. We think that we’re in a time of great sexual freedom today and we’ve managed to cast off the moral bonds that checked us when we’re about to do wrong. My friend, for centuries the heathen have had sexual freedom. That’s part of heathenism, and it’s partly the reason they lived as low as they did.

It’s the reason they were judged and removed from the scene. The Canaanites are gone. They’ve disappeared. God ‘s judged them. That ought to be a message to all of us.

We wonder why this chapter’s in the Bible, well it’s in the Bible as a warning to us all. It’s in the Bible to let us know that God did not and does not approve of sin, and it explains why God took Israel out of the land of Palestine and down into the land of Egypt.

So now Tamar is brought before her father–in–law, Judah.

Judah didn’t care for Tamar, the widowed wife of two of his sons as he was obligated to and he found it easy to pass judgment on someone who sinned just as he sinned, without passing the same judgment on himself.

Verse 25,

When she was brought out, she sent to her father-in-law, saying, “By the man to whom these belong, I am with child.” And she said, “Please determine whose these are—the signet and cord, and staff.” 

Judah was going to have her burnt. But she said, “Well, I would like you to know who the father of the child is. He’s the one who owns these articles that I’m showing you.”

Can you possibly imagine the range of emotions that must have gone through Judah? Judah looked at them and could do nothing else but admit they were his own.

Tamar acted shrewdly and vindicated herself against the charge of harlotry. She made the logical appeal of noting that the man who hired her was just as guilty as she was.

To verse 26,

So Judah acknowledged them and said, “She has been more righteous than I, because I did not give her to Shelah my son.” And he never knew her again. 

Even Judah could see through to the real issue. He was at fault for not providing for Tamar a son through his last son Shelah.

At this point, it would be good for us to remember again Romans 15 verses 4 and 5,

For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. 

They are examples unto us.

Today we hear that if we’re going to communicate the greatness of God to people, we’ve got to get down to their level. Well, God’s never used that method to witness. God’s always, and under all circumstances, asked His people to live on a higher plane.

God never asked us to “communicate” anyway. He asked us to give His message. It’s God’s Word and the testimony of our lives that make the Gospel of Salvation by faith alone effective.

Too many pastors today are so afraid of losing the crowd that they’ll do almost anything to attract people to their church. But God has never asked us to compromise. God does ask us to give out His Word regardless of the size of our congregation.

We often assume that there must be crowds or else God’s not in it. Maybe God has called us to share His Words with just a few. But the truth is that just giving out the Word of God, will have its effect. My friend, the Word of God is powerful.

Well, Judah had certainly lowered himself to the level of the Canaanites, and look at the results.

We’re now in Genesis  38:27-30,

Now it came to pass, at the time for giving birth, that behold, twins were in her womb. 

And so it was, when she was giving birth, that the one put out his hand; and the midwife took a scarlet thread and bound it on his hand, saying, “This one came out first.” 

Then it happened, as he drew back his hand, that his brother came out unexpectedly; and she said, “How did you break through? This breach be upon you!” Therefore his name was called Perez. 

Afterward his brother came out who had the scarlet thread on his hand. And his name was called Zerah. 

So twins were born, and again it’s interesting the one who seemed to be coming out of the womb first suddenly retracted his hand and the other was born first because the other was to be the one through which the line of Christ was to come.

So the daughter of Shuah, Judah’s wife and her sons are out of the way, as far as the line and genealogy that lead to Jesus Christ.

Now the genealogy of Christ is going to come through Pharez, the son of Tamar.

It may have been a long, roundabout process but God has very interesting ways of working out His plans and His purposes in our lives.

Perhaps one of the purposes of this chapter is to show that Christ came from just common, ordinary human passionate people who are not in any way perfect. In doing so we’re able to identify with Jesus Christ ourselves because we are plain, ordinary, passionate people far from perfect.

Perhaps God is also wanting to show how His purposes can overrule man’s mistakes.

Judah went out in his own worldy way out and chose the daughter of Shuah as a wife from the Canaanites. He would’ve been well aware of the history of God forbidding this.

But God didn’t intend this Canaanite daughter of Shuah to have anything to do with the genealogy that will lead to the incarnation of His Son. Tamar was God’s choice.

So by this roundabout process, Tamar comes into the picture and her son will be the one that’ll be in the lineage of Christ. Now it’s interesting in Matthew’s gospel when Matthew traces the genealogy of Christ, there are four women that are mentioned, one of them being Tamar.

Of all of the women that were in the ancestry, and there was a woman for every man, four women were named; Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba.

Tamar played the prostitute, Rahab was a professional prostitute, Ruth was a Moabitess and Bathsheba, who became David’s wife through very sinful circumstances.

And so the four women who are named by Matthew in the genealogy of Christ are four of what we would choose to be most unlikely candidates, yet they’re the ones that would bring the Savior into the world.

Also in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus in Matthew, chapter 1 we read,

 Abraham begot Isaac, Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot Judah and his brothers.

Judah begot Perez and Zerah by Tamar, Perez begot Hezron, and Hezron begot Ram. Or Aram.

Then as we follow through the genealogy, we come to verse 16,

And Jacob begot Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ. 

When Christ came into the human family, He came in a sinful line. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him, so says  2 Corinthians 5:21.

Both Matthew chapter 1 verse 3 and Luke chapter 3 verse 33 each list Perez as an ancestor of Jesus the Messiah. God took the son of this ungodly situation and put him in the family line of the Messiah, despite the fact that neither Judah nor Tamar was an example of godliness.

This is both a wonderful example of grace and for those of us who ponder on it, a miraculous feat beyond human imagination. God chose them, despite their works, to both be in the line of the Messiah and to have their role in God’s plan of redemption. That was all designed before the foundation of the world in eternity past. How many countless trillions of tiny interactions would have needed to be in place throughout all of history to make this happen exactly as planned?

So now we see that God had to get his people out of this land and down into the land of Egypt.

We return to the story of Joseph after this interlude of chapter 38, because at this time Joseph is already down in Egypt. God’s plan and purpose are on track.

Joseph didn’t go down there willingly as we saw at the end of chapter 37 in verse 36 that the Midianite slave traders sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh and captain of the guard.

Let’s read Genesis 39:1-2,

Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. And Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him down there. 

The LORD was with Joseph, and he was a successful man; and he was in the house of his master the Egyptian.

Now, this is as far as we’ll go today into verse 39 but let’s look at something very important. Firstly, we have no record of God appearing personally to Joseph and yet we see more evidence of the directing and leading of God than in any person in Genesis. God appeared to the other 3 patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but not to Joseph. Why?

Well, it wasn’t necessary because right through his life we see the hand of God on him and yet we see some terrible things happening to him. And you know what? God was with him right in the midst of it all.

And we’ll pick up the story next time my friends and until then may God be with you through every challenge you face in this life just as He was with Joseph.

More chapters are devoted to Joseph than to Abraham or Isaac or anyone else. More chapters are devoted to Joseph than to the first whole period from Genesis 1–11. This should cause us to ask why Joseph should be given such a huge place in Scripture.

There’re probably several reasons. One is that the life of Joseph is a good and honorable life. He’s the living example of verse 8 in Philippians 4 and I’ll read,

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

God wants us to have whatever is good, virtuous, and great before our eyes and our thinking, and Joseph’s life is just that.

There’s another reason, and it is a great one.

No one in Scripture’s more like Christ in his person and experiences than Joseph, yet nowhere in the New Testament is Joseph given to us as a type of Christ. However, the likeness can’t be accidental.

The Bible is reminding us of who’s in the covenant line that leads to Christ and that God’s plans are being worked out through this line.

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. So says Hebrews 11 verse 13 which talks of some of these people of faith.

Along with the record of this main line, incidents occur which are selected by God to show us pictures of what will be seen in Christ. The coming chapters dealing with Joseph are no different.

The line of the Messiah comes through Judah, not Joseph, but Joseph’s life is a rich tapestry of pictures of what God will do in the world through His Son, Jesus. The amazing depth of how the stories in Joseph’s life picture Christ is truly wonderful.

As we go on into his story, we’ll see many of these likenesses.

So now we take up the story of the line of Jacob which is that line leading to the Messiah, the Christ.

Jacob is living in Canaan as the story of Joseph begins.

Now remember that Jacob has had his name changed by God to Israel and the Bible uses both names.

We begin Genesis chapter 37:1

Now Jacob dwelt in the land where his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan.

Jacob has moved down to Hebron, south of Bethlehem at this time. This is the place where Abraham had made his home. This is the place of fellowship, of communion with God.

Verse 2,

This is the history of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brothers. And the lad was with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives; and Joseph brought a bad report of them to his father. 

We can see that Jacob’s children were real problem children (with the exception of Joseph and Benjamin).

It took these men a long time to learn the lessons God would teach them.

Notice now that the emphasis shifts from Jacob to Joseph. Joseph was only seventeen, just a teenager when this incident took place. He was the youngest of the boys out there with the flocks. Benjamin was still too young, to tend the livestock at this stage and was still at home. Joseph brought to his father a bad report about the other boys. Of course, they didn’t like that. They would have no doubt seen Joseph as spying on them for their father and then running and telling Jacob tales about them. This, coupled with the fact that Joseph was Jacob’s favourite would have contributed to the other boys despising him.

We read 3,

Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age. Also he made him a tunic of many colors.

We all have ideas and dreams about what a perfect family should be. By anyone’s measure, Joseph’s family had a lot of problems.

• As a young man, his father Jacob tried to trick his grandfather Isaac into giving him the family fortune instead of his older twin brother.
• It all fell apart and Joseph’s father Jacob had to run for his life when his twin brother vowed to murder him.
• Jacob went away, more than 200 miles on foot. He didn’t see his father Isaac for more than twenty years, when Isaac was almost dead and there’s no record that he ever saw his mother again.
• Jacob found a place with his mother’s relatives, but his uncle cheated him and treated him like a slave.
• Jacob married two of his cousins and took two more concubines.
• Between them all, they had twelve sons and at least one daughter.
• There was constant competition and conflict among all the children and all the mothers.
• It was one messed-up family yet it brought forth Joseph, and furthered God’s great plan of the ages.

It’s helpful to remember that Jesus Himself came from difficult family circumstances.

• Unexpectedly and under strange circumstances, His mother became pregnant well before the wedding.
• His mother and father were quickly married, far ahead of their announced wedding date.
• Things didn’t seem right with His dad’s side of the family down in Bethlehem.
• When Jesus was just a young child, they had to escape as refugees, fleeing for their lives.
• They made a home back in Nazareth, where everyone knew about the strange pregnancy and the quick wedding.
• Jesus never got married – unusual and maybe even scandalous for a 30-year-old rabbi.
• We don’t know what happened to Joseph Jesus’ mother’ husband.
• His own brothers didn’t believe in Him and called Him crazy.
• Jesus said that being in God’s family was more important to Him than His biological family.
• Jesus put His mother into the care of one of His disciples, not one of His brothers.

God’s word to everyone is this: Your messed-up family – past, present, or future – doesn’t mean that God has forsaken you or that some cloud has come over you that will never pass. God works in and through difficult and messed-up families.

There’s another interesting snippet here.

The name Jacob is used three times in this chapter. The name Israel is used twice. Both times Israel is used, it’s in connection with Joseph.

Here it says Israel loved Joseph more than all his children. And the reason is given, “he was the son of his old age.”

Most people take this to mean that Jacob had Joseph when he was old, but he had Benjamin after Joseph, so there’s more here than meets the eye at first glance.

The term in Hebrew when literally translated apparently says “son of old age to him” which could be a phrase meaning, “a wise son.”

It’s possible that it’s not speaking of Jacob’s advanced physical age, but Joseph’s advanced mental age. Joseph had wisdom and understanding beyond his 17 years and Jacob loved him for this quality as well. God has many “sons” listed throughout the Bible, but there is One that He loves above all others, His only begotten – Jesus.

This love is seen throughout the New Testament, starting in Matthew 3:17,

“And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, ‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.'”

The wisdom of Joseph pictures the greater wisdom of Jesus.

Many passages give us this such as Isaiah 11 verse 2,

The Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon Him, The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, The Spirit of counsel and might, The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD.

These verses can easily be applied to Joseph as well as Christ.

So here in this verse, we have a beautiful picture of Christ, the Son of the Father and yet, the Ancient of Days – a title given to Christ in Daniel chapter 7.

This Ancient Son, filled with wisdom from eternity past, is loved above all others by His Father, just as Joseph, this wise Son, is loved above all his brothers.

Jacob should have learned a lesson from his own home and his own upbringing.

He knew that playing favourites would cause trouble in the family. His own father had favoured the elder brother, and Jacob knew what it was to be discriminated against. But here he practices the very same thing.

We can understand his feelings, knowing that Rachel was the wife whom he really loved. She was the one good thing in his life and she’d given him this remarkable son, Joseph and Jacob loves him dearly.

While all this is true, it still is not an excuse.

He really should not have made him that coat of many colours which would have been another constant barb pricking the other boys.

Another possible translation of “coat of many colours” would be the “coat with sleeves,” or long sleeved robe.

You see, the ordinary robe in those days consisted of one piece of cloth about ten feet long. They’d put a hole in the middle of it and stick the head through this hole. Half of the cloth would drop down the front of the body and half the cloth down the back of the body. They would tie it together around the waist or seam up the sides, and that would be their coat. They generally didn’t have sleeves. So to put sleeves in the coat of any person would set him apart from the others. And certainly, a fine coat of many colours would set him apart even more.

Jacob’s favouritism of Joseph was plain to everyone, including Joseph himself. The coat was an outward display of his position of favour, princely standing, and birthright. It was a dramatic way of saying he was the son to receive the birthright.

Now to verse 4,

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

Naturally, the brothers hated him for being the favourite of his father.

They couldn’t even speak peaceably to him. Imagine that. No normal conversations would have been carried on between Joseph and any of the other brothers. It would have always been a conversation wrapped in disdain and spat out in hatred.

So here we see strife in this family also. It really doesn’t matter whose family it is, sin will ruin it.

Sin ruins lives, and sin ruins families; sin ruins communities, and it ruins nations. This is the problem with our families and cities and nations today. There is just one cause: God calls it sin.

So here we find that this boy Joseph is the object of discrimination.

This is the same as with the Jews around Jesus, His own brothers of the flesh.

They hated him and couldn’t speak peaceably to Him. Instead, their words were harmful and they plotted His death at every turn. This is perfectly realised in both Joseph and Jesus. John 15:25 is a good example of this,

But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, ‘They hated Me without a cause.’

In their hatred of Jesus, they didn’t just fail to speak peacefully to Him, they intended harm towards Him and they followed through with it. As we’ll see soon, the hatred, and the harm which follows Joseph, will be used by God for the sake of all of Jacob’s home.

Genesis 37:5-6,

Now Joseph had a dream, and he told it to his brothers; and they hated him even more. 

So he said to them, “Please hear this dream which I have dreamed: 

How can we explain his conduct here?

Why would he go to his father and tell tales about his brothers in the first place when he knew it would only bring their hatred?

Well, probably he just didn’t know how bad this world can be. He had no idea how bad his brothers were. He was probably a pretty gullible lad at this time.

At best, Joseph showed a great lack of tact. Surely he knew how much his brothers would have hated to hear this dream, which set him above them.

It took him a long time to find out about the ways of the world, but he certainly learnt.

Eventually, he more than likely knew as much about the world and the wickedness of what man does to man as anyone. But that was later on, not now.

You can just imagine how Joseph has been protected. His father centred all of his affection on Rachel. He had fallen in love with her at first sight and had worked fourteen years for her. Then many years went by before she bore him a child. Finally, Joseph was born. That must have been a great joy to Jacob. But now Rachel is gone; so he centres his affection on this kid. He shouldn’t have done it because he has other sons to raise, but that’s what he does. Joseph’s been loved and protected.

To verse 7 and 8 and Joseph’s dream,

There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Then behold, my sheaf arose and also stood upright; and indeed your sheaves stood all around and bowed down to my sheaf.” 

And his brothers said to him, “Shall you indeed reign over us? Or shall you indeed have dominion over us?” So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words. 

We can easily imagine how they sneered. They would have been incensed and would certainly have scoffed at the explanation of the dream.

What’s interesting about this dream was the fact that it involved sheaves of wheat.

Joseph’s ultimate position over his brothers would be connected with grain and food.

Of course, they didn’t for a moment believed that he would rule over them. Yet, they hated him even more because of this dream. Their anger and hatred would have almost completely consumed them.

This doesn’t end the dreams, though. He had another one.

Verse 9 to 11,

Then he dreamed still another dream and told it to his brothers, and said, “Look, I have dreamed another dream. And this time, the sun, the moon, and the eleven stars bowed down to me.” 

So he told it to his father and his brothers; and his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall your mother and I and your brothers indeed come to bow down to the earth before you?” 

And his brothers envied him, but his father kept the matter in mind. 

He told them this second dream and they understood exactly what he was talking about.

This same image appears in Revelation 12:1 where a woman is described as clothed with the sun, and the moon is under her feet, and she had a crown of twelve stars upon her head. That means the nation of Israel. These brethren understood that Joseph was telling them about themselves, the sons of Israel.

We’re seeing the nation of Israel at its beginning here.

As we’ve said Genesis is the seedbed of the Bible. The things in Genesis are likened to a bud on a rose bush, and the flower opens up as we go through the Scripture.

Here’s a bud that’s not going to fully open up until we get into the Book of Revelation. It’s a late bloomer you might say, but it is going to open up.

We need to understand what’s being said rather than try and guess and we don’t need to do any guessing when something’s made this clear.

Old Jacob understood it exactly, and he also jumps on the bandwagon with the other sons and rebukes Joseph.

“Does this mean that your father, your mother, and your brothers are going to bow down to you?” Jacob says.

All Joseph could answer was, “That was the dream.” He didn’t try to interpret it because it was evident to everyone there. His brothers just dismissed it and paid no attention to it. They thought it wasn’t even in the realm of possibility, as far as they were concerned. They knew that not one of them would ever bow down to Joseph! But Jacob kept the dream in mind even though he rebuked Joseph as well. Was there a tiny light shining inside Jacob that realised this could come to pass?

Was Joseph unwise to tell of the dreams, knowing how irritating it was to his brothers? The second dream was even more likely to cause even more resentment, because it set him not only above his brothers, but also set him above his father and mother.

This certainly may indicate a glimmer of the pride common in those that are favoured and blessed, but on the other hand, God knew exactly what He was doing in the life of this boy. Had he not told the dreams to his family the impact of the prophecies they represented wouldn’t have been there especially for the family and for us as well.

What God reveals is far more offensive to those who hate Him than how He reveals it.

This is true with what we would call His natural revelation through creation. We’re happy with what He’s created, but we hate what it tells us, and so we make up stuff like evolution to hide our faces from the reality we see.

Even though Joseph was already hated, it’s his rule, his authority and his position with Jacob that they truly resent.

The picture this shows of Jesus is painfully clear. The tribes of Israel, represented by these sons, wanted nothing to do with their God-ordained King.

It’ll take many years and painful lessons for these boys to come to the point where they acknowledge Joseph as their leader and bow down to him. The same is true with Jesus.

This portion of the story is possibly not in strict chronological order because Back in Genesis 35:16-20, Joseph’s mother Rachel died. This portion seems to backtrack as it’s referring to Rachel.

Possibly, Genesis 37:2 is where the timing difference happens as it refers to the genealogy or generations of Jacob. This more than likely ends the record preserved by Jacob himself (who tells of the death of Rachel), and the next line begins the record preserved by Joseph.

These same kinds of transitions are found in Genesis 5:1 with the generations of Adam, Genesis 6:9 with the generations of Noah and Genesis 25:19 with the generations of Isaac.

When we read about dreams in the Bible we see that they’re actually prophecies, but we need to be careful to not assume that the dreams we have are prophecies or visions from God.

Now, it is entirely possible that God is able to speak through dreams, today but it’d be highly unlikely and it’d be completely unexpected. Today we have a much more sure word, the scriptures. We need to know the whole Bible to know the voice of God.

God’s word is written down now in every language of the world and in it we have everything we need to understand what He desires from us and for us.

Since the completion of the work of Christ, dreams as prophetic utterances are never mentioned as being applicable to us. We can safely say that they’re not intended as a tool for us during this dispensation of time that is the Church age, The Age of Grace, the age we now live in.

We can lose a foothold on sound Christianity very easily by running after dreams or those who say they’ve had dreams. We have the Bible, we have God’s revealed word, and that word is all-sufficient for our faith and our daily lives.

We know and fully expect that God speaks to us in the Bible, and if we’re ever told by a well-meaning (or otherwise meaning) person that we should take heed of something God told them in a dream, we should take no notice. We go instead to the Word of God, the Bible. Even if God did speak to that person in a dream it would be nothing that’s not in Word. We should be very careful about people who supposedly prophesy to us or speak from their dreams or tell us that The Lord spoke to them and told them to say such and such.

Now to verse 12,

Then his brothers went to feed their father’s flock in Shechem. 

At this time, Jacob and his family were living around Hebron, which was as we’ve said, is about twenty or more miles south of Jerusalem. And Shechem is that same distance north of Jerusalem, so these boys are grazing the sheep a long way from home and we can see that they grazed their sheep over that huge area.

Genesis 37:13

And Israel said to Joseph, “Are not your brothers feeding the flock in Shechem? Come, I will send you to them.” So he said to him, “Here I am.” 

Joseph said, “All right, I’ll go.” Notice that he’s very obedient to his father. Verse 14,

Then he said to him, “Please go and see if it is well with your brothers and well with the flocks, and bring back word to me.” So he sent him out of the Valley of Hebron, and he went to Shechem. 

Joseph had travelled all the way from Hebron to Shechem. When he reached Shechem, he began to look around for his brothers. That’s rugged terrain up there, and he couldn’t find them.

Verse 15,

Now a certain man found him, and there he was, wandering in the field. And the man asked him, saying, “What are you seeking?” 

We can imagine that this man’d seen Joseph pass his tent several times; so he asks him who he’s looking for.

Now to verses 16 and 17,

So he said, “I am seeking my brothers. Please tell me where they are feeding their flocks.” 

And the man said, “They have departed from here, for I heard them say, ‘Let us go to Dothan.’ ” So Joseph went after his brothers and found them in Dothan. 

Dothan’s a long way north of Shechem. It is near the Valley of Esdraelon, and this is where the brothers have moved the sheep. And at last Joseph’s found them.

Now to verses 18 to 20,

Now when they saw him 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!” 

How these brothers hated Joseph! They’re probably almost one hundred miles from home, and they say to each other, “Let’s get rid of him now, and we’ll see what’ll become of his dreams!”

Before we go on with the story, we should look at the comparison of Joseph to the Lord Jesus. We shouldn’t miss this.

The birth of Joseph was miraculous in that it was by the intervention of God as an answer to prayer. The Lord Jesus is virgin born. His birth was certainly miraculous!

Joseph was loved by his father. The Lord Jesus was loved by His Father, who declared, “This is My beloved Son.”

Joseph had a coat of many colours which set him apart. Christ was set apart in that He was “separate from sinners.”

Joseph announced that he was to rule over his brethren. The Lord Jesus presented Himself as the Messiah. Just as they ridiculed Joseph’s message, so they also ridiculed Jesus. In fact, they nailed to His cross the words: THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

Joseph was sent by his father to his brethren. Jesus was sent to His brethren. He came first to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Joseph was hated by his brethren without a cause, and the Lord Jesus was hated by His brethren without a cause.

As we return to the story now, remember that Joseph is approaching his brothers, and they see him coming and they start plotting against him. He’s wearing that coat of many colours or the coat with the sleeves, which was a mark of his high position and it would have only gone to kindle the fires of hatred even more.

We must remember that Joseph was younger than his brothers yet he was already in a position above them. So now all this burning hatred and jealousy have now festered into a plan of murder!

So, next time we’ll see Joseph’s treatment at the hands of his brothers. Just like Jesus’ brothers handed Him over it was out of envy, jealousy and hatred. But this, despite being horrific, brought about the greatest event in all of human history.

Jesus Christ died, not for His own sins – for He had none, but for the sins of the world.

Until we continue with this captivating saga from Genesis, friends may God bless and keep you.

Jacob’s whole life up to until Peniel, was defined by the rise of self, of pride and of living according to the flesh or in other words by his own ego and by his own efforts. He knew God existed but he didn’t know God.

What really happened at Peniel was the fall of that self. All that pride and self-assurance, all that “I know best” attitude was shown to be worth nothing.

His self-image and his pride in his own cunningness were pumped up like an over-inflated tyre but that tyre had been punctured and deflated to almost flat. Accordingly, he went down to practically nothing.

But there was another reality that was displayed in chapter 34.

He wasn’t yet walking by faith.

We hear so much today about crisis experiences.

Some gang member or criminal, a soldier under fire in a foxhole or just an average Joe Blow goes through a crisis moment in their life where they realise that that crisis is far beyond their own self-sufficiency, their own self-reliance to cope with. The crisis is so big and impossible that they cry out to God.

We hear this all the time in the form of testimonies and stories.

Some folk even feel that if you don’t have one of these experiences, you just haven’t had an encounter with The Lord.

That’s simply not true. Some people have a wonderful crisis experience, and I’m sure that many of us can turn back to that in our lives. But there are those who either don’t or never mentioned it as being something very important in their lives.

When Jacob came to Peniel, a tremendous life-changing experience happened to him and no matter how fantastic the stories of crisis moments may be I put it to you that few have wrestled physically with God.

And yet, despite this experience of Jacob and despite so many other crisis experiences we see a huge gap between the experience, the realisation of our absolute helplessness, and the future walk through life from that point on.

You see, what chapter 34 teaches us is that no matter how dramatic or how simple the turning point in our life may be, we must learn to walk by faith.

Jacob simply hadn’t learned this yet.

He had had an experience with God but he hadn’t learned to trust him completely. He’d not yet learned to walk by faith.

This is identical to each one of us in our own situations. We may have had a wonderful life-changing experience or we may not have but either way, our walk with God is nothing else but a walk of faith. Maturity as a Christian is not necessarily about how many bible verses we know or how much we think we know about the end of this age, it’s about the degree that we trust God and His promises over our own knowledge and ability. Do we trust Him?

That walk of faith is like being told of a narrow path leading to a rich treasure, but we can’t see that treasure with our natural eyes.

Faith doesn’t contemplate whether or not that treasure’s real, faith knows it’s real. Faith is the evidence and the substance of it we’re told in Hebrews 11:1.

So then, where does that faith to see the treasure come from since we can’t see it with our eyes?

Well, our faith is only as good as the trust we place in the person who told us about the treasure.

If we were told about the treasure by a person who was doing time in prison for fraud, our faith in the treasure’s reality would be very weak and we’d have no interest in trying to get to it.

So many treasure hunts through history have been embarked on based on the word of a conman or trickster.

However, if our Almighty, All-Knowing God told us about it we could easily believe it.

But, what if He also told us that the narrow path to the treasure was long and steep and required us to face many challenges in order to get to the end?

Well many of us may opt out and be happy with what we are and never attempt the journey.

But what if God then told us that the treasure was actually ours already and all we had to do was walk the pathway and lay hold of it? And, then he told us that even though the path was long and steep and challenging, it would not have a single obstacle on it that we couldn’t handle and with every step, He’d be there with us and He’d never leave or forsake us as He does in Hebrews 13:5.

Well then most of us would look at the integrity and the great power of the One telling us and we’d see it as a no lose situation.

We’d begin the journey. We’d fail often, but we’d pick ourselves up and go again because we’d be always looking to the One who spoke to us.

Friends, our treasure is real. It’s our eternal home. It’s a long and steep journey, a process, as we learn to trust God and His Word and walk by faith through the trials of this present world, which try to knock us off the narrow path to the treasure.

Jacob had been reunited with his brother Esau and vowed to follow him home, but as soon as Esau had turned his back and started for home, Jacob took his family the opposite way, down to Shalem. It’s a tragic move.

Jacob was still depending upon his own cleverness, his own resources, and his own fears.

Dinah, his daughter, was raped, and Simeon and Levi, her full brothers, went into the city of Shalem to the prince who was responsible.

Although he wanted to marry her, they murdered him, and the sons of Jacob conducted a terrible slaughter.

When his sons came home, Jacob said, “You’ve made my name to smell among the people of my land.” He was more worried about his name and was more in fear for his life from the surrounding peoples than he was remorseful for the mass killing itself.

The tragic things that took place in chapter 34 were the result of a man who had been walking in the energy of the flesh. There’d been a deflation of self, but there was no faith in God.

After this tragic event, Jacob begins to see the hand of God in his life, and now he makes the decision that he probably should have made beforehand.

Let’s begin at Genesis 35:1,

Then God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there; and make an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you fled from the face of Esau your brother.” 

Now God’s calling this man back to Bethel. After this sad experience, he’s prepared to go. As we’ve said already, he didn’t have faith to move out before, but Jacob now begins to take the spiritual leadership in his home.

Now to verse 2,

And Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods that are among you, purify yourselves, and change your garments. 

There are several things that Jacob tells his household to do.

First of all, they’re to, quote,  “put away the strange gods that are among you.” We’re almost shocked at this. We recall that when Jacob fled with Rachel and Leah, Rachel slipped out with the family gods.

When Laban caught up with the group and began looking for his gods Rachel sat on them while riding the camel then she just crawled on top of the luggage that was on the camel’s back and sat down because these little images were underneath.

Jacob didn’t know at the time that she’d taken them. He was being honest when he told Laban that the images were not in his entourage at all.

That may have been one of the few times he was truthful with Laban. He really had not known they were there, but he knows now.

Probably we’d all assume that Jacob would get rid of them because he knew of the living and true God. In fact, he had had a personal encounter with Him. But he didn’t get rid of the images, and now we find that his entire family is worshipping these strange gods. For the first time, Jacob is the one to take the spiritual leadership, and he says, “Get rid of these false gods.”

The first thing they have to do, and we must do also, is to put away that which is wrong.

Then Jacob says, “Be clean.”

Most of us take a physical bath or a shower to clean our body and yet there’s often a spiritual uncleanness because there’s no confession of sin, no cleansing.

We need to use the Christian’s bar of soap which is 1 John 1:9

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

God will always forgive, but we must confess.

“And change your garments,” Jacob says.

In other words, get rid of the old garments. In Scripture “garments” speak of habits.

Do we wear the habits of the Lord or of this world? Can we be detected in business or in school or in the neighbourhood as being a little different for the better or are our habits showing us to be just like, or worse than, the rest of the world?

The day that Jacob went back to Bethel, he started living for God. Up to then, it’s doubtful. Now he says, “Let’s go back to Bethel” and that’s what we must do.

Verse 3,

Then let us arise and go up to Bethel; and I will make an altar there to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me in the way which I have gone.” 

Abraham and Isaac had made altars, and now Jacob will make an altar.

He’ll now have a witness for God.

He says of God, “Who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went.”

You see, the thing that Jacob remembered is that when he was running away from home as a young man, homesick and lonesome, he’d come to Bethel, and God had been faithful to him.

God had said, “I will be faithful to you.”

The years had gone by, and God certainly had been faithful to him. Now God says, “You’ve got to go back to Bethel. You have to go back to where you started. You have to begin there.”

If we spend our years living a shoddy, shabby Christian life we need to recognise that those years are a waste of time, absolutely a waste of time.

God called the children of Israel to get out of Egypt and into the land of promise.

God appeared to them and told them to go into the land, but they didn’t go in. Forty years they wandered around, and then God appeared to Joshua and said, “Go into the land.” He picked up right where He had left off. They’d wasted forty years. How many people are wasting their lives as Christians?

There’s tremendous spiritual lessons here for us, my friends!

Some of us are just like Jacob, and that’s the reason this applies to us today.

Thank God that He says He is the God of Jacob. I love that becasue if He’ll be the God of Jacob, He’ll be the God of me and you also, and that’s wonderful! This chapter is a great encouragement to us.

Notice that Jacob is assuming authority in his home.

Verse 4 now,

So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods which were in their hands, and the earrings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the terebinth tree which was by Shechem. 

Now, earrings were associated with worship in that day and there’s a lot said in Scripture about that. The earrings identified them as idolaters, and so they’re going to get rid of them.

“Jacob hid them under the terebinth tree which was by Shechem.” Jacob got rid of them. They’re not stored away—they’re buried. They must be put away because it’s now going to be a new life.

Verses 5 and 6,

And they journeyed, and the terror of God was upon the cities that were all around them, and they did not pursue the sons of Jacob. 

So Jacob came to Luz (that is, Bethel), which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him. 

This place was called Luz before Jacob changed the name to Bethel, and the people in that day knew it as Luz, not as Bethel. We know it today as Bethel.

Genesis 35 verse 7,

And he built an altar there and called the place El Bethel, because there God appeared to him when he fled from the face of his brother.

Beth–el, means “the house of God.” It was the name that Jacob had given to it before.

Now he called it El–Beth–el, which means “God of the house of God.”

This reveals spiritual growth in Jacob’s life.

Now here is a very interesting sidelight:

Verse 8,

Now Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died, and she was buried below Bethel under the terebinth tree. So the name of it was called Allon Bachuth.

Since Deborah, Jacob’s mother Rebekah’s nurse was with Jacob at this time, we assume that Rebekah had already died. Scripture doesn’t tell us exactly when her death took place.

Poor Jacob never saw his mother again. That part is not as tragic as the fact that she never saw him again. She thought she was just sending him away for a little while.

The nurse more than likely brought the news of Rebekah’s death to Jacob and ends up staying with him and now she dies.

To verse 9 now,

Then God appeared to Jacob again, when he came from Padan Aram, and blessed him. 

For all those years God had been trying to deal with Jacob. Now he picks up right where He’d met him when he came to Bethel as a young man.

Those years he spent down there with Uncle Laban, in many ways, were wasted years and yet God used them for His purpose.

We come to Genesis 35:10-11,

And God said to him, “Your name is Jacob; your name shall not be called Jacob anymore, but Israel shall be your name.” So He called his name Israel. 

Also God said to him: “I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall proceed from you, and kings shall come from your body. 

“I am God Almighty.” Remember that that is what He had told Abraham.

Verse 12,

The land which I gave Abraham and Isaac I give to you; and to your descendants after you I give this land.” 

The Lord considers that pretty important real estate, by the way.

This is now the third time He’s promised them the land. First to Abraham, then to Isaac, and now to Jacob.

The Lord had to tell each one of these men about it two or three times; in fact, He told Abraham many times.

We move to verses 13 to 15,

Then God went up from him in the place where He talked with him. 

So Jacob set up a pillar in the place where He talked with him, a pillar of stone; and he poured a drink offering on it, and he poured oil on it. 

And Jacob called the name of the place where God spoke with him, Bethel. 

Here we see the first mention of a drink offering in the bible.

The drink offering is found in several places, Exodus 29:40-41, Leviticus 23:13, and Numbers 15:5-7 show that the drink offering was made with wine poured out in sacrifice before the LORD at His altar.

Apparently, the drink offering was poured on the other offerings, and it went up in the steam.

Paul told the Philippians in Philippians 2:17 that he was glad to be poured out like a drink offering on their sacrifice and service of their faith. He also spoke of being poured out as a drink offering in 2 Timothy 4:6.

We’re now at verse 16,

Then they journeyed from Bethel. And when there was but a little distance to go to Ephrath, Rachel labored in childbirth, and she had hard labor. 

Rachel had one son Joseph, but now she has a second son.

Genesis 35:17-18,

Now it came to pass, when she was in hard labor, that the midwife said to her, “Do not fear; you will have this son also.” 

And so it was, as her soul was departing (for she died), that she called his name Ben-Oni; but his father called him Benjamin. 

Rachel calls this little baby Ben-Oni which means ‘son of my sorrow,’ but old Jacob looked down at the baby and in his great sorrow says something like, “I’ve lost my lovely Rachel, and this little fellow looks like her, so I’ll call him Benjamin, ‘son of my right hand.’” Jacob had a special love for the sons of his precious Rachel.

Jacob’s love for Rachel was one of the wonderful things in his life during those years in Padan–aram when there was so much evidence of his scheming and self–seeking.

He loved Rachel, there’s no question about that. He was totally devoted to her. He was willing to do almost anything for her, such as permitting her to keep the images she’d taken from her father.

Would he have had the same understanding for Leah or anyone else for that matter? Probably not.

But he was a soft touch where Rachel was concerned.

She’d given Jacob his son Joseph, and now she gives birth to Benjamin. And it was at the birth of her second son that she died. Benjamin’s life meant her death. It was a great heartbreak to Jacob.

The other ten boys bought Jacob no joy at all.

It’s as if God reminded him every day all day that to have more than one wife was against His will.

However, God will overrule, of course, just as He overrules in our lives and we thank Him for that!

But the facts reveal that God didn’t approve of this plural marriage because, well as a man sows…

This plays out in the treatment which Joseph received later from his half–brothers.

Jacob loved Joseph and Benjamin and, frankly, the other boys were jealous of that.

He shouldn’t have shown such favouritism to Joseph, After all, he’d experienced first-hand the results of partiality in his own home. He’d been the one who his father had more or less pushed aside and he knew the trouble and pain it had caused.

Although we can’t defend Jacob, we can certainly sympathize with him. He’d lost his lovely Rachel, but he had Benjamin.

While it was true that the boy was the son of Rachel’s sorrow, Jacob could not call him Benoni. He was the son of his right hand, his walking stick, his staff, the one he would lean on in his old age. It’s important to recognise this because it’ll help us understand the great sorrow Jacob will go through later on.

All of it will have its roots in Jacob’s sin. God doesn’t approve of the wrong in our lives, my friends. We think we can get by with it, but we won’t get by with it any more than Jacob got by with it.

We’re at verses 19 and 20 now,

So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem).

And Jacob set a pillar on her grave, which is the pillar of Rachel’s grave to this day. 

That is, it was there until the time Moses wrote this, but it is also there to this very day.

Verse 21 and 22,

Then Israel journeyed and pitched his tent beyond the tower of Eder. And it happened, when Israel dwelt in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine; and Israel heard about it.

Reuben was the firstborn and we might have expected the best conduct from him. We might also expect him to receive the covenant of his fathers. Yet here, he sinned in a thoroughly offensive way against his father and his entire family.

However, we don’t have to wonder about where this sinful conduct came from. In a home so filled with strife, contention, competition, and the pursuit of the flesh, it was almost to be expected.

Through their sin Reuben, Simeon, and Levi seemed to disqualify themselves from the high calling of Abraham’s blessing. It’ll be up to the fourth son, Judah, to bring forth the Messiah.

In the next few verses, we have a listing of the sons of Jacob by his different wives and we’ll skip them as we already listed them in the last chapter.  Of them all, Joseph and Benjamin were the two that were outstanding. The others just didn’t turn out real well. Again, this proves the fact that God doesn’t bless plurality of wives. The family of Jacob should illustrate that to us. Although Uncle Laban was responsible, of course, Jacob went along with it.

To the last verse in Genesis 35:29,

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

The death of their father Isaac was probably the only occasion that brought these two boys together in the years following Jacob’s return to the land.

Have you noticed that this chapter is made prominent by death?

First, there’s the death of Deborah, Rebekah’s maid. In this, there’s the suggestion of the death of Rebekah herself. Then there’s the death of lovely Rachel.

Finally, the chapter closes with the death of Isaac.

Next time we’re going to take a last look at Esau but until then my friends may God keep you and comfort you and bless you with His Word.

From this point on we’ll begin to see a change in Jacob.  Even his name was changed by God from Jacob to Israel.

It’s important to keep in mind that these verses all tell us about Jacob but they also picture much more. They are types of things to come as well. The Genesis stories show us time and time again that God has a plan and how it will come about.

Let’s see if we can simplify a few of these pictures in order to get across the incredible depths of scripture.

Jacob finally appeared to Esau after sending five droves of gifts before their encounter.

In the same way, Christ finally appeared to Adam’s race after providing five dispensations which each worked to prepare us for the meeting.

We should introduce the word dispensations here.

Dispensations are a method of interpreting history that divides God’s work and purposes toward mankind into different periods of time.

The first dispensation is called the Dispensation of Innocence (Genesis 1:28-30 and 2:15-17).

This dispensation covered the period of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. In this dispensation God’s commands were to (1) fill the earth with children, (2) subdue the earth, (3) have dominion over the animals, (4) care for the garden, and (5) abstain from eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God warned of the punishment of physical and spiritual death for disobedience. This dispensation came to an end when Adam and Eve disobeyed in eating the forbidden fruit and were expelled from the garden.

The second dispensation is called the Dispensation of Conscience, and it lasted about 1,656 years from the time of Adam and Eve’s eviction from the garden until the flood (Genesis chapter 3 to chapter 8). This dispensation demonstrates what mankind will do if left to his own will and conscience, which have been tainted by the inherited sin nature. The five major aspects of this dispensation are 1) a curse on the serpent, 2) a change in womanhood and childbearing, 3) a curse on nature, 4) the imposing of difficult work on mankind to produce food, and 5) the promise of Christ as the seed who will bruise the serpent’s head (Satan).

The third dispensation is the Dispensation of Human Government, which began in Genesis 8. God had destroyed life on earth with a flood, saving just one family to restart the human race. God made the following promises and commands to Noah and his family:

1. God will not curse the earth again.
2. Noah and family are to replenish the earth with people.
3. They shall have dominion over the animal creation.
4. They are allowed to eat meat.
5. The law of capital punishment is established.
6. There never will be another worldwide flood.
7. The sign of God’s promise will be the rainbow.

Noah’s descendants did not scatter and fill the earth as God had commanded. They failed in their responsibility in this dispensation. About 325 years after the flood, the earth’s inhabitants began building a tower, a great monument to their solidarity and pride (Genesis 11:7-9). God brought the construction to a halt, creating different languages and enforcing His command to fill the earth. The result was the rise of different nations and cultures. From that point on, human governments have been a reality.

The fourth dispensation called the Dispensation of Promise, started with the call of Abraham, continued through the lives of the patriarchs, and ended with the Exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt, a period of about 430 years. During this dispensation, God developed a great nation that He had chosen as His people (Genesis 12:1 – Exodus 19:25).

The basic promise during the Dispensation of Promise was the Abrahamic Covenant. Here are some of the key points of that unconditional covenant:

1. From Abraham would come a great nation that God would bless with natural and spiritual prosperity.
2. God would make Abraham’s name great.
3. God would bless those that blessed Abraham’s descendants and curse those that cursed them.
4. In Abraham all the families of the earth will be blessed. This is fulfilled in Jesus Christ and His work of salvation.
5. The sign of the covenant is circumcision.
6. This covenant, which was repeated to Isaac and Jacob, is confined to the Hebrew people and the 12 tribes of Israel.

The fifth dispensation is called the Dispensation of Law. It lasted almost 1,500 years, from the Exodus until it was suspended after Jesus Christ’s death.

This dispensation will continue during the Millennium, with some modifications. During the Dispensation of Law, God dealt specifically with the Jewish nation through the Mosaic Covenant, or the Law, found in Exodus chapters 19–23.

The dispensation involved temple worship directed by priests, with further direction spoken through God’s mouthpieces, the prophets. Eventually, due to the people’s disobedience to the covenant, the tribes of Israel lost the Promised Land and were subjected to bondage.

These are the five dispensations that Jacob’s 5 droves of gifts represent.

The sixth dispensation, the one in which we now live, is the Dispensation of Grace. It began with the New Covenant in Christ’s blood (Luke 22:20). This “Age of Grace” or “Church Age” occurs between the 69th and 70th week of Daniel 9:24.

It starts with the coming of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost and ends with the Rapture of the church (1 Thessalonians 4). This dispensation is worldwide and includes both Jews and the Gentiles. Man’s responsibility during the Dispensation of Grace is to believe in Jesus, the Son of God (John 3:18).

In this dispensation the Holy Spirit indwells believers as the Comforter (John 14:16-26).

This dispensation has lasted for almost 2,000 years, and no one knows when it will end. We do know that it will end with the Rapture of all born-again believers from the earth to go to be with Christ. Following the Rapture will be the judgments of God lasting for seven years.

The seventh dispensation is called the Millennial Kingdom of Christ and will last for 1,000 years as Christ Himself rules on earth. This Kingdom will fulfil the prophecy to the Jewish nation that Christ will return and be their King. The only people allowed to enter the Kingdom are the born-again believers from the Age of Grace, righteous survivors of the seven years of tribulation, and the resurrected Old Testament saints. No unsaved person is allowed access into this kingdom. Satan is bound during the 1,000 years. This period ends with the final judgment, the great white throne judgment in Revelation 20:11-14.

The old world is destroyed by fire, and the New Heaven and New Earth of Revelation 21 and 22 will begin.

Can you see now how each story gives us particular insights into God’s overall plan?

As we tried to show last time, the specific number of Esau’s men that came to meet Jacob is mentioned, 400. This detail is included because God wants us to search out why. Otherwise, it could have just said, “the men who came with Esau.”

The number 400 here is pointing to the entire time of man’s history as a people, from his time in Eden, all the way through the kingdom age, the millennial reign which is still future to us now. It covers all of the 7 dispensations. It’s a divinely perfect period resulting in rest.

Even the name of the place where Jacob wrestled with God has a deeper picture. The Brook Jabbok where Jacob crossed over means “Pouring Out”. There will be a pouring out of God’s favour upon them, the nation Israel.  Love, grace, mercy and the like – even the Holy Spirit. But there’ll also be a pouring out of God’s wrath upon them.

Jacob named the location where he encountered God Peniel, which means “The face of God”. This is in chapter 32 verse 30.

In the verse after that, verse 31 of chapter 32 the same word is used but it’s spelt differently in the majority of translations.

Peniel, the location is spelt PENIEL while in verse 31 the spelling of Penuel is PENUEL and it isn’t speaking of the location, it’s speaking about the relationship between Jacob and the God-Man he encountered. Jacob has crossed over the Face of God. He is now, like Abraham, a Hebrew – one who crossed over.

In wrestling with this Man, Jacob will learn what it means to be reliant and dependent on God in a new way.

Again, this struggle of Jacob is reflected in Israel’s struggle with God, and it also reflects our struggle with Him too.

If we lose sight of this, then the story becomes a mere curiosity in a book of much curiosity. This cosmic wrestling match which occurred a bit less than 4000 years ago was remembered by Hosea when he reminded Israel of their responsibilities to God in Hosea 12:2-6 and I read from the New Living Translation,

Now the LORD is bringing charges against Judah. He is about to punish Jacob for all his deceitful ways and pay him back for all he has done. 

Even in the womb, Jacob struggled with his brother; when he became a man, he even fought with God. 

Yes, he wrestled with the angel and won. He wept and pleaded for a blessing from him. There at Bethel he met God face to face, and God spoke to him— the LORD God of Heaven’s Armies, the LORD is his name! 

So now, come back to your God. Act with love and justice, and always depend on him.

The struggle at night is a struggle all of us need to remember and reflect on all our days as we live in God’s presence.

Let’s cast off today in Genesis 33:1

Now Jacob lifted his eyes and looked, and there, Esau was coming, and with him were four hundred men. So he divided the children among Leah, Rachel, and the two maidservants. 

Jacob wants to spare his family; so he separates them from the others. It’s good to remember what these verses picture or we can miss why God’s including the detail.

Jacob pictures Christ Jesus, Leah pictures the law, Rachel pictures grace, and the two maidservants picture the two exiles of Israel. The children are the people Israel.

Verses 2 and 3

And he put the maidservants and their children in front, Leah and her children behind, and Rachel and Joseph last.  

Then he crossed over before them and bowed himself to the ground seven times until he came near to his brother. 

Jacob’s coming with his hat in his hand, so to speak, because Esau has four hundred men with him, and Jacob doesn’t know if he is coming as a friend or foe.

After being conquered by God, Jacob now led the procession to meet Esau. This displays some of the changes in Jacob’s character.

Jacob had already sent over gifts to show he didn’t want to take anything materially from Esau. Then, by bowing down, he showed he was submitted to his brother and was not seeking power over him.

Remember that if Jacob had not tried to steal the blessing 20 years before, all this would have been unnecessary. Isaac’s promise to Jacob in Genesis 27 verse 29 would have been more immediately fulfilled,

Let peoples serve you, And nations bow down to you. Be master over your brethren, And let your mother’s sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you, And blessed be those who bless you!” 

We so often cause problems just like Jacob did by trying to accomplish what we think to be God’s will. Likewise in our unbelief, we try to protect ourselves with our human energy and wisdom. However, God never wants us to sin to help Him fulfil His plan for our lives.

Gen 33:4

But Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept. 

Esau ran to meet him. Well, they are twins, they’re brothers after all. This probably terrified Jacob at first. Surely, he must have thought that his life would soon end. Instead, God had worked in Esau, and he only wanted to bless Jacob.

Esau fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept: Esau and Jacob didn’t feel a need to discuss and resolve the past. God worked in both their hearts, and there was no need to discuss or argue over it all again. Let bygones be bygones

Gen 33:5-7

And he lifted his eyes and saw the women and children, and said, “Who are these with you?” So he said, “The children whom God has graciously given your servant.” 

Then the maidservants came near, they and their children, and bowed down. 

And Leah also came near with her children, and they bowed down. Afterward Joseph and Rachel came near, and they bowed down.

In what must have been a very moving scene, Jacob introduced his large family to his brother Esau.

To verses 8 and 9

Then Esau said, “What do you mean by all this company which I met?” And he said, “These are to find favor in the sight of my lord.” But Esau said, “I have enough, my brother; keep what you have for yourself.” 

Jacob’s generous gifts confused Esau. He didn’t expect or want these gifts, which displayed that he had no sense or feelings of superiority over Jacob, nor did not have an attitude that suggested that Jacob owed him.

I have enough says Esau. Both Esau and Jacob could both say, I have enough.

Godliness with contentment is great gain so says 1 Timothy 6:6.

Esau’s peace and contentment showed him to be a remarkably blessed man, even though he did not receive the promise of the Abrahamic covenant.

Gen 33:10-11

And Jacob said, “No, please, if I have now found favor in your sight, then receive my present from my hand, inasmuch as I have seen your face as though I had seen the face of God, and you were pleased with me. 

Please, take my blessing that is brought to you, because God has dealt graciously with me, and because I have enough.” So he urged him, and he took it.  

This is almost a humorous scene.

Up to this time, each was trying to get something from the other. This was especially true of Jacob.

Now we find Jacob in a new role altogether. Here he is insisting that his brother take a gift. Esau says, “You don’t have to give it to me. I have plenty.” But Jacob insists that he accept it. For sure, something has happened to Jacob!

Esau’s receiving of the gifts was as important to the reconciliation as Jacob’s giving of the gifts. When Jacob gave such generous gifts, it was his way of saying to Esau that he was sorry, and when Esau accepted the gifts, it was his way of accepting Jacob and saying he was forgiven.

In that culture, one never accepted a gift from an enemy, only from a friend. To accept the gift was to accept the friendship.

Esau finally accepted the gift.

Gen 33:12

Then Esau said, “Let us take our journey; let us go, and I will go before you.” 

Esau is saying, “Now as you return to the land, let me go before you, show you the way, and be a protection for you.”

Gen 33:13

But Jacob said to him, “My lord knows that the children are weak, and the flocks and herds which are nursing are with me. And if the men should drive them hard one day, all the flock will die. 

Esau is saying, “Now as you return to the land, let me go before you, show you the way, and be a protection for you.” Jacob was glad to be reconciled with his brother, but didn’t want to be too close to him. He was still afraid of Esau.

Gen 33:14

Please let my lord go on ahead before his servant. I will lead on slowly at a pace which the livestock that go before me, and the children, are able to endure, until I come to my lord in Seir.” 

Jacob says, “I’m moving my family, and we have little ones, also we have young among the flocks and herds. We can’t go very fast. You, of course, with that army of four hundred will probably want to move much faster; so you go ahead.”

Gen 33:15-16

And Esau said, “Now let me leave with you some of the people who are with me.” But he said, “What need is there? Let me find favor in the sight of my lord.” 

So Esau returned that day on his way to Seir.

Esau lived in southern Canaan in Seir, the “land of Edom,” at this time. After their father’s death, he moved to Mount Seir, which God subsequently gave to Esau for a possession.

Gen 33:17

And Jacob journeyed to Succoth, built himself a house, and made booths for his livestock. Therefore the name of the place is called Succoth. 

Now let’s not pass by so quickly and easily here and fail to grasp what has happened.

A great change has come over this man Jacob. You see, all of Jacob’s clever scheming to present a gift to his brother Esau wasn’t necessary. God had prepared the heart of Laban not to harm Jacob, and God had prepared the heart of Esau to receive Jacob. Now he has peace on both fronts.

Esau didn’t want Jacob’s gift because Esau himself had an abundance. When Jacob insisted, he took the gift out of courtesy. Both these brothers seem to be generous and genuine in their reconciliation. There’s no reason to doubt that. Since Esau is now prosperous, and since he attached no particular value to his birthright anyway, there’s no reason why he shouldn’t be reconciled to his twin brother.

Now the sunshine is beginning to fall on Jacob’s life. Laban is appeased and Esau is reconciled. God had arranged all of this for him. Had Jacob been left to his own trickery and cleverness, he would more than likely have met his death and probably in a violent manner. Before too long Jacob’s going to look back over his life, and when he does, he’s going to see the hand of God, and he’s going to give God the glory.

However, the evil that he’s sown is yet to bring forth a full harvest. Trouble is in the background waiting for him.

Esau rides off to Seir, and we say good–bye to him for the time being. He’ll be back, however, for the funeral of his father Isaac, as we will see in chapter 35.

Gen 33:18-19

Then Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Padan Aram; and he pitched his tent before the city. 

And he bought the parcel of land, where he had pitched his tent, from the children of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for one hundred pieces of money. 

Jacob is sometimes criticized because he stopped here at Succoth and at Shalem and did not proceed on to Bethel. Actually, we ought not to expect too much of Jacob at this time. He’s been crippled, and he is just learning to walk with his spiritual legs.

Gen 33:20

Then he erected an altar there and called it El Elohe Israel. 

Jacob builds an altar here, just as his grandfather Abraham was accustomed to building altars wherever he went. The fine feature is that Jacob identifies his new name with the name of God. He calls it El–elohe–Israel which means, “God, the God of Israel.” This indicates real growth in a man who’s just learning to walk. Let’s put it like this. This man is on the way to Bethel, but he hasn’t arrived there yet. First, he journeys to Succoth.