With chapter 37, we begin the story of Jacob’s
son, Joseph. We read that “Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his
children.” I suppose no parent can help the particular feelings, or lack of
them, that he or she may have towards his or her individual children. The mistake that Jacob
makes is that he shows his favoritism toward Joseph by making for him a “coat
of many colors,” or as Andrew Lloyd Webber calls it: “the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”.
Joseph makes the mistake of telling his
dreams to his brothers. Dreams are quite interesting, even shocking, at times.
The subconscious memory carries in it, I suppose, everything taken in by our
senses throughout our lifetime and, perhaps, even supernatural knowledge. The
interpretation of dreams is also fascinating. Though Joseph interpreted dreams
in a way different than someone today trained in the psychology of dreams, he
obviously had a gift from God. His mistake was in communicating his
dreams to his brothers, who were bound to misunderstand; I am sure
there was also a bit of pride mixed up in Joseph’s heart.
All of this family drama leads to Joseph’s
brothers selling him into slavery. The entire story of Joseph is told
marvelously and could be a short story, in and of itself, apart from the rest
of Genesis.
Chapter 38 provides an interlude or intermission
in the telling of the story of Joseph. Here we learn about another son of Jacob, namely Judah, and his family. Judah, apparently, had some wicked sons, in addition to
having a good bit of wickedness in his own heart. Judah’s firstborn, Er, was
put to death by the Lord for some sin, but we are not told the details. Then,
according to the practice of Levirate marriage, Judah gives his second son,
Onan, to Judah’s wife, Tamar, to provide children through her in Er’s name. This,
of course, seems like a very strange practice to us today, and once again shows
that the Bible portrays a variety of sexual and marital practices.
Onan purposely fails to perform his marital duty
to Er’s widow, Tamar. Instead of having normal sexual relations with Tamar,
Onan “spilled his semen on the ground whenever he went in to his brother’s
wife, so that he would not give offspring to his brother.” Some commentators
down through the ages have tried to construe this story as a biblical argument
against masturbation. However, this story has nothing to do with that subject.
Rather, the story is all about Onan’s failure to fulfill a family duty. It is
for this reason, apparently, that God strikes Onan dead.
As if this story were not strange enough, we have
yet another story which follows, another which children of the church never
hear growing up and going through Sunday school. Judah, after losing two sons,
fails to follow the dictates of Levirate marriage and provide his third son as
a husband for Tamar. She is, understandably, ticked off by this and arranges a
sexual tryst with Judah in which she pretends to be a prostitute and conceals
her true identity. (Of course, this "trick" could only be successful in a culture where women
wore veils.) When Judah hears through the grapevine that Tamar has been playing
the harlot he says, “Bring her out, and let her be burned.” (Of course, quite a double
standard is in play here.) As Tamar is brought out for burning, she produces
Judah’s signet, cord, and staff that he had mistakenly left behind with her.
Thus, Judah must conclude that Tamar is more righteous than he, and so he does
not have her put to death.
One of the interesting parts of this story,
according to the Gospel of Matthew, is that one of the twin boys (Perez) born
to Tamar by her union with Judah, becomes an ancestor of Jesus. I think
Matthew’s reason for including this information about Jesus’ genealogy at the
beginning of his Gospel is to make the point that Jesus identifies with us as
sinners; Jesus is truly “God with us,” among us, one of us. God enters into the sordid tale of humanity as one of the characters.
In chapter 39, we return to the story of Joseph.
Sold into slavery, Joseph ends up working in the household of Potiphar, an officer
of Pharaoh in Egypt. Here we have the interesting tale of Potiphar’s wife
trying to seduce Joseph, who was apparently quite handsome. Rather than give in
to her request, Joseph runs away, leaving his garment in the hand of Potiphar’s
wife.
C. S. Lewis raises some intriguing questions that reveal the depth of his own literary and psychological insight: “Why
was Joseph imprisoned, and not killed, by Potiphar? Surely it seems
extraordinarily mild treatment for attempted rape of a great lady by a slave?
Or must one assume that Potiphar, tho’ ignorant of the lady’s intention to make
him a cuckold, was aware in general…that her stories about the servants were to
be taken with a grain of salt—that his real view was ‘I don’t suppose for a
moment that Joseph did anything of the sort, but I foresee there’ll be no peace
till I get him out of the house’? One is tempted to begin to imagine the whole
life of the Potiphar family: e.g. how often had he heard similar stories from
her before?”
Though Joseph ends up in jail because of this
incident, and people who should have been kind to him conveniently forget all about
him (Genesis 40), the author of Genesis says, “But the Lord was with Joseph and
showed him steadfast love; he gave him favor in the sight of the chief jailer.”
(Genesis 39:21)
This is a good reminder, I think, to all of us,
that even when our circumstances are very bleak indeed, God does not forget about
us and God continues to show his steadfast love toward us.
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