Exodus 4-6

• Click here for Ex 4-6
• Here to Listen

Moses gave 5 excuses why he should not be put on God’s mission. (I usually come up with more than 5).

• Who am I? We never feel smart enough, educated enough, spiritual enough.
• I don’t know enough about Spiritual stuff.  He said “How will I describe you? What do I call you?   We all know what he said…”I AM WHO I AM”. It is not our job to show God’s Glory, we just do what is asked of Him, He will do the rest.
• Nobody will believe me-have you ever tried to share the Gospel to your unbelieving family or friend.  It’s hard.
• I can’t speak.  We are all given a Spiritual Gifts at the time of our Salvation.  The gift is from God.  The reason you were given it was to become a vessel, or a messenger of God.  So it is important to note that we are all called to “speak” on His behalf, just according to the Gift he has given us.
• Last, but NOT LEAST! “Please send someone else”.  That’s not my thing, I am not good at that….

---

In chapter 4 we see a foreshadow of the first and last plague that will occur.  4:9 “the water you take from the river will become blood on the ground and 4:23 “so I will kill your firstborn son”

If the quick circumcision confused you, you need to remember that in Gen 17 God gave the Israelites the Covenant of Circumcision.

¹⁴ Any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”

Moses never had his son circumcised. Why would they be? He was raised Egyptian.   So his wife swiftly secured the covenant with a flint knife.  That’s why I carry a pocket knife in case a mom ever needs to borrow it. 😬

---

Chapter 5-  We are in Egypt and we have these 2 different groups of people.  The Egyptians obviously,  and the Israelites.  Let’s go back to the end of Genesis.  God was so good to put the families in Goshen, away from the city.  They were able to raise up their people away from the influence of polytheism.  The Pharaohs says “Who is the Lord?” The Lord is not one of the gods that is on the list for the Egyptians to worship, BUT Pharaoh’s name is on that list as a god.  So when Moses enters stage left and says “This is what THE Lord says”, it was putting the deity of Pharaoh as a match to a God that Pharaoh has never even heard of!  Oh Stars, that’s not good….but God has a bigger plan than “just” letting his people go.

---

Chapter 6- (my favorite of the 3)  Read the first part with authority aloud and emphasize the word “I” or “my”.  It is so powerful.  I like verse 6:2 when God says (paraphrase) “I appeared to your grandfathers but I did not fully reveal myself to them like I will now to you during this difficult task”.

So then you get to the end of Chapter 6 and you roll your eyes and say “C’mon! another “family record”, I can skim over this”.  No!  was that was just me that said that in their head?  Liars!     Don’t….I want you to see it!!

Like all the others it starts with Reuben…Simeon….boring…..and then we get to Levi, Moses’ family. and it stops there.  This partial genealogy of Levi (which must be important if it is the first 4 letters of the next book we will read, Leviticus), establishes the position of Moses and Aaron.  Jochebed’s name means “the Lord is glory”.  She is the first person in the biblical text to have a name incorporated with His divine name.

Ready for the best part?? Not only is God establishing the position of Moses and Aaron’s family but the wife of Aaron is Elisheba.  Elisheba is from the tribe of Judah.  God is uniting the tribe of Levi (the priesthood) and Judah (kingship, royalty) lines:  Jesus is on every page of this Bible.

If you want to go deeper today, look into the Words of God that were used in this text. Yahweh verse El Shaddai.  Have a wonderful day.

Exodus 1-3

• Click here for the reading
• To listen click here

Here is the agenda for the next 2 weeks!

• Moses (1-7)
• The Plagues (7-13)
• The Exodus (14-18)
• The Law (19-24)
• Tabernacle and Worship (25-40)

Let’s read Genesis 15:13 one more time..

 “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there.  But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. 

We left Egypt naming 70 descendants and 431 years later they count about 2 or 3 million.  In verse 8, the new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power.  

Pharaoh Timeline in Egypt

• Amenhotep I -2nd Pharaoh of 18th dynasty
• Thutmose I- practiced genocide on Hebrew male babies (Exod. 1:15-22).
• Hatshepsut – was the daughter of Pharaoh Thutmose I who drew Moses out of the Nile and later ruled as Queen (Exod. 2:5).
• Thutmose III (1504-1450 B.C.; 6th Pharaoh of the 18th dynasty) was the Pharaoh of the oppression who tried to kill Moses and from whom Moses fled into Midian (Exod. 2:15).
• Amenhotep II (1450-1425 B.C.; 7th Pharaoh of the 18th dynasty) was the Pharaoh of the plagues and the Exodus (Exod. 3:10—15:19).

The new king, Thutmose I, was threatened by the large number of Israelites so he enforced 2 plans:

1. Oppress them with forced labor, and when that didn’t work
2. Kill the newborn boys

The parallel to the Gospel is unremarkable:

Matthew 2:13 : When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child (Jesus)  and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, 

Shiphrah and Puah are likely representatives of a large group of midwives.  This is the first recorded instance in the Bible of civil disobedience.  In return, God blessed them with families of their own.

---

Chapter 2  The parents of Moses, Amram and Jochebed are both from the tribe of Levi.  When Jochebed puts the baby in the basket, the Hebrew word is tebah, which is the same word used in Genesis for the ark.  Both were used to save a life from the destructive force of water.  This passage is so visual.  I can picture his sister, Miriam, running down the river bank keeping an eye on the tebah.  When the Pharaoh’s daughter defies the decree herself to kill the newborn, Miriam suggests a woman to nurse the baby….it was the birth mother Amram!  Isn’t that amazing!

Later, Moses kills an Egyptian while Thutmose III is king, and it becomes known,  so he flees to Midian (an area settled by one of Abraham’s sons after Sarah died and he married Keturah)  where he meets Reuel (also called Jethro) and marries Zipporah.

Back in Egypt, Thutmose III dies, (opportunity knocks to bring Moses back to Egypt!).  I think this is probably the most popular chapter for pastors to teach from because there is so much in it.  To try to find something new to point out is difficult.

But can I say, years ago I was talking to someone who just felt like her sins were  “the big ones” and God would not be able to get passed it.  She would never be good enough.  She had been loved on by the church, told all the right phases by her friends, probably had a coffee mug with 3:16 on it and just could not feel it.  Clearly, I am not “slow in speech” (my co-workers wish…I don’t shut up!) like Moses, but I just said “Woman, God used a murderer who was a fugitive, named Moses to save a nation, I am sure he can use you!”.

In short, God tells Moses, go back the the very place he committed murder, covered it up, ran as a fugitive.  So when Moses says “who am I” in verse 11 (not sure he wants that answered to be honest).  God does not answer him because IT DOES NOT MATTER who Moses is.  Instead God waits for the question that does matter….”Who are you!”.

“I am who I am”!  Yahweh.  He is SOVEREIGN.  He states the covenant, adds a few promises (which I love), like it will be flowing with milk and honey and you will not go empty handed when the nation flees.

Have a wonderful day.  Remember if God can use a fugitive that stutters who murdered someone, he can use you to be an instrument to help someone today feel the love of God.

 

Exodus Overview

Here is a quick overview of Exodus.  We will turn the page from Genesis to Exodus and over 400 years will have passed. The Hebrew title of this book is Shemot “names”, based off the first key work of the text.  The English title was given when Alexander the Great was translating the Bible into Greek and the scholars named the book from the theme,  Exodus.  The Exodus is a foreshadow of being delivered and redeemed from the bondage of sin, accomplished only through a substitute for your sin: the Passover Lamb: Jesus.

If you are not a believer trying to prove these events did not exist, let me help you.  Don’t gasp…I got this!  If you go to Egypt you will not find a single Egyptian source that these events occurred.  And if they had occurred,  then clearly there would be some writing on the topic? Nope.  None.   So there is your proof that these events never occurred.

But before you go, just remember that all temple inscriptions were to elevate and worship the deity of the Pharaoh. If they noted the devastation of the country and the defeat of their army that would be embarrassing not elevating.  Oh, also, in this very much superstitious time, written words were seen as “magical” and when written, the events were most likely to repeat themselves.  Contrary, if you omitted an embarrassing historical event,  it was like it never happened! (I would like to do that about my teenage years).

You would also have to ignore the insurmountable historical documentation and Egyptology findings that support the Exodus.  Ok, moving on.

As we read this book we will affirm:

• Exodus teaches the sovereignty of God:
  • “Sovereignty” is the attribute of God that expresses the fact that He is the ultimate ruler of the universe. There is no one higher in authority than He. As “Sovereign,” He has all power. ”  We can see God’s sovereignty clearly in His superiority over all the so-called “gods of Egypt.”
• Exodus teaches the salvation of man:
  • Exodus teaches that God provides salvation for man. Man does not provide it for himself.

 

Genesis 48-50 The End!!

• Click here to read
• Click here to listen

(This might be long BUT by far the best post this month.  I have countless hours invested in research.  I will try to be as concise as possible)

I hear people say “I have read Genesis before”.  Even if you have, I hope this was like it was brand new to you.  There are chapters we tend to say “Ummm I have no idea why I have to read this” and we skip it.  Chapter 49 is usually one of those chapters.  But we are NOT skipping it.

First, Chapter 48: The Adoption!  We already covered that Judah will get the Blessing, but now it is time for the birthright.  This is a very important section because it explains how Joseph’s sons, born and raised as Gentiles (that’s you) are adopted into the Hebrew’s EQUALLY.  Joseph does not become the head of a tribe,  but Ephraim and Manasseh will have an equal standing as Jacob’s other sons.

⁵ “Now then, your two sons born to you in Egypt before I came to you here will be reckoned as mine; Ephraim and Manasseh will be mine, just as Reuben and Simeon are mine.

Reuben was first born, he disqualified himself for the birthright when he slept with his “step-mom”.  Seriously, who needs Netflix when you have this??  Ancient Eastern adoptions exercised placing the adopted child on the knees of the adopting parent to symbolize giving birth to the adopted.  In verse 12,  Joseph removed the sons from his knees and puts them close to the adopter: Jacob.  He arranges the sons in birth order assuming the birthright will be chronological.  This is actually the 4th consecutive generation where the prominence of the first born was reversed

• Isaac over Ishmael
• Jacob over Esau
• Joseph over Reuben
• Ephraim over Manasseh

Looks like I am going to have to give Charlie more than Elliot, or at least a nicer car to keep the tradition going!

Jacob, even though his health and eyes are failing, when Joseph said “You’re doing it wrong”, Jacob says in verse 19: “I know my son, I know”.

²⁰ He blessed them that day and said,

“In your  name will Israel pronounce this blessing:
    ‘May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh.’”

So he put Ephraim ahead of Manasseh.

²¹ Then Israel said to Joseph, “I am about to die, but God will be with you and take you back to the land of your fathers. ²² And to you I give one more ridge of land than to your brothers, the ridge I took from the Amorites with my sword and my bow.”

The tribe of Ephraim will be given favorable land which will include Shechem: a ridge of mountain, in the Samaria area.  Question of the day: what Bible icon rises from the Tribe of Ephraim??

---

Chapter 49.  Are you ready to geek it out with me??  Read it once over BEFORE reading my notes.  Now that you have hung on ever word of the first 48 chapters I think you could probably do this chapter without me!  Keep notes any way that suits you best, I actually copy and pasted the scriptures to write on them from bible gateway because I refuse to wear readers and look old like my husband.

Jacob will foretell what would become of each tribe and their descendants.  We will see blessings, curses, judgments, and prominence.  Jacob will draw on the past and look to the future.  Here we go!  For the super geeky like Lucas, click here for a map you can print to look at while we do this.

Here are the notes to put next to the scriptures:

• Reuben- #1
  • vs 3: firstborn, should have been given the birthright, blessing, double portion, leadership of the tribes.
  • vs 4: tribe of Reuben produces no significant men, judges, kings, prophets, or priests
  • vs 4: Gen: 35:22 he sleeps with Bilhah
  • write in margin:
    • Transjordan tribe
    • God saves Israel from reckless leadership
• Simeon and Levi #2 and #3
  • vs 5: they are blood brothers born from Leah
  • vs 6: Gen 34 Shechem- vengeance from Dinah’s rape
  • vs 7: neither will be given land
    • Simeon will be absorbed by Judah
    • Levi dispersed in cities
      • Levi WILL be blessed with honor of priesthood when they sided with Moses at Mt. Sinai in Exodus 32:26-28
• Judah #4
  • vs 8: Because #1.#2. #3 are disqualified, Judah will become the Covenant tribe.
  •  vs 9: compared to a Lion who is the king
  • vs 10: Scepter: Royalty.  The Messianic line.  The Davidic Monarchy.
  • vs 11: (I don’t know….) don’t write that.  Is this end time?  Can someone help me.
• Zebulun#5
  • vs 13: given the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Sea of Galilee
    • historical records show Zebulun shared a territory with Issachar
• Issachar #6
  • vs. 14: Submissive tribe to the Canaanites
  • vs 15: farmers, agriculture
  • become slaves
• Dan #7
  • vs 16: Samson.
  • vs 17: Judges 18- Led Israel into Idolatry
• Gad #8
  • vs 19 gets attached my nomads
    • write in the margin: Transjordan Tribe
• Asher #9
  • given the most fertile land
• Naphtali #10
  • you may not want to write this BUT I wrote “My favorite Judge: Deborah!”  Oh how I want to be her when I grow up
• Joseph #11
  • vs 22 tribe grew fruitful in the land
  • vs 22 Manasseh and Ephraim are the branches (grafted into the family)
  • vs 23- his brothers, Potiphers wife, prisoners
  • vs 24: God was with him
  • vs 25 and 26: (circle the blessings)
• Benjamin#12
  • vs 27 produces many warriors
    • 1st King (Saul)
    • Ehud, Jonathan,
    • Esther, Mordecia
  • vs 27: 3 incidents, they plunder after a battle 😦

CHAPTER 50- we close the book of Genesis with the death of Jacob and Joseph.  Keeping with Egyptian customs both were mummified.   Joseph is given permission to bury Jacob at the cave Abraham bought for the family to be buried in, back in Gen 23.  Seems like forever since we read that Joseph’s remains are in a coffin in Egypt but his descendants promised to eventually bury him with the family.

 

 

 

 

 

What is a Typology?

A biblical typology is where there is symbolism in the Old Testament that will represent something in the New Testament.  There are lots of them and whenever I do this I can hear God’s voice (he sounds like James Earl Jones in my head) laughing at me saying “You have no idea all the fun stuff in the Bible that you mere humans think you uncovered, if you only knew there are millions your human little eyes don’t even pick up on because I am God and you are not!”  Here is a Joseph as a type of what is to come (not a comparison, there is none that compares), just a Typology.

He was the favorite son of a wealthy father	Gen. 37:3	Matt. 3:17
He was a shepherd	Gen. 37:2	John 10:11-14
He was taken into Egypt to avoid being killed	Gen. 37:28	Matt. 2:13
He became a servant	Gen. 39:4	Phil. 2:7
He began his ministry at the age of thirty	Gen. 41:46	Luke 3:23
He was filled with the Spirit of God	Gen. 41:38	Luke 4:1
He returned good for evil	Gen.50:20	Matt. 5:44
He was humble and unspoiled by wealth	Gen. 45:7-8	John 13:12
He was taught by God	Gen. 41:16	John 5:19
He loved people freely	Gen. 45:15	John 13:34
He gained the confidence of others quickly	Gen. 39:3	Matt. 8:8
He gave bread to hungry people that came to him	Gen. 41:57	Mark 6:41
He resisted the most difficult temptations	Gen. 39:8-9	Heb. 4:15
He was given vision into the future	Gen. 37:6	Matt. 24:3
He tested people to reveal their true nature	Gen. 42:25	Mark 11:30
He was hated for his teachings	Gen. 37:8	John 7:7
He was sold for the price of a slave	Gen. 37:28	Matt. 26:15
He was falsely accused	Gen. 39:14	Mark 14:56
He was silent before his accuser	Gen. 39:20	Mark 15:4
He was condemned between two prisoners	Gen. 40:2-3	Luke 23:32
He was dead before his father	Gen. 37:33	Luke 23:46
He was held for two, and was free on the third	Gen. 41:1	Luke 9:22
He arose into a new life	Gen. 41:41	Mark 16:6
He was not recognized by his own brethren	Gen. 42.8	Luke 24:37
He returned to his father	Gen. 46:29	Mark 16:19
He became a lord / Lord	Gen. 45:8	Rev. 19:16

Genesis 46-47

• Click here to read
• Click here to listen

Tomorrow will be our LAST day in Genesis.  Can you believe it!  It started a little slow reading  Job for 2 weeks but these past two weeks has been like the Bible on steroids!  It was intense!

Chapter 46:  God made a Covenant to bring the Hebrews to a specified land.  Jacob is in that land.  That was the plan after all.  Jacob now has to leave the land to move to a foreign land, Egypt.  This must have been the most difficult decision Jacob has had to make. Paraphrase:  “Go live in a land that is foreign, oh and by the way,  your people and your occupation are detestable to them”.  So now what?  Jacob goes to Beersheba.  I know that sounds familiar to you, right?  Beer in Hebrew means “well” (my husband would love a well filled with beer!), and Sheba means “seven” or “oath”.  Jacob is at the very spot Abraham made an oath to Abimelech, where Hagar retreated to when she fled with  Ishmael, where God appeared to Isaac and affirmed the covenant, and now where Jacob will build an altar to worship the Lord and hear from Him one last time:

 “I am God, the God of your father,” he said. “Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you into a great nation there. I will go down to Egypt with you, and I will surely bring you back again. And Joseph’s own hand will close your eyes.”

The peace that must have washed over Jacob!  Do not be afraid of this land and these people.  I will be with you!  You will see you son before your death.

We transition to a long list of names.  Did you skim?? If you said no, just know that lying is a sin! 😉   If you did skim make sure you did not miss each section was totaled subtotaled and then totaled 70 in all.  Here is a cool fact: In chapter 10, the descendants that represented Adam were 70 and now we have 70 descendants representing the the children of Israel.

Joseph plans a way for his family to live outside the city limits.  Egypt, in the Delta, was an agricultural society. Herding was seen as cruel and disgusting to them.  Living in Goshen will allow the Hebrews to have a distinct nation without the influence of the Egyptians. They can continue to worship their God without the culture of Polytheism in their mix.

---

Chapter 47: So a sweet woman named Stephanie Downey emailed me last night, and I am not not sure how or why it happened but this poor woman, who has never met me, had to hear my testimony!  She didn’t even ask!  I don’t know many of you, and I am reluctant to tell you I wasn’t brought up Christian.  My mom didn’t own a bible (she believed in Salvation through Catholic sacraments) and my dad is an atheist.  I am telling you this because when I would refute there was a God, one of many comments would sound something like “If there is a God, why did he promote slavery???

You can’t defend the Word of God if you don’t know it.  We are reading a chapter where it appears God promotes slavery.  No. He. Doesn’t.

¹⁸ When that year was over, they came to him the following year and said, “We cannot hide from our lord the fact that since our money is gone and our livestock belongs to you, there is nothing left for our lord except our bodies and our land. ¹⁹ Why should we perish before your eyes—we and our land as well? Buy us and our land in exchange for food, and we with our land will be in bondage to Pharaoh. Give us seed so that we may live and not die, and that the land may not become desolate.”

²⁰ So Joseph bought all the land in Egypt for Pharaoh. The Egyptians, one and all, sold their fields, because the famine was too severe for them. The land became Pharaoh’s, ²¹ and Joseph reduced the people to servitude,^[c] from one end of Egypt to the other.

To be in bondage to Pharaoh is to be in servitude.  This was a means to deal with poor and destitute people in bad times.  To reduce someone to servitude meant that after they sold their land it would then it became the buyers responsibility to provide food and shelter in order to save them.   This action was to save lives, not to enslave them.  Unfortunately, through sinful, humans created slavery all over the world.

Since this was a short read, feel free to finish out Genesis. There is also going to be a handout posted at lunchtime on Jesus.  Stephanie Downey, your kids are going to love it!!!

 

 

Genesis 43-45

• Click here to read
• Click here to listen

Before we look at this and say why? Let’s remember God’s words to Abraham in Genesis 15.  Chapter 12, 15, 17…Promise, Covenant, Sign.  Chapter 15 was the Covenant so it is good to refer back to when we say “Why?”

¹³ Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. ¹⁴ But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.

We are fulfilling prophecy here, that’s why.  Moving towards this.  God is taking his chosen people and moving them to be strangers in a country not their own.  He is pulling them to Egypt, he is using the famine as a means to do that.  He thinks of everything!

---

Chapter 43: Well, no one seems concerned that Simeon is in prison (Reuben, Simeon, and Levi are the bad kids of this family!). So Judah guarantees his life if Israel allows them to bring Benjamin.  The famine is 2 years in.  They bring gifts with them that are not common in Egypt in order to gain favor (honey, balm, spices, myrrh, pistachios and almonds) oh, yeah and DOUBLE the amount of silver.   When they get there…Joseph sees that Benjamin is alive…and weeps.  Joseph, in keeping with Egyptian laws, eats separately, but makes sure his brother Ben (by the way Ben is my favorite Michael Jackson song in case you were wondering) gets extra.

---

Chapter 44:  HUGE moment!! JUDAH!!  He told his dad that he would guarantee Benjamin’s life…but after all, Benjamin is the “favorite” now to Jacob…so will he really? Or will this be another plan to get rid of him?

So Joseph tells the brothers to go back but LEAVE Benjamin…and Judah says to Joseph…’

³³ “Now then, please let your servant remain here as my lord’s slave in place of the boy, and let the boy return with his brothers. ³⁴ How can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? No! Do not let me see the misery that would come on my father.”

Bless his heart.  LITERALLY…Bless it!  The first 3 brothers disqualified themselves from receiving the Blessing…and actually the birth rite too (search your brain, we talked about birth rites and blessings last week).  JUDAH will get the Blessing.  As Candace pointed out in the comments last week, this is a big deal because the blessing secures the covenant.  The covenant will NOW pass through the line of Judah.  (When you sing at church and you hear the Lion of Judah you will now totally get it!).  Who gets the birth rite?  Wait for it…..if you don’t already know, you will on Wednesday.

---

Chapter 45: I want to point our 2 specific parts.  Although I love them all.

⁴ Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come close to me.” When they had done so, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt! ⁵ And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. ⁶ For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will be no plowing and reaping. ⁷ But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.

If you have a few hours we can break this down!

• When we tell this story we say “Joseph is the one the brothers sold into Egypt”.
• When God tells this story He says “Joseph is the one I sent to Egypt”.
• Why did God send him? Not to just save the family.  God sent him to preserve a REMNANT on EARTH to save lives!

A remnant is ‘what remains’ or ‘what is left’.  When speaking about a remnant after a catastrophe it is ‘what survived’.

If you click on the “Handouts” you will see I posted a timeline.  The family will go through slavery, wandering, battles, cycles with judges, kings (mostly bad ones), a divided kingdom and they will get captured and taken out of the promise land.  So why do we know with confidence that there will be a remnant at the end for the purpose of saving lives?  BECAUSE GOD PROMISED AND SEALED IT WITH A COVENANT in Chapter 15.

The other thing is not nearly as cool to talk about but it’s still fun to note.  verse 17-18.

¹⁷ Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Tell your brothers, ‘Do this: Load your animals and return to the land of Canaan, ¹⁸ and bring your father and your families back to me. I will give you the best of the land of Egypt and you can enjoy the fat of the land.’

Thanks but no thanks!!  We remember what happened to Lot when he lived IN the city.  It was a nice jester, but God will proactively protect them.

Chapel time

This is the time of the week where we share a scripture that stuck out to us. If you go to church and a scripture was read that was new to you, even if you have read it before, God will clarify it like you have never read it before. How did God highlight it for you now?  When you are in God’s word like this, your ears are open to hear all around you in a way that is different than the “dry seasons” of your life.  Maybe it was in a song, or your research, or from the Bible read,  or even on a bumper sticker….Please share.

Genesis 41-42

• Click here for reading
• Click here for listening

Joseph: his brothers abused him, Potiphar’s wife lied about him, and the cup bearer forgot him.  There is a temptation to be resentful, angry,  and depressed.  Two years later…God’s plan, as always,  is still in motion.

Chapter 41:

• I have a question.  Was the Pharaoh here the same Pharaoh 2 years ago, Potiphar?  If anyone has an insight on this I would love to know.
• Magicians: They are scholars that study sciences, reading the stars, interpreting dreams, seeing the future….and some magic. Yes, they were smart, yes they knew magic, they could even preform it with the Satan’s help.  BUT God is in control of Satan, and on this day he kept him on a short leash SO THAT Joseph can be lifted up.
• The dreams were interpreted, all credit going to the Lord.
• A plan was also stated (from God)
• Joseph is the #2 in command of Egypt.  Egypt is THE world power at the time.
• At the age of 30….(if I have a trivia night, that might be a question).  So how long has it been??Joseph was sold at the age of 17!
• So Joseph has 2 sons:
  • 

 

So does this mean we will have 13 tribes of Israel? Spoiler alert. No, Levi does not become a tribe…God has another plan for 1 of the sons.  Levi is carved our for a whole  other purpose.   BUT wait, Manasseh and Ephraim are born from a Gentile woman.  That’s right…we were always grafted in to God’s love.  Think on that for a moment.

---

Chapter 42: The 10 brothers did not recognize Joseph.  Well he has been in Egypt 13 years…as an official he looks and talks like an Egytian (if you are old like me you might hum the song by the Bangels)…he walks like one too.

So why does Joseph send for the missing brother?  And why is Jacob so distressed about this? Why am I calling him Jacob not Israel right now?  Jacob LOVED Rachel.   She gave him only 2 sons.  Joseph and Benjamin.  Have the brothers also abused Benjamin out of jealousy?  Joseph wants proof that his only blood brother is ok.

³⁸ But Jacob said, “My son will not go down there with you; his brother is dead and he is the only one left. If harm comes to him on the journey you are taking, you will bring my gray head down to the grave in sorrow.”

 

Genesis 38-40

• Click here to read
• Click here to listen

We are going to talk about Judah and Tamar.  If you get nothing out of this read here is a free parent lesson.  There is a contraception method called Onanism.  You think I am kidding?? Google it!  The proper term is coitus interruptus.  I am a pretty real mom and bring it on their level, I call it “pull and pray” (my kids want to die when I have these conversations when their friends are over) Hashtag true story…the other day a bunch of high schoolers were at my house and I said “gather around, grab my pen and paper to draw this, we are going to talk about pre-ejaculation and the facts about it”.  Charlie said “mom…don’t”.  Fine…”gather around girls, we are going to talk about Onanism”.  Charlie still wanted to die!

Chapter 38.  You may need this to write on.

Click here to print.

To understand the background on this you need to know why Judah is giving the instructions to his son Onan. If you turn to Deuteronomy 25 you will read what is called the Levirate Marriage (levir meaning “a husband’s brother”):

⁵ If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband’s brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her. ⁶ The first son she bears shall carry on the name of the dead brother so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel.⁷ However, if a man does not want to marry his brother’s wife, she shall go to the elders at the town gate and say, “My husband’s brother refuses to carry on his brother’s name in Israel. He will not fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to me.” ⁸ Then the elders of his town shall summon him and talk to him. If he persists in saying, “I do not want to marry her,” ⁹ his brother’s widow shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, take off one of his sandals, spit in his face and say, “This is what is done to the man who will not build up his brother’s family line.” ¹⁰ That man’s line shall be known in Israel as The Family of the Unsandaled.

The point of this commandment was to have the surviving brother produce an heir to continue the name of the dead brother’s family.  It would not be “blotted out of Israel”.  The child born would be named in the dead brother’s memory however, Tamar was the widow to the deceased OLDEST brother and there was question in Onan’s head about “who would get the inheritance”.  So he ignored the commandment (well, not the fun part) but ensured that he himself would get the birth rite. (Put this in your pocket for later because JESUS will be tested on it by the Sadducees!!)  Back to Genesis:

⁷ But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the Lord’s sight; so the Lord put him to death.

Er was greedy, thinking only of the money.  In the Lord’s eyes that was wicked.  Judah instructed Tamar to wait until the next brother was old enough to build her family line but in verse 12 it says “After a long time…”  JUDAH never fulfilled the commandment of the Levirate marriage. This family line continually goes from deceiving to being deceived.  “What goes around comes around” I say.  Now Judah is deceived by Tamar.  

Tamar now holds:

• the “rod”- a symbol of power,
• the “seal”- maybe a signet ring showing family name
• and the “Crimson Cord!”-a scarlet rope that hold things together.  Stop!! This is too Good!!  Let’s follow this to the pregnancy.

When a woman gives birth to twins it was so important not to mix them up because of birthright and blessings.  (Put’s a whole new light on the Jacob/Esau story where we tend to think about soup and hairy arms.  It was a bigger deal than maybe we read in the past).  At first, Zerah was about to be first born so the thread was tied to his wrist.  However, Perez said “Heck no! I want that thread taken off him and put on my wrist..you can follow that thread to the Messiah, I am breaking out of this womb”.  And he does!  So the crimson cord…the scarlet thread…that hold things together…that identifies the family name….that will carry the rod…is passed to Perez.

We have to move on or this post will be longer than the Bible!

---

I think this story is clearer than most so this was a great read.  I am using a brand new Bible to read so that everything falls on fresh eyes and I don’t look at previous highlights or notes.  Usually I draw hearts around the phrases like “How could I do a wicked thing and sin against God” or “Do not interpretations belong to the Lord”.  Knowing Joseph is a typology of Jesus I always focus on his character in circumstances knowing I would have failed this!  In Chapter 39, we can see that Joseph is to Pharaoh what Jacob was to Laban.  The Lord blessed everything he was in charge of.  Pharaoh could live in peace, even trusting his wife around fine looking men like Joseph.  Other manuscripts of this historical story that God did not feel was part of what He wanted penned in the canonizing of the Bible was: Pharaoh’s wife was an adulteress and she is actually put to death for messing around behind Pharaoh’s back…focus Szymanski…people have laundry to do today!

Pharaoh did not have anything to worry about except…in Chapter 39:6…..the food he ate!  It is evident that this Pharaoh lived in the Capitol, which would be very protected from an attack, so how does one overthrow an empire at such a high level such as Kings or Pharaohs?   Well, you can poison them?  So whether there was plot or not, the highest workers in the kitchen are put in prison.  Clearly, the baker was guilty of something because in chapter 40 it says:

¹⁶ When the chief baker saw that Joseph had given a favorable interpretation, he said to Joseph, “I too had a dream:

The chief baker on the other hand did not get good news.  On Pharaoh’s birthday he does not blow out his birthday candles, but instead of “wishing something would happen”, they actually get to do one thing they wish for.  On this case, he hangs the baker.  (again, put this in your other pocket because party ritual will unfortunately come up again and the the party entertainment that will put John the Baptist to death too.

Have a great day!  I have a feeling some may have paused on the Typology comment so I will post a handout later for you.  As you are doing the laundry pray about your Bible readings so far.  We do not interpret the Bible, the scriptures do that,  but we do get, with help from our Holy Spirit how to apply it in our walk.