Future
Trends for Joseph; Genesis 49: 22-26
In
this section we are dealing with future trends for the tribe of Joseph. Genesis
49:22-26 covers the prophecy from Jacob on the tribe of Joseph. Remember that
Joseph is actually given a double portion blessing, so there is no tribe of
Joseph per se.
That blessing goes to his two sons Manasseh and Ephraim. At the end of this
section there is a reminder of what Joseph went through in the hostility from
his brothers. This is not primarily a prophecy here as much as we have three
verses that focus on Joseph’s past and the way God has blessed him, the way God
has prospered him in the past so that there is confidence that this will
continue into the future.
Joseph
is the firstborn son to Jacob and Rachel. Rachel had been barren and it wasn’t
for many years that God responded to Rachel’s prayers. Joseph was the next to
last to be born. Rachel is the third of the three wives of the patriarchs who
is barren. You’d think that God had a plan, that there was a purpose here that
their barrenness wasn’t the result of divine discipline but that God was
demonstrating that the physical birth of the nation was supernatural. God was
demonstrating in a physical way that he is the one who brings life where there
is death. He is the one who is able to bring spiritual life where there is
spiritual death. So the point of their barrenness was to show that God had a
specific plan for the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and that He had
a future destiny for them.
Rachel
tried to resolve the problem through the same kind of human viewpoint technique
that Sarah had tried with Hagar and that did not have the same disastrous
consequences as with Hagar. But Rachel had reached a point of desperation, and
how often that happens in people’s lives where they get tired of waiting on the
Lord, they get impatient, and then they start trying every technique they can
to try to resolve the problem. Sometimes God just wants us to be in a
particular set of horrendous circumstances for a long period of time, and we
don’t know why. Job did not know why. We come at life so often with the horrible
assumption, just like Job’s three friends, that of we are going to go through
suffering that God must make that clear to us right off the bat what that
purpose might be. We often say, well why in the world would God want this to
happen to me? Why would I go through these kinds of things? But God is going to
hit us right at those soft spots where we don’t expect it and we haven’t worked
it through in our own souls yet, because that is where the test is. He knows
just where that weak button is that some situation, some test, some crisis, is
going to happen in our life, and we are going to ask why God let that happen to
us. And then we are going to say, why did I say that? That is why, because we
get into these traps but we think that we have it made spiritually and we
really haven’t.
God
opened Rachel’s womb and He intended to do that. It’s just that He intended to
do it on His time schedule and not on Rachel’s time schedule. Genesis 30:22 NASB
“Then God remembered Rachel, and God gave heed to her and opened her womb. [23]
So she conceived and bore a son and said, ‘God has taken away my reproach.’
[24] She named him Joseph, saying, ‘May the LORD give [add] me another son.’” The
Hebrew verb means to increase, do again, or to continue. So she gives him a name
so that when they would say that name it would be a reminder of what God had
done. The thread that is being weaved through this is the importance of memory.
We
live in a culture today where history is meaningless. Once we quit learning the
lessons of history then we are doomed to repeat those same lessons. The history
of people, the history of our own personal life is important. What God has done
in your life is important to think about. To take time out just to reflect on
what God has done in your life, the way He has answered prayer, where you can
go back and have a benchmark on what God has done here or here or here and
think about those things. So that when we go through those down times and we
wonder if God is really listening to our prayers we can think back on different
times when we had evidence that God answered our prayers and was directly more
involved in our life, as it were, than today. God has always emphasized the
importance of history and that is what Jacob is doing as he opens up this particular
prophecy.
There
is a reminder from Jacob of how God had already blessed Joseph. Genesis 49:22 NASB
“Joseph is a fruitful bough, A fruitful bough by a spring; {Its} branches run
over a wall.” It is important to remember God’s past dealing with you as an
individual, and with groups. When the Jews were crossing the Jordan into the
land, what was the first thing God had them do? He had them take twelve stones
and pile them up for a purpose. So that when they came there with their
children, their grandchildren or the great grandchildren, and they ask what the
pile of rocks is, then that will be an occasion for the father or grandfather
to tell the story once again to the next generation of how God brought the Jews
into the land, how their presence in the land was the result of years of
faithfulness on the part of God. History is important because history is the
outworking of the plan of God.
This
is something of a play on words here. In the first phrase it says “Joseph is a fruitful bough,” and the
Hebrew verb there is para, which means to be fruitful, and
this is the basis for Joseph naming his son Ephraim. The core syllable in
Ephraim comes from para, and in Genesis 41:52 we read: “He named the second Ephraim,
“For,” {he said,} ‘God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.’” So
when Jacob reminds Joseph of his blessing he says Joseph is a fruitful bough,
and it is a play on words, a pun, to bring to his mind that his fruitfulness is
coming out through his sons, through Manasseh and Ephraim. They will be the
ones receiving the double blessing of Joseph. A fruitful bough has the idea of
a very strong plant, a thriving plant, and it is a fruitful plant by a well.
When we think of a well we think of a hole in the ground with a wall around it
and a bucker dropping down in the well. That is not the idea here in the
Hebrew. The Hebrew has the idea more of a spring, an active spring where there
is water bubbling out of the ground and flowing down the side of the mountain.
The idea here is of the water bubbling up out of the ground and keeping the
plant well watered, it grows very quickly, it is very active and it produces a
lot of fruit. And that is the way Joseph was. He grew spiritually very quickly as
a young man and God blessed him in many ways, despite the adversity.
Many
people believe that Joseph was a type of Christ. In typology we have to be very
careful, it is something that has gone from one extreme to the other. A type is
a shadow image, it is when God is using a person or an event in the Old
Testament to picture or portray something about the person or work of Jesus
Christ in the future. When we come to Christ there are elements in Joseph’s
life that do portray something about Jesus, even though the New Testament
doesn’t identify Joseph as a type.
Seven ways in which Joseph pictures the Lord Jesus Christ
1)
Joseph was the delight of his father in the same way that
Jesus was the beloved Son of His Father (Matthew 3:17).
2)
He was rejected by his brothers (Genesis 37:4). Jesus in the
same way is rejected by His brothers (John 1:11)
3)
Joseph was sold into Egypt (Genesis 37:28); Jesus went down
to Egypt (Matthew 2:14, 15)
4)
Joseph withstood temptation to sin. We are not really told
of any sin in Joseph’s life (Genesis 39:7-12). Jesus also resisted Satan’s
temptation (Matthew 4:1-11).
5)
Joseph was raised from death of prison and exalted to the
side of Pharaoh (Genesis 41:14-43). Jesus was also raised from the actual dead
and exalted to His Father’s right hand where He is currently seated awaiting
the giving of the kingdom (Acts 2:32-33).
6)
Joseph mercifully forgave his brothers for causing him to
suffer (Genesis 50:15-21). Jesus prayed that the Father would forgive those
responsible for His suffering (Luke 23:34).
7)
Joseph took a Gentile bride (Genesis 41:45). Jesus is
calling out Gentiles to be part of His bride (Colossians 1:24-27).
Joseph
also passed numerous tests of personal hostility and adversity. Hostility and
adversity are just as much a part of God’s plan for the believer as good
things, as blessing, as health, as prosperity. This is because God is teaching
us things in those dark times that we may not understand what we are learning
or how we are learning them. It may not become clear to us until much later on.
It is sometimes in our darkest moments when life seems at its most hopeless and
we are most helpless that principles in the Word of God become more real to us
and we begin to understand the dynamics of different aspects of the Christian life
as we never did before as we are just gripping on to the grace of God just to
make it through the next hour.
Genesis
49:23 NASB “The archers bitterly attacked him, And shot {at him} and
harassed him.” "Archers" here is a metaphor for those who are at enmity
with Joseph, those who are antagonistic to him. Here we have a picture of
adversity. Adversity is the outside pressure of the details of life. We live in
the devil’s world, we live in a cosmic system that is ruled by fallen men, and
even though we have been blessed to have lived in a nation where there has been
the greatest degree of freedom that perhaps any citizens have ever known, that
freedom is gone. Joseph was attacked by those he loved—his own family,
his brothers. The picture here of archers is of enemies who have picked him out
specifically as a target and are shooting arrows at him to destroy him. They
had bitterly grieved him, talking about the fact that it hurt him deeply. When
people reject us, of course it hurts. But that doesn’t mean that we are
justified in responding and reacting in an illegitimate manner, with hatred and
vindictiveness and bitterness. Joseph’s brothers hated him so much they would
not even talk to him. But, in contrast …
Genesis
49:24 NASB “But his bow remained firm, And his arms were agile, From
the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob (From there is the Shepherd, the Stone of
Israel).” Despite the fact that he had enemies from his own family, later when
he was a slave he was falsely accused of rape, in prison he gave a solution to
the butcher and he was forgotten by the one he had helped. Aside from these he
had to go through various other aggravations, being in prison, and yet he
trusted in God, he did not lose his faith and his hope in God.
Commentary
on Genesis by one of the greatest Hebrew scholars of the early 19th
century, a distant relative of President George Bush, and his name was George
Bush:
“The prophecy here points to Joseph in
person, from whose history, its fulfilment appears evident. He was aimed and
shot at, as it were, by the bitter and reviling words of his brethren, and
still more deeply wounded by their cruel treatment. He was sold into Egypt
through envy and imprisoned by a lie. His virtue was violently assaulted by his
mistress, his innocence wronged by his master, and his patience severely tried
by the ingratitude of a fellow prisoner. Yet his bow abode in strength, the
text says, the divine favor forsook him not.”
The
idea in that verse, that his bow remained in strength, is that that which he
had, his life, remained focused on God who was the source of his strength and
the source of his stability. The only thing that gives us stability and
strength in time of adversity is the character of God. How many times do we
read through the Psalms, and as the psalmist is going through whatever attack
it is, whatever the adversity is, he starts going through the character of God.
And we can think it through with him. We can think about the fact that God is
sovereign. That means that he is in control of every detail in history, nothing
happens in our life outside of His control. He is righteous. That means that
His plan for my life is righteous and just. He is love. That means that even
though I don’t understand it I know that a loving hand is at the helm
controlling the circumstances of our life. He is eternal life, which means that
in terms of his eternity He has seen it all, he is aware of it all, and there
are no surprises. When we come to His omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence
we know that is His omniscience there are no surprises, He knew exactly what
crisis we would face today. In His omnipotence He has more power than any
person, any event, any political party, any circumstance in all of history. In
His omnipresence he is everywhere present, He knows everything that is going on
in human history. In His veracity He is absolute truth and when He tells me in
His Word that he will never leave me nor forsake me, and he is never going to
change, He is always faithful.
This
is what Jacob did in the prophecy and what Joseph did in his life. His bow
remained in strength, and the arms were made strong by his hands. Notice the
dual use of the word “hands” here. His hands were made string by the hand of
the Mighty God of Jacob. God doesn’t have literal hands but when we read in
Scripture “the hands of God” it is always a picture of His omnipotence, His
power, of His unlimited strength. Six times in the Scripture we have this
phrase related to “the God of Jacob.”
In
Psalm 132:2 NASB “How he swore to the LORD [Yahweh] And
vowed to the Mighty One of Jacob.” Notice that every time there is this phrase,
other than Genesis 49 where we have the Mighty One of Israel, the Mighty One of
Jacob. Remember that Israel was Jacob’s second name that God gave him. In the
rest of the Old Testament in the other five uses of this it always is
appositional to the name Yahweh. Yahweh is the Mighty One of Jacob. The name Yahweh ties God to that Abrahamic
promise that is the core of Jacob’s strength.
Isaiah
49:26 NASB “I will feed your oppressors with their own flesh, And
they will become drunk with their own blood as with sweet wine; And all flesh
will know that I, the LORD [Yahweh], am your Savior And your Redeemer, the Mighty One of
Jacob.” When we read this and the name Yahweh, the concept of Mighty One of Jacob, it
ought to remind us of those two key events in Jacob’s life. One occurred as he
was leaving the land to go north to Padan-aram when he was escaping the wrath
of Esau and seeking refuge with his cousins up north, and God appeared to him
at Bethel to reiterate the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant and says he will
bring him back to the land and will fulfil to Jacob all the promises that he
had made to Abraham and Isaac—Genesis 28:13-22. Then in Genesis 32:24 he
returns to a place called Peniel where again God reiterated to him the promise
that He would fulfil the Abrahamic covenant to him.
Then
in v. 24: “From there is the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel.” He is the
shepherd, and the imagery of shepherd is first used in the Bible of God in
Genesis 48:15 NASB “He blessed Joseph, and said, “The God before
whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, The God who has been my shepherd all
my life to this day.” We get the same thing in the New Testament; that a
pastor’s job is to shepherd, his job is to lead. The pastor leads the sheep to
where they can be fed, but the pastor also protects the flock from false
doctrine, from those who would come in and bring heresy and mislead the flock.
This
reminds us of what David says in Psalm 23:1 NASB “The LORD is my
shepherd, I shall not want.” That is true for every believer, that the Lord is
our shepherd. He is the one who leads us, the one who guides us, the one who
provides for us, and the result is, when the Lord is our shepherd, we have no
wants. When God is your God, there are no needs. You may think you have needs,
but when God is your God there are no needs. He has given you, according to 2
Peter 1:2, 3, and blessed us with everything related to life and godliness. Psalm
23:3 NASB “He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me
beside quiet waters.” The picture of the nourishment: the green pastures, the
still waters; that is what restores the soul. It is the Word of God that
restores the soul. The reason it is messed up and fragmented is because of
carnality, and the only solution to carnality is the Word of God.
Psalm
23:4 NASB “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they
comfort me.” The most extreme form adversity that we can think of where our
very life is threatened, “You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they
comfort me. [5] You prepare a table before me [the Word of God] in the presence
of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; My cup overflows. [6] Surely
goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life, And I will
dwell in the house of the LORD forever.” That relates to the concept of God as the
shepherd.
Then
He is the stone of Israel. We have the imagery again and again and again in the
Psalms that God is our Rock, our fortress. That is why we have the whole
imagery of the soul fortress, that when we take in the Word of God and apply
the Word of God it builds and inner fortress of strength in our soul so that is
becomes edified and built up, so that as we dwell within the foundation, within
the walls developed on the basis of that doctrine we can handle any and every
adversity in life.
Genesis
49:25 NASB “From the God of your father who helps you, And by the
Almighty who blesses you {With} blessings of heaven above, Blessings of the
deep that lies beneath, Blessings of the breasts and of the womb.” Then we have
“God of they father.” This reflects the Abrahamic promise of God’s faithfulness
to Jacob. We go back to Genesis 28:13 NASB “…“I am the LORD, the God of
your father Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie, I will
give it to you and to your descendants.” The Hebrew word for “Almighty” in v.
25 is the word Shaddai,
the name for God that is used two or three times in Genesis, but most
frequently in Job where it is used 31 times. It indicates God as the Almighty
God. The Septuagint translates it pantokrator
[pantokratwr], all-powerful, and again it emphasizes His omnipotence.
The blessing that we have comes from this God who is all-powerful, all-knowing
and is everywhere present. He goes on to say, “Blessings of the breasts and of
the womb,” and the imagery there is of a mother nourishing her children. The
idea is that God is the one who can continuously nourish us and provide for us.
Genesis
49:26 NASB “The blessings of your father Have surpassed the
blessings of my ancestors Up to the utmost bound of the everlasting hills; May
they be on the head of Joseph, And on the crown of the head of the one
distinguished among his brothers.” Jacob is talking about how God blessed him.
He is talking about the transfer of the Abrahamic blessing on to the next
generation to Joseph and then on to his descendants.
So
in this prophecy related to Joseph he talks all the way through about how God
has blessed him. Over and over again we have this emphasis on blessing and it
all ties back to the Abrahamic covenant and the Abrahamic blessing, and that
this is going to continue through Joseph.