Joseph's Tears by Dr. Albert Gaw

Chapter 1. Tears of Betrayal

“WE SAW HOW DISTRESSED HE WAS WHEN HE PLEADED WITH US FOR HIS LIFE, BUT WE WOULD NOT LISTEN (GE 42:21)”

Introduction

Who could have thought that the history of a nation, Israel, could be revealed through the tears of one person - Joseph (as in the Broadway Show, “Joseph and the Amazing Multicolor Dreamcoat”).  For without Joseph, the person who provided for his family to come to Egypt, there would not have been the people of Israel, and the story of Moses and the Exodus.

In the Book of Genesis of the Old Testament, Joseph shed tears five times. Each tear not only revealed an episode in the Israel’s journey into Egypt, but also tells the tale of common human conflicts and emotions — of familial favoritism, jealousy, anger, murderous impulse and plot, and betrayal; of confrontation between the impulses for revenge and reconciliation; of repentance and redemption; of the joy and assurance of deliverance; of saying good bye; and of forgiveness. 

In the next series of articles, I shall describe the story behind each of Joseph’s five tears.

Here, I’ll examine Joseph’s first tear — the tear of betrayal.

Background

Joseph is the 11th among the 12 sons of Jacob. Joseph’s father, Jacob, had 4 wives: Leah (6 sons, 1 daughter) and Rachel (2 sons), the daughters of his uncle, Laban, by marriage.  Both Zilpah (Leah’s maidservant, 2 sons) and Bilhah, (Rachel’s maidservant, 2 sons)  were servants given him to bear children. Together, the wives bore him 12 sons, who became the ancestors of the 12 tribes of Israel. Joseph and his younger brother, Benjamin, were born when both of their parents, Jacob and Rachel, were old. Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah, and because Joseph was born in his old age, Jacob favored Joseph over any of his other sons, and he made a richly ornamented robe for him. When his brothers saw that their father loved Joseph more than any of them, they hated Joseph and could not speak a kind word to him. Jacob’s favoritism sowed the seed of hatred among his other sons toward Joseph.

Then Joseph had two dreams: In the first, he dreamed that “We [he and his brothers] were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my [his] sheaf rose and stood upright, while your [his bothers’] sheaves gathered around mine [his] and bowed down to it.” (Ge 37:7).  He told his brothers about it. They retorted by saying, “Do you intend to reign over us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said.

In the second dream, “This time, the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” (Ge 37:9). When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, “What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?” For this, his brothers became even more jealous of him.

Joseph’s saying bad things about his brothers, lack of tact and immaturity, self-centerness (narcissism), and openly flaunting his favored status by wearing the richly ornamented robe, had provoked an intense hatred among his brothers. At the first opportunity, they plotted to kill him and rid him of the ornamented robe.

The opportunity came when Jacob sent Joseph to find his brothers who were grazing the flocks near Shechem and to report back to him. As it turned out, his brothers had moved the flocks even further from Shechem to Dothan. So, when Joseph’s brothers saw him coming to them in the distance, they immediately plotted to kill him. “Here comes the dreamer!” they said to each other. When Joseph arrived, they stripped him of his robe — the hated richly ornamented robe he was wearing — and they took him and threw him into an empty cistern in the desert.

You could image Joseph stretching out his hand, pleading: “Help! Don’t leave me here. I don’t want to die. I’m your brother.” His sobs and plea, amplified by the resounding echo that shoots up the tunnel of fear in the pit, was drowned out by the cacophony of his brothers’ laughters, above. “Now we’ll see what will happen to the dreamer and comes of his dreams.” That was Joseph’s first tears — a cry of betrayal by his blood brothers (Ge 42:21). 

Fortunately, Joseph’s oldest brother, Reuben, perhaps out of a sense of brotherly pity, convinced the rest of his brothers not to let him die in the cistern but sell him as a slave to Egypt to a Medianite trader for 20 shekel of silver. 

Fast forward 22 years later, unbeknown to the brothers, Joseph, because of his talents and ability to divine the Pharaoh’s dreams, had become the vicar (prime minister) of Egypt, in charge of whole Egypt, including the sale and distribution of grains. There was a severe famine throughout the land, including Hebron, where his father, Jacob, and his family, lived. But only Egypt had grain. So, the brothers came to Egypt to buy grain and bowed down to Joseph. Joseph immediately recognized them but they did not. And Joseph pretended not to know them. The encounter recalled his first dream. Now in front of him were his ten brothers, all bowing down to him, as his first dream foretold. But they were the same brothers who had tried to kill and had betrayed him, and ignored the plea he had had when he was thrown down into the dry cistern.

What would Joseph do? In the intervening period, what had happened to his parents and his brother, Benjamin, who didn’t come with his brothers? At a deeper emotional level, did his brothers realize the hideous act they had committed, of trying to murder their own brother and betrayed him? Had they regretted their action or repented?

And what about Joseph’s own feeling? It would be natural to feel anger, disappointment, and perhaps, the impulse to exact a revenge. Here’s an opportunity now in front of him, just as there was the opportunity, 22 years ago, for his brothers to kill him. What would he do?

The irony is that the events surrounding Joseph’s first tears and the betrayal by his brothers set the stage for Joseph to be the provider that eventually would save his family from famine. It also led his brothers to come to Egypt. How Joseph handle this sensitive encounter 22 years later, and resolve his tears, not only may determine the fate of Jacob and his family, but eventually also the state of Israel as a nation.