Genesis 37-39 (Bible-365.13): Joseph and more Bad Sex
Observation
In Genesis 37, Joseph becomes the obvious favorite of Daddy after receipt of his rainbow coat, and his brothers hate him for it (and the fact that he tattles on them). But Joseph arrogantly reveals dreams to them where they serve he (he obviously knows he’s Daddy’s favorite – teenage punk). Jacob sent the kid to the fields to keep an eye on his brothers, but they decide to kill him. Reuben (the firstborn – the one who slept with his Daddy’s third wife) saves him by convincing them to just throw him in a big pot (he would rescue him later). Judah (the second born) convince them to sell Joseph to Ishmael’s descendants (Islam eventually sprouts from Ishmael’s line) and take him to Egypt. They do, Reuben freaks out, they pour blood on Joseph’s coat, his Daddy freaks out, end of story…
In Genesis 38, Judah (the second born) gets married, has three kids, and gets the first a wife. He dies, so he tells the second to make her his wife and produce heirs for the first son (who died). He does it halfway but doesn’t let her get pregnant (pulls out before orgasm every time) – so God kills him too. Judah is afraid his third son will suffer a similar fate, so makes up a lame excuse to get the woman to go back with her parents. Eventually, Judah’s wife dies, his third son doesn’t take the first son’s wife as his own, and she (the first son’s wife) dresses like a prostitute to get her father-in-law to sleep with her. He does, gets her pregnant, and tries to keep it hidden. When he discovers his daughter-in-law is pregnant by an unknown dude, he gets angry and wants her killed. But when he finds out it’s undeniably his kid, he repents of his sin and doesn’t sleep with her again, but lets her live and have the twins.
In Genesis 39, Joseph is the super star. He is put in charge of everything in his slave master’s house because the Lord blesses all he does – until the wife deceives her husband about Joseph’s come-ons (actually, the wife was coming on to Joseph). Still, when the master throws Joseph in jail, he gets put in charge of the whole jail, because again, the Lord blesses everything he does. This is by far the most famous story of Joseph.
Interpretation
Illicit sex and deception are the oldest and most common sins, it seems. Everybody’s doing it. Abraham started it off, Isaac kept up the deception (with Abimelech), Jacob continued it (particularly the deception), and Jacobs kids get tangled up in tons of sex problems. The sex and deception just continue down the line, and even if sex is resisted (as Joseph resists – the first in his whole family line to resist), the temptation is still there. The whole time, through sex or deception, God’s people are just acting in their own best interests (or so they think). They just do what they want to get what they want (or so they think). Everything they do or don’t do is for the matter of self-promotion (or in some cases, self-preservation). But, not one of them looks up to God and says, “Well, what do you think?”
Application
- Deception will always eventually come back to get you. Either through being deceived by someone else (you reap what you sow), or through being found out.
- Sex, sex, sex. Everybody’s doing it, right? But everybody’s doing it wrong. God wants sex to be between one man and one woman in a covenant relationship with each other – where the man provides for his wife and children, and the woman is helper. Heterosexual married sex is the only kind that God approves.
- Tempted? Flee from it! Get out of the house! Run away! Joseph did just that, and God was with him and blessed everything he did.
- Additionally, we’ve seen through this study of Genesis how the sins of the father are easily passed down from generation to generation – even without the sons being completely aware of their father’s sins. But, as Mark Driscoll questions, where along the line will the generational sins stop? Can we make a concentrated effort – through prayer and devotion to God – to halt the sins of our father’s in our families? Joseph is the first in his long family history to resist sexual temptation to such a degree as to literally flee from it while it literally called out to him and caught hold of him. To what extent are we willing to resist temptation? To what degree are we willing to fight against the sins of our fathers to prevent them from being passed on to our own sons?
- One thought for women as well: don’t act like Potiphar’s wife and use your body to get something you want. Don’t tempt the men around you in the way you act or in the way you dress.
- But, Joseph was wrong to reveal his dreams to his family. He ought to have done as Mary did and “treasured these things up in [his] heart” (Luke 2:19, 51). But, Joseph arrogantly revealed them to his family (it can’t have been a case of innocent revelation, because he – and the other brothers – knew who was the favorite son, and he was a 17-year-old punk teenager at that time). We also shouldn’t lord our position of favor over others.
- And again, like Jacob and his forefathers before him, we shouldn’t show obvious favoritism to our children. The effects in our childrens’ lives and futures may come back to haunt us.