So far we’ve been considering God’s providential workings more or less in the abstract. I find that it helps me to look at specific, concrete examples of his working to get a better feel for their characteristics; that way I’m more likely to be able to think broadly, positively, and optimistically about what God might be doing in my life, particularly in those times when I’m tempted to think that he’s not paying attention to how hard it is.
I’d like to start with Joseph.
Joseph’s life starts out pretty well. He is the first son of Rachel (Ge 30.22-24), the patriarch Jacob’s great love, the woman for whom he worked seven years (Ge 29.15-18). (Yes, it was actually more complicated than that, but those were the terms he agreed to.) No doubt because of the identity of his mother, Joseph was Jacob’s favorite son (Ge 37.3)—and at the time he had 11 of them. Jacob makes this favoritism obvious in ways that Joseph would have noticed; his brothers certainly did (Ge 37.4).
Joseph has interesting dreams (Ge 37.5, 9). He may not have known that they were divine revelations and thus prophetic, but they certainly showed him in a favorable light. And the fact that he told them to his family (Ge 37.6-11) indicates to me that he was confident around them, perhaps naively so, not suspecting trouble.
In Joseph’s experience, life is very, very good.
And then.
As the Brits would say, it all goes in the loo.
His brothers, unsurprisingly jealous, turn on him, initially planning to kill him (Ge 37.20), then to leave him to die in a pit (probably a cistern) (Ge 37.22-24), but then “improving” the outcome by selling him to slave traders (Ge 37.25-28). He likely walks, hands tied, all the way through the Negeb and the Sinai to Egypt, where he is sold to a government official named Potiphar (Ge 37.36).
We don’t know anything about the early days of his slavery, but it appears that he works hard and well and distinguished himself from day one, to the point where he becomes Potiphar’s house steward (Ge 39.1-4)—better living conditions than a menial slave, certainly, but still slavery. (I once spent an evening in jail. The conditions were reasonably comfortable, but when you’re not free, you’re definitely not having a good time.)
And then.
Potiphar’s wife takes a shine to the young man, and he refuses her advances (Ge 39.7-12). She accuses him of sexual assault (Ge 39.13-18), and Joseph goes to prison (Ge 39.19-20).
I’m told ancient prisons were even unpleasanter than house slavery. (See under “solecism.”)
He has a couple of cellmates who are former slaves from Pharaoh’s court (Ge 40.1-4), and they have dreams (Ge 40.5). Joseph now knows that these dreams are prophetic revelations—maybe he did when he was a kid, but it doesn’t say—and he informs one of the men that he’s going to be released and returned to Pharaoh’s court (Ge 40.9-13).
Which he is. Joseph asks him to put in a good word for him (Ge 40.14-15). He doesn’t (Ge 40.23).
Two years later Pharaoh has a dream himself (Ge 41.1). His slave—finally—remembers the dream interpreter he met in prison (Ge 41.9-13). Pharaoh sends for Joseph (Ge 41.14).
Joseph interprets his dream (Ge 41.15-36), and—here it gets interesting—Pharaoh believes him (Ge 41.37). (Must have been the shave and change of clothes.) Even without any confirmation—there’s no time for that—Pharaoh appoints Joseph to oversee preparation for the famine that his dream predicted (Ge 41.39-45).
And just like that, Joseph is vice-Pharaoh in the most powerful empire of his day—which is worth a lot more than a bucket of warm spit.
Now, here’s what I haven’t mentioned. Four times during this account, the Bible says simply, “Yahweh was with Joseph” (Ge 39.2, 3, 21, 23). The man might well have been tempted to say, “Where is God in my life? Doesn’t he see? Doesn’t he care?”
God was with him. And even though God loved him, and cared about him, Joseph experienced these brutally hard things.
I said, “Even though,” but there’s no contradiction between God’s love for Joseph and the things he endured.
If his brothers hadn’t sold him into slavery, they all would have died in the famine.
If Potiphar hadn’t believed his wife’s lie, Joseph would have lived out his years as a house slave, and his family back in Canaan would still have died in the famine.
If he hadn’t gone to prison, he never would have interacted with a member of Pharaoh’s court.
Could God have accomplished the deliverance of Jacob’s family some other way? Of course he could have. He could have made their jars of oil not run out (1K 17.8-16), or done a thousand other things.
But he didn’t.
His ways are best, even when they’re hard.
Part 4: And Naomi | Part 5: And Esther | Part 6: And the Seed of the Woman
Photo by Katie Moum on Unsplash
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