When Joseph was with his family, he experienced loneliness because he was the son of his father’s favorite wife, and his father gave him a special coat, marking him as favored over his ten older brothers. But what happened next put Joseph even more by himself. Joseph had a prophetic dream in which his family all bowed down to him. Now the brothers really hated Joseph.
Later, the older brothers were tending sheep far from home, and Joseph was sent to see them. I can see the brothers, sitting around a fire, talking, maybe having some food, and they were talking about Joseph. How miserable were their lives while Joseph was favored over them all. How much better it would be if he were not around. And then Joseph appears. They are far from home. They take his coat, and throw him into a pit. And they sit down again and talk. What will they do? Should they kill him? Joseph is in the pit, hot and dusty in the sun, no water, and he hears the brothers talking.
But then a caravan of Ishmaelites comes by, and the brothers decide to sell Joseph into slavery. The Ishmaelites are no ordinary traders; they are Joseph’s cousins, the great-grandsons of Abraham. Their father and grandmother were cast out by Abraham, because Joseph’s grandfather Isaac was the chosen heir. The journey to Egypt must have been a time of great isolation and apprehension for Joseph, a captive of his hateful cousins. The end of the journey would bring slavery in a distant land, a new culture, with people speaking a different language. Joseph was seventeen.
Help me, O Lord my God: O save me according to Thy mercy. Psalm 109: 26
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