Proclaimer Blog
A good judge of character, part 1
How are we supposed to assess the behaviour of characters in OT narratives? It’s not always easy, but the preacher needs to made a judgment. Here’s the first of two test cases which I’ve come across recently in teaching the Joseph narrative to Cornhill students.
It’s Joseph in Genesis 37. Is he presented to us (as one commentator says, and as it’s tempting for the preacher to present him) as a spiteful tell-tale (v.2), a spoiled brat (v.3) and a braggart (vs.5-11)? It’s easy to take it that way. If we do, then in preaching ch.37 we’ll probably portray Joseph as someone who partly gets what’s coming to him, although without excusing what his brothers do to him.
The principle I want to bring forward here is this: we need to look for and accept the judgments that the text itself gives us on people and their behaviour, rather than imposing our gut-reaction on the text. Most people reading ch.37 have a gut-reaction against Joseph – especially if they had a spoilt younger brother of their own! But where is the evidence in the text itself that God intends us to see Joseph’s actions here negatively? Let’s have a look:
• Verse 2. It’s possible that the Hebrew behind the ‘bad report’ he brings about his brothers indicates that he’d invented a lie about them; the commentators debate this.
• Verse 3. Jacob is certainly unwise in favouring Joseph over the other sons; but we’re not told clearly that Joseph himself was spoilt by that.
• Verses 5-11. Is it clear from the text that Joseph should not have told his brothers and father about his dreams? I don’t think so. In fact v.11 hints that it was good for them to know, and Jacob scores more highly than his other sons in taking seriously that this might be revelation from God.
Conclusion: the evidence isn’t entirely one way. But I reckon that it is not clearly leading us to see Joseph’s behaviour as basically reprehensible.
One further bit of evidence clinches this for me, this time from the context. As soon as we encounter Joseph in ch.39, he is a model of godly self-control and trust in the Lord. This is in striking contrast to the episode when his father was effectively kicked out of town by his own family. Jacob had to (literally) wrestle with God and be humbled in order to be knocked into spiritual shape. Joseph, by contrast, seems to arrive in Egypt as basically the finished article. (We might suppose that Joseph was bad in ch.37 and that the Lord sanctified him in the Midianite caravans, but that would be pure speculation.)
What does difference all this make for the preacher? A very big one. If my take is right, then as a whole Genesis ch.37 presents Joseph as an innocent sufferer sold into slavery by his own jealous brothers. Now that is a pattern that Christ gloriously fulfils for us.