When a Nightmare Becomes a Dream
Vayeishev (and dwelled) & Mikeitz (at the end)
Genesis 37:1-44:17
Amos 2:6-3:8;  1 Kings 3:15-4:1
Psalm 112& 40
John 10:22-29

Who is dead? Who is alive? And who's looking?

The Torah "stories" are often proto-prophecies  of Torah  law. Joseph's torn coat is offered to Yaakov as evidence of the brothers' innocence concerning the "ox" Yosef:

"If  a man gives his neighbor a donkey, an ox, a sheep, or any animal to keep for him, and it dies or is hurt or is driven away while no one is looking ,  an oath before the LORD shall be made by the two of them  that  he has not  laid  hands on his neighbor's property; and its owner shall accept it, and he shall not make restitution .  But if it is actually stolen from him, he shall make restitution to its owner .  If it is all torn to pieces, let him bring it as evidence; he shall not make restitution for what has been torn to pieces ." (Ex 22:10-13)

Yaakov uses the legal phrase of Exodus 22:

Then  he  examined  it and said, "It is my son's tunic.   A  wild beast has devoured him; Joseph has surely been torn to pieces !"

וַיַּכִּירָהּ וַיֹּאמֶר  כְּתֹנֶת בְּנִי חַיָּה רָעָה  אֲכָלָתְהו ּ  טָרֹף טֹרַף  יֹוסֵֽף ׃

This exempted the brothers or "guardians" from restitution ( yishalem ) as described in Exodus 22:13:

אִם־טָרֹף יִטָּרֵף יְבִאֵהוּ  עֵד הַטְּרֵפָה לֹא  יְשַׁלֵּֽם

From the time of the first brothers, Kain and Abel, who fought over their "Father's" respect ,  there is the First Mention of mikeitz, which means "at the end." In the story of Kain and Abel, it is  Mikeitz Yamim , "at the end of days" when the brothers bring their mincha offerings. Brothers  bear responsibility for their brothers and sisters.  "Am I my brother's guardian  shomer ?"  Yes.   He was .  And we are.

Although Yaakov was forced to acquit the brothers of wrongdoing from the evidence, he DID NOT BELIEVE them.  We know this because he refused to be comforted.  Mourning takes place in stages of 7, 30, and 365 days.  Yaakov refused to be comforted.   The midrash tells us concerning this, "One can be comforted for one who is dead, but not for one who is still living."  

G uilty  people  can be  acquitted for lack of  evidence   or "doctored" evidence.  It doesn't mean the judge and jury really believe the accused is innocent.  Yaakov is familiar with this proto-prophetic law because he told  Lavan  that when an animal from the flocks was torn by wild animals, Yaakov bore the loss himself even though by common law, he was exempt from restitution if he presented the torn remains. (Ge 31:39 )

Yaakov's hope was justified.   Yosef lived.   Yaakov said, " Od Yosef chai !" Similarly , Yosef's mother refused to be comforted for her children in exile  who  "are not." She believes that they are still alive, and she refuses to be comforted :

Thus says the LORD, "A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children;  she refuses to be comforted  for her children, because they are no more." (Je 31:15)

Rachel the Shepherdess refuses to be comforted because she does not believe the evidence.  The wild, red beast may have torn Yosef away, but she knows  the children  are still alive, and she cannot stop mourning .

Like Rachel, the patriarchs were shepherds. One thing the patriarchs never quite accomplished was  farming  the land  to  produce grain, wine, and  oil for tithes and offerings.  They were shepherds.  Only Isaac  briefly settled toward the fertile plains north of  Be'er  Sheva, and he planted one crop .  Wine and oil require long-term cultivation. Grain, wine, and oil tithes culminate at Sukkot, or the Feast of Asif.  Asif shares the Hebrew root of Yosef .  Yosef dreams of a time when grain will provide bread for Israel to fulfill the promises to Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov.

"...for  behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf rose up and also stood erect; and behold, your sheaves gathered around and bowed down to my sheaf ." (Ge 37:7)

Yosef's grain prophesies of an  exile in economic prosperity . Yaakov had an exile of economic prosperity in Aram, but then he realizes  Lavan  intends to take everything he's earned. Likewise, the wealthy Hebrews are reluctant to leave Egypt, then Yosef's other dream activates. The Hebrew are subjected to the astral deities of Egypt as slaves to Pharaoh's demonic building projects: 

'Lo , I have  had  still another dream; and behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me .' (Ge 37:9)

Economic prosperity was actually an exile that led to harsh subjugation to the gods of Egypt, an  exile of affliction . Two dreams, two kinds of exile.

Yosef dreamed of sheaves of grain. Not since Isaac's youth had the patriarchs planted a significant field.  The text gives the brothers' and Yaakov's interpretation of his dreams, but the dreams were not just youthful narcissism. They were prophecies of exile, connecting Avraham's promise of offspring as numerous as the stars and his vision of exile in the deep sleep and darkness as the sun set, and Yaakov's dream of a ladder connecting heaven and earth, the stars above and the grain below. The baker dreams of bread; the cupbearer dreams of grapes. Pharaoh dreams of grain and cows.
Yosef collects grain "as numerous as grains of sand."  The end of the dream was declared from the beginning, but dreams can become nightmares of exile.

Now the question: what does Yosef really want from his brothers when he toys with them on their journeys to Egypt?

Yosef takes a series of steps designed to give his brothers every opportunity to say more than they are GUILTY.   At each opportunity, they come closer, but even in Yosef's  accusation  that  they are spies, they miss exactly what he says:

"But  Joseph had recognized his brothers, although they did not recognize him.    Joseph remembered the dreams which he  had  about them, and said to them,  'You  are spies; you have come to look at the  undefended  parts of our land .'"

Then they said to him, "No, my lord, but your servants have come to buy food. We are all sons of one man; we are honest men, your servants are not spies." Yet he said to them, "No, but you have come to look at the undefended parts of our land!" But they said, " Your servants are twelve brothers in all , the sons of one man in the land of Canaan; and behold, the youngest is with our father today, and one is no longer alive." Joseph said to them,  (14) " It is as I said to you , you are spies;  by this you will be tested : by the life of Pharaoh, you shall not go from this place unless your youngest brother comes here! (Ge 42:8-15 NASB)

Yosef points out two keys that the brothers miss, and most English translations do as well:

וַיֹּאמֶר  אֲלֵהֶם יֹוסֵף  הוּא אֲשֶׁר דִּבַּרְתִּי
" he  is what I spoke to you about"

The brothers miss the point of the accusation. It is "he" that Yosef is speaking about, himself. He is one of the twelve. Yosef accuses them of being spies, of seeking something that is naked, but they deny seeking anything but to buy grain. They are shepherds, unable to farm the Promised Land. It takes a king to provide the peace necessary to sow and reap sheaves. A king and man of war. Cleverly, Yosef blocks them from asking too many questions about him. If they ask about Zaphenath-paneah, the Egyptians will jail them as spies.

The brothers took Yosef's garment when they threw him into the Pit.   Although  they couldn't know it, Yosef lost his garment again to Potiphar's wife, each time being stripped naked of power, position, and economic leadership in matters of "grain," economic leadership.  The exile  started  for Yosef  inside  the Land, when he sought his brothers at  Shechem  and "blundered" in the field:

A man found him, and behold, he was wandering [ ta-ah ,staggering, erring] in the field; and the man asked him, " What are you looking for ?" (Ge 37:15)

Yosef invites the brothers to a meal. This should nudge their memories of the last meal before Yosef's exile.  While they debated killing or selling him, the brothers reclined and enjoyed a nice meal, ignoring Yosef's screams and pleas from the pit.  Yosef even seats them by birth at the meal, something he couldn't have known...unless he knew.  Even this does not bring them to speak of  seeking  the twelfth son Yosef , only of ignoring his cries.

Yosef uses a shared experience among his brothers: the humiliation of being chased by Lavan and hunted by Esau as their camel caravan went to the Promised Land. Yosef plants a divining cup in Benyamin's sack. After ransacking each brother's belongings, it is found.  This should have reminded the brothers of the humiliating experience they shared with Yosef.  After they'd made a three-day journey out of  Lavan's  "pit,"  Lavan  chases down the caravan and searches ("feels") through everything Yaakov owns except for Rachel's camel saddle.  He's looking for his  teraphim , by which he divines.  Teraphim  are family idols used as oracles.

Yosef was sold in exile to a camel caravan like the one he left Lavan's exile of Yaakov's economic prosperity. He puts the brothers in prison for three days to match Yaakov's three days' head start.   Rachel  secretly stole  the idols because she knew  Lavan  used  them for divination:

But Laban said to him, "If now it pleases you, stay with me; I have
divined that the LORD has blessed me on your account." (Ge 30:27)

Although it is doubtful that Rachel consulted the idols herself, she knows that  Lavan  knows how to consult the demonic spirits and [sometimes] get the right answers. She didn't want  Lavan  to find the caravan before they reached safety. 

Yosef keeps one brother, Shimon, in prison, separating another brother, which is the Seventh Abomination of the Wicked Lamp. He's mirroring their abomination in selling him. Yosef's   request  to  return  with   Benyamin is only half of his tactic. He tests to see  if they will return and seek Shimon.
Shimon was one of two brothers who was willing to go seek their kidnaped sister, Dinah, who had also lost her "garment" to  Shechem .  Yaakov's reluctance to send Benyamin is only one obstacle.  The brothers are in no hurry to return for Shimon. 

Lavan had "felt through" all of their belongings when he pursued them from  sheepshearing after three day's journey.  The shared humiliation of having their belongings rifled by Yosef's steward didn't bring the brothers to say what Yosef wanted to hear. However, the mystery chapter of  Yehudah  and Tamar in the portion now makes sense.  Yehudah  conceived offspring at the  sheepshearing  with Tamar; Yehudah began a transformation with Tamar's nudging. Yehudah alone seeks  to take Benyamin's place  as a slave in Egypt. He performed  yibbum  for two dead sons who had descended to the pit, providing offspring for those who were helpless. 

Jewish tradition says that during Yosef's exile in Egypt, Adonai was "creating Messiah." He was assembling the character traits in Messiah from the lives of Yosef and Yehudah. Provider of bread. Warrior king. Both sacrificial.

The eleven sons heard Yaakov make  an angry declaration to  Lavan . Yaakov  said  that whoever has the idols will die, never thinking that someone might actually have stolen the  teraphim . In effect, Rachel dies on account of Yaakov.  The brothers likewise foolishly offer the life of the offender, refusing to believe one of them could have the divination cup. They still don't connect the events even though they should have remembered that their sacks had been "planted" with money earlier.

The brothers don't connect that Yaakov sent "gifts" to "the man [Yosef]," the overseer of Egypt. Yaakov sent presents ( mincha) from the best of the Land.  Likewise, on their journey home, Yaakov sent gifts to Esau, with whom he'd "wrestled" all night. The "man" is said in Jewish tradition to be Esau's angel. The first fratricide in human history was over the Father's respect for Abel's mincha.

32:13  וַיָּלֶן שָׁם בַּלַּיְלָה הַהוּא וַיִּקַּחמִן־הַבָּאבְיָדֹו 
מִנְחָה לְעֵשָׂו אָחִֽיו׃

So he spent the night there. Then he  selected  from what  he  had with him a  present  for his brother Esau.

Yaakov sent  Esav  presents of "shaggy" animals. He was a shepherd, and he restores  Esav's "garment" by which he deceived.  Yosef  sent dream- grain home to the Land  with his  shepherd-brothers. In return, Yaakov sent back agricultural presents of nuts, sweets, healing herbs, and aromatics:

Their  father Israel said to them, "If it must be so, then do this: take some of the best products of the land in your  bags , and carry down to the man as a present, a little  balm  and a little honey,  aromatic  gum and  myrrh , pistachio nuts and almonds ." (Ge 43:11)

...So the men took this  present , and they took  double the money  in their hand, and Benjamin; then they arose and went down to Egypt and stood before Joseph.

43:15  וַיִּקְחוּ הָֽאֲנָשִׁים אֶת־ הַמִּנְחָההַזֹּאת וּמִשְׁנֶה־כֶּסֶףלָקְחוּ בְיָדָם וְאֶת־בִּנְיָמִןוַיָּקֻמוּ וַיֵּרְדוּ מִצְרַיִם וַיַּֽעַמְדוּ לִפְנֵי יֹוסֵֽף׃

Yaakov sent a  minchah to Yosef as he had sent to Esav, his estranged brother in his return from exile. Because of Yosef's hiding of the silver in the sacks, Yaakov also restores ill-gotten silver for which Yosef was betrayed and exiled, and he sends some of the products listed in the camel caravan that carried Yosef away to exile. 

By inviting his brothers to a meal, Yosef completely exposes himself:

"So  they served  him [Yosef]  by himself, and them by themselves, and the Egyptians who ate with him by themselves,  because the Egyptians could not eat bread with the Hebrews, for that is loathsome to the Egyptians ." (Ge 43:32)

The Egyptians do not eat with Yosef for a specific reason...Egyptians don't eat bread with Hebrews!  We might miss the implication if the text didn't point it out. Although all twelve brothers are together, Yosef is still not mentioned or sought when the brothers break bread. Although among his brothers, Yosef is still apart. Separate. Not missed.

As the brothers couldn't speak a word of peace to him, so Yosef spoke to them harshly:

His brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers; and so they hated him and  could not speak to him on friendly terms.  [ l'shalom ]. (Ge 37:4)

" The man, the lord of the land,  spoke harshly with us , and took us for spies of the country ." (Ge 42:30)

With all these hints, the brothers still do not seek Yosef.

Then Judah approached him, and said, "Oh my lord,  may your servant please speak a word  in my lord's ears, and  do  not be angry with your servant; for you are equal to Pharaoh ." (Ge 44:18)

Finally, the brothers approach Yosef in peace and reverence, calling him "Lord of the Land," yet is this what Yosef wanted?  Their repentance is evident. The conversations tell the reader (and Yosef, who is the one spying on their conversations), that they regret their actions, and they acknowledge the justice of their punishment.  So there's no  reason for Yosef  to continue his charade as long as he does.  

What does Yosef really want? To be  Lord over his brothers? He had that on their first visit. That was not his interpretation of the dreams. His dream was brothers who would seek him and return to the Land of Israel in peace to plant fields, olive trees, and vineyard. They would seek a messiah.

Now Joseph was the ruler over the land; he was the one who sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph's brothers came and bowed down to him with their faces to the ground. (Ge 42:6)

There was no other person in Egypt who could better help the brothers if they wanted to find Yosef. He was the highest  mashbir , a buyer and seller, an economic broker. If anyone knew how to conduct an investigation into Yosef's whereabouts, it was Yosef.  He would have known the Ishmaelite traders and all others. He could have traced the accounting records and located Yosef.


"Joseph was sold in Egypt to Potiphar, a courtier and chief steward of Pharaoh (37:36; 39:1). The sale into slavery in this manner accords with what is known from 18th-century b.c.e. and later  slave inventories which well document the commercial traffic in human misery between Canaan and Egypt." ( Cengage  Encyclopedia.com)

Instead of asking for help,  the brothers say that Yosef is  eineinu :

אַיִן ʼayin , to be nothing or not exist; a nonentity:-else, except, fail, (father-) less, be gone, in(-curable), neither, never, no (where), none, nor, (any, thing), not, nothing, past, un(-searchable), well-nigh, without. 

They don't say Yosef is  dead  ( met ); they say he is  nothing . Just as Rachel weeps for her children who are not. Just as Yaakov refused to be comforted for a son who is not.  They believe he is alive.

Yosef  wants to hear that they are looking for him .

He never hears it because they never say it.

They remain suspicious of him, believing that, like Esau their uncle, he  resolved  to wait and kill them after his father's death. They never sought Yosef because their perception of his role was based on power and position, not sowing grain together peacefully in the  Land to fulfill the Promise.
The Book of Joshua (24:32) completes this story by reporting the burial of  Yosef's  mortal remains in  Shechem  (Ge  33:19 ), where the search for Yosef's brothers started.  

As Yaakov and Rachel could not be comforted in their mourning because Yosef was not dead, so  Yosef still seeks his brothers until they seek him, until they mourn for him in like manner, believing he is alive.

The first  mikeitz  yamim posed the question, "Am I my brother's keeper?"
When asked, Yosef said, "I  am looking for my brothers; please tell me where they are pasturing the flock."

When we dream THAT dream,more than revenge, sympathy, correctness, respect, leadership, authority, approval...

Even with the greatest position a non-Egyptian could aspire to, Yosef only wanted to find his brothers. When they want to find him, then exile can end. Grain, vineyards, and fruit trees can be planted in the Land. Shepherds can also become farmers in peace .

Perhaps it is possible for a human being to be even more than his brother's keeper.  When he is his brother's keeper...and seeker...then he is also his Father's keeper and seeker.

Special Prayer Request

We're requesting that everyone pray for Leah Sharibu's freedom. She was captured by Boko Haram in Nigeria in February 2018. O n August 31, 2019, the Nigerian government confirmed that she was still alive.  Leah was 15 when she was kidnapped from her school. Over 100 of her classmates were also captured by Boko Haram, taken from the Government Girls Science and Technical College in the north-east of Nigeria. One girl died in captivity. All the others were released within a month, but Leah was kept because she refused to deny her faith in Yeshua.

When her classmates were released, Leah was able to pass on a message to her mother: "My mother, you should not be disturbed. I know it is not easy missing me, but I want to assure you that I am fine where I am. My God, whom we have been praying to with you, is showing Himself mighty in my trying moment. I know your words to me during our morning devotions: that God is very close to people in pain. I am witnessing this now. I am confident that one day I shall see your face again. If not here, then there at the bosom of our Lord Jesus Christ."


Spotlight on Israel
Interested in celebrating Passover 2020 in Israel?

If Sukkot is over, then it's time to plan Passover.  Join us in Israel for a Passover seder.  To read about the adventure, click  Passover in Israel.

You can't beat the price for room and board!   Relax, hike, volunteer, explore the archaeological ruins, study, count the stars, or day tour, and choose the number of days you spend at Tamar. 
 
If you're interested in a FULL-SERVICE tour, then please consider going at Sukkot 2020. We hope to have registration and information available soon.

'TIS THE SEASON


'Tis the season for lots of questions about why you do what you do or why you don't do what you don't do.  If you want a great resource for the BIBLICAL foundation of Hanukkah and how it fits into end-time prophecy, specifically the lost sheep of Israel, click  The Seven Shepherds: Hanukkah in Prophecy for the paperback or  Kindle Copy.

As always, we need good reviews on our books.  This helps other readers who are  actively searching for information on a B iblical topic.  This means they are open to a new idea.  You never know how  one review will influence a person to select a book and hear the Word in a different way than ever before. Better yet, give a gift set of BEKY Books to your congregation or your curious friends.  They are affordable!

Even if you didn't purchase the book through Amazon, you can still leave a product review.  Just go to the book's product page and scroll down to "Review this Product."  Even one good line of review is appreciated.

LaMalah Children's Centre

We disbursed the First Quarter 2020 support funds to the Kenya LaMalah Children's Centre last week.  We appreciate your donations at any time, but especially in the "slow" months of winter.  Three of the children will be starting high school, which requires some extra funds.   Thanks to your generosity, the congregations of Kenya and the children of LaMalah were able to enjoy Sukkot.  

If you would like to donate to the Children's Centre through The Creation Gospel, click on the Donate link below.  It will say The Olive Branch Messianic Congregation on your receipt.  Our local congregation is the non-profit covering for our ministry. Checks or money orders may be sent to:

The Creation Gospel
PO Box 846
East Bernstadt, KY  40729

The story of LaMalah is found at   www.thecreationgospel.com.