As Genesis unfolds, God chooses a line of promise out of the nations. One by one its offshoots are peeled away as the story zooms in on God’s chosen people, Israel. First, the line of Cain is peeled away as Cain is sent out from the presence of YHWH. Though technologically fruitful, Cain’s line doesn’t make it through the flood. Soon afterwards the descendants of Lot are peeled away, last seen in a cave somewhere in the Trans-Jordan. And then in Genesis 21 Ishmael’s turn comes as he is carried off to Egypt.
Consequently, when we get to Genesis 37 and see Joseph carried off to Egypt, it should ring a bell. It should also surprise us. It had looked as if Joseph would be the one to inherit Jacob’s promise—his name, ben-[li]zkunim, means the son of his father’s old age (Genesis 21:2, 7; 37:3; 44:20), the heir clothed in royal garments (compare Joseph’s garment with those worn by Saul’s descendants: Genesis 37:3; 2 Samuel 13:18),1 the one to whom his brothers would bow down (Genesis 37:7–9). And yet we now see Joseph go the way of Ishmael. Stripped of his royal garments, he descends to Egypt, borne there by the seed of Ishmael (Genesis 37:25).2
The parallels between Joseph’s and Ishmael’s experiences are instructive. For one thing, they are underlain by a common cause—the mockery of God’s chosen one. They also make sense of a few of the Biblical narrative’s more unusual details. By way of illustration, consider the text of Genesis 21. Our author provides us with quite a few details in his account of Ishmael’s departure. Abraham gives Hagar bread and a skin of water, which she puts on her shoulder. (Why do we need to know that?) Hagar then wanders in the wilderness for a while, and when her skin of water has run out, she ‘throws’ Ishmael under a bush, walks far enough away not to be able to see him, and sits down. (Perhaps she finishes off her supply of bread while she’s seated there.) These details, and others besides, find a distinct echo in Joseph’s story:
- Just as Hagar is sent out from Beer-Sheva with a skin full of water on her ‘shoulder’ (Hebrew shechem), so Joseph is sent out from Beer-Sheva to go to the region of Shechem (‘shoulder’).
- Just as Ishmael is ‘thrown’ under a bush once Hagar’s waterskin runs dry, so Joseph is thrown into a waterless pit.
- And, just as Hagar leaves Ishmael under a bush and sits down to eat bread far enough away not to be able to see him, so Joseph’s brothers leave him in a pit and, likewise, go far enough away not to be able to hear his cries (Genesis 42:21).
Ishmael and Joseph’s Egypt-bound descents thus have a similar shape and tenor. And, in both cases, redemption comes in a similar form. Hagar ‘lifts Ishmael up’ from the bushes into which he was cast, and, likewise, a group of Ishmaelites lift Joseph up from the pit into which he was cast. Moreover, just as Ishmael subsequently becomes great and marries a woman from the land of Egypt, so too does Joseph.
The commonalities of these two events invite us to read them in light of later events where an inheritor of Abraham’s promise is disposed of and his demise is marked by a meal. An important example is found in Jeremiah 40–42, which Alastair Roberts has helpfully drawn attention to.
As we pick up the story, a vacancy has opened up in Judah’s leadership. The Chaldeans have desolated the land and left a man named Gedaliah in charge of affairs. Against that backdrop, a contender for the throne arises—a man from an offshoot of the royal line whose name happens to be Ishmael (Jeremiah 40:8; 41:1).
Ishmael’s situation and behaviour are very similar to Joseph’s brothers’. He is one of eleven men with whom he sits down and eats bread, and he is evidently consumed by jealousy. He rises up with his men, slays the man whom God has set in authority over him (Gedaliah), and casts his body into a pit/cistern (Jeremiah 41:1–9), at which point Judah’s remnant flees to Egypt (42:1-22).
Ishmael’s behaviour is significant since it underscores the jealousy with which Joseph’s brothers are consumed in Genesis 37’s events as well as their desire to rid themselves of Joseph’s rule. By the same token, it directs our attention towards a greater Joseph-like figure in Israel’s history—the Messiah.
In Jesus we encounter an individual who (like Joseph) is greatly loved by his father and thereby arouses the jealousy/envy of his kinsmen. Jesus is a threat both to the popularity and to the authority of the Jewish leaders. Hence, when Jesus comes to his vineyard, the relevant leaders’ thoughts echo those of Joseph’s brothers—‘Come, let us kill him and take his inheritance’—, which is exactly what they do.3 They seize Jesus, take counsel among themselves (to decide how to dispose of him), hand him over to Gentiles (who flog him and stain his garments with blood), and afterwards sit down to eat (the Passover!). Yet, for all their well laid plans, their actions are soon undone, just like Joseph’s brothers. When they go to the tomb/pit to see Jesus’ body, they find it empty. Jesus/Joseph is gone! They swiftly devise a lie to cover up what has happened (Matthew 28:12–15), but truth will out, and, in a day to come, they will have to face Jesus/Joseph as their lord and judge.
Considered against that backdrop, certain phrases from Psalm 69 seem particularly poignant. ‘I am wearied by my cries’, the sufferer says. ‘My throat is parched’. ‘Mighty are those who would destroy me—those who hate me without cause, who attack me with lies…I have become a stranger to my brothers’ (!). So it was with Joseph, and so it was with Jesus. And so the Psalm continues:
Let me be delivered from my enemies
and from the deep waters…
Let not the flood sweep over me,
or the pit close its mouth over me…
I looked for pity, but there was none,
and for comforters, but I found none.
They gave me poison for food,
and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.
Let their own table before them become a snare,
and when they are at peace, let it become a trap.
In the end, however, the sufferer’s cries are answered, since the Psalm, like the lives of God’s people, ends in praise and glory.
I will praise the name of God with a song…
This will please the Lord more than an ox or a bull…
For the Lord hears the needy
and does not despise his own people who are prisoners.
Let heaven and earth praise him,…
For God will save Zion and build up the cities of Judah,…
And those who love his name shall dwell in it!
James Bejon attends a church in Romford, London, where he fellowships, is taught, and teaches. He presently works at Tyndale House in Cambridge (https://academic.tyndalehouse.com), whose aim is to make high-quality biblical scholarship available as widely as possible.
NOTES
- For an excellent article on the significance of Joseph’s garment as a symbol of authority passed down from father to son, see Benjamin Noonan’s contribution to the volume The Body: Lived, Cultured, Adorned (https://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.890655). ↩︎
- In Genesis, people either go down to Egypt or come up from Egypt (to Canaan) (Gen. 12:10; 13:1; 26:2; 37:25; 39:1; 42:2, 38; 43:4, 15, etc.). The nation of Israel will ultimately do both, and importantly God will go with them: ‘Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt’, God says, ‘for there I will make you into a great nation. I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again’ (Gen. 46:6). ↩︎
- Matthew 21:38 employs exactly the same words as Greek translations of Genesis 37:20, viz. δευτε αποκτεινωμεν αυτον. ↩︎