VaYeshev Genesis 37:1–40:23
Jacob’s Legacy
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In this week’s Parshah we discover more about Jacob’s sons and the men that they were becoming. In previous chapters we read how Simeon and Levi destroyed Shechem in revenge for the rape of Dinah their sister and, in later chapters, we learn that as a consequence of their behaviour their brother Judah will be the spiritual head of Jacob’s sons and that from Judah’s line will come the Messiah. In this section, we find out more about Jacob’s sons and the seeds of the legacy of their relationships. The conflict and its legacy centres around Leah and Rachel and their sons.
Jacob’s love for Rachel coloured his life and affected both his relationship with his sons and their relationships with each other. Jacob had worked 7 years to marry the girl of his dreams only to find on his wedding night her sister Leah so he worked another seven years to earn her hand in marriage, although she was given to him after the week of feasting in honour of his marriage to Leah. She was his passion and this caused great rivalry between the sisters which was passed on to their sons. Jacob’s family life was far from harmonious. He loved Joseph, Rachel’s older son above his other sons – we read that Jacob loved him so much because he was born to Rachel when Jacob was getting on in years (Genesis 37:3). This was the son he had yearned for; the son of his first love Rachel who had struggled with infertility, the son made more precious since the death of his mother who died giving birth to Benjamin. Jacob, on learning of Joseph’s supposed death, transfers this love to Benjamin and we read later that his life was wrapped up in Benjamin (Genesis 44:30). We see the beginnings of this love in his name change. With her dying breath, Rachel called him Benoni –‘son of sorrow’ but his father changed it to Benjamin – ‘son of the right hand’, clearly an expression of his love for both Rachel and this newborn son who is called this to show his special affection for him.
Joseph was clearly spoiled and knowing himself to be his father’s favourite he behaved accordingly, tattling and telling tales on his brothers (Genesis 37:2), Naturally confident, he boasts of his dreams, dreams of his grandeur in which his family will bow down to him; further inflaming the rivalry between him and his brothers which was already a serious problem.
But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him. (Genesis 37:4)
Now, as a consequence of his dreams, they hated him even more. Hate is a dangerous emotion and leads us to places from where it becomes difficult to return from without changing the course of our lives and the lives of others. We see this here as the brothers plot to rid themselves of Joseph. Perhaps somewhere in their hearts was the thought that with Joseph gone their father might love them more, but as their life story unfolds Jacob simply transfers his affections to Benjamin. Leah and her sons seemed to just part of what he needed to do to have a life with Rachel. His family life is severely dysfunctional and there are lessons to be learned here about the consequences of partiality or favouritism which damage people’s hearts and left his sons feeling unloved and resentful.
Interestingly, it is Simeon and Levi who already have blood on their hands who plot to kill him and we see Reuben pleading with his brothers not to kill him but throw him in a pit so that he could come back later and rescue him. The pit was empty and had no water in it. The rabbis note that these pits were rarely empty; usually, snakes and scorpions lurked there and they make the corresponding analogy of the human heart which is never truly empty for when it’s empty of good things like love and kindness it will be filled with scorpions and snakes who will take up residence and they represent our evil inclinations. Yeshua said much the same thing; namely that our words and our actions flow out of what is in our hearts.
The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. (Luke 6:45)
Therefore, if we want the direction of our lives to produce good things for ourselves and others and to glorify God we have a responsibility to store up good things in our hearts; like a well planted garden with an abundance of plants there is little room for weeds to grow and, when they do, a careful gardener will pluck them out quickly. Perhaps we need to cultivate our spiritual lives and our walk with God as if it were a garden: planting the truth of His word and obedience to His will and doing mitzvot, those good deeds which honour God and which He has prepared in advance.
... For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10)
Getting back to our Parshah, we see that Judah also doesn’t want to have his brother’s blood on his hands so he suggests selling him and along come Midianite traders and Joseph’s fate is sealed. But God – I love that phrase – we make such a mess of our lives and then there is the ‘But God Moment’ when He steps in and turns things around and what has purposed evil in our lives and our chaotic messes are lovingly taken into His hands and He turns them around and we see His hand at work and end up seeing not our mistakes or pain but His goodness and love at work in our lives. And this was true for Jacob and his sons. Joseph sold into slavery will succeed and become a powerful man in Egypt and be will be in a position to help his family later. He will be the instrument of God’s blessing and provision and so what his brothers had intended for evil God used for their good.
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)
God had a plan for the descendants of Abraham that was for the blessing of not just his descendants, the Jewish people, but all of God’s creation.
Interestingly, the seeds of rivalry and the character formed in these brothers lives, who became the patriarchs of the nation of Israel, were worked out in the history of their tribes. During the wilderness years after the exile in Egypt the people are led by Moses and Aaron – both Levites, children of Leah, but it will be a descendant of Joseph, a descendant of Rachel, Joshua, who will lead the people into the Promised Land and the Tabernacle is set up in Shiloh which is in Joseph’s territory. Later, when the people want to have a King over them, Saul a Benjamite is chosen by the Lord and when his heart turns away from God he loses his throne to the man whom God describes as a man after His own heart – David, a descendant of Judah. The rivalry between David and Saul mirrors the old sibling rivalry between Rachel and Leah’s sons. This time with David and Saul, the rivalry is between Leah’s sons who are no longer united in rivalry against Joseph.
However, the ancient divisions are seen in the divided Kingdom where we see the alliance of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin in the South. When David became king he established his throne in Jerusalem and the Temple was built there. It appears that the nation and its tribes are united. This peace doesn’t last long though and, after the death of David’s son Solomon, there is a struggle for the leadership of Israel. Solomon too had turned away from God and begun to worship the foreign gods of his wives, therefore God spoke to him and said that He would tear the Kingdom out of the hands of his son (cf. 1 Kings 11) but would leave him one tribe because of his father David and the promises made to him by God: that tribe was, of course, Benjamin, the strong family alliance between Judah and Benjamin continues.
It was Judah who had pleaded before Joseph in Egypt not to take Benjamin when the supposedly stolen silver placed in Benjamin’s bag by Joseph’s servant as a test was discovered. Judah even offered his own life because he could not bear to return to his father Jacob without Benjamin whom he loved. He must have borne the responsibility for the sale of Joseph into slavery deep in his heart; he had broken his father Jacob’s heart once, he couldn’t do it again. The bond between these brothers and their tribes would continue.
As prophesied, there was a revolt led by a descendant of Joseph, Jeroboam, against Solomon’s son and the House of David. Jeroboam then makes an alliance with the remaining tribes and for 240 years the kingdom is divided between the South consisting of Judah and Benjamin and the North with the remaining tribes and Jeroboam and his descendants held the throne in the Northern Kingdom.
Historically, the situation results in the exile of the Northern tribes, who were taken by the King of Assyria and no further mention is made of them and the Lost Ten Tribes remain a great mystery. The history of the Jewish people became the history of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin along with a large number of Levites who were living in Jerusalem and serving in the Temple.
But here comes our ‘But God Moment’ ... it is God’s promise of restoration; the tribes that followed Jeroboam and were lost in the pages of history are to be found by God and restored. The sons of Jacob will be reunited through the Messiah.
And I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. And one king shall be king over them all, and they shall be no longer two nations, and no longer divided into two kingdoms ... "My servant David shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes. They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived ... and David my servant shall be their prince forever. I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore. My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Then the nations will know that I am the LORD who sanctifies. (Ezekiel 37:22-28)
This ‘But God Moment’ is of great significance prophetically because it speaks of God’s faithfulness to His Covenant promises and, personally, because it speaks of the True Shepherd who will not lose a single sheep from His fold, who will go after the one who is lost and who says of Himself that His sheep know Him and know His voice.
Jacob’s legacy was a the formation of the people of Israel – he was chosen by God for this but, sadly, his legacy to his sons was one of conflict, but that conflict was used by God to bring about the restoration of humanity to himself through the Messiah.
This is Leah’s ‘But God Moment’ too, because although Jacob loved her sister Rachel so much more and she must have suffered greatly over this, it is her from her son Judah that Messiah Yeshua (Jesus) traces his ancestry – she was the first wife overlooked by her husband, but not by God.
We all have these ‘But God Moments’ and they are gifts of God’s love and faithfulness to us, evidence of His chesed, and a source of hope in our lives for they find their source in the character and nature of our God.
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