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Old Testament 17 Patriarchal Stage 7 Liberty Home Bible Institute HL Willmington
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Joseph continues his journey in Egypt as a slave to Potiphar. He gains favor and is put in charge of Potiphar's household. However, he is falsely accused of rape by Potiphar's wife and thrown into prison. In prison, Joseph interprets the dreams of the butler and baker, accurately predicting their fates. Two years later, Pharaoh has dreams and the butler remembers Joseph's ability to interpret dreams. Joseph is brought before Pharaoh and interprets the dreams as a warning of seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. Pharaoh appoints Joseph as a high-ranking official and he is given a new name and a wife. Joseph's suffering in prison is recorded in the book of Psalms. Joseph and his wife have two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. Joseph names his first son Manasseh, meaning "made to forget," as a reflection of the blessings he has received despite his hardships. This is number 17 in a series of 80 Old Testament lectures, and we're continuing on with our study of the life of Joseph, and he's now in Egypt, being sold as a slave to someone that is called by the name of Potiphar. This probably was not an actual name, but was a title, but Potiphar was an officer in Pharaoh's Egyptian palace guard, we're told in Genesis chapter 38, and then also in chapter 39. Well, at any rate, he sold as his servant, as his slave, and under the blessings of God, Joseph was quickly entrusted with the entire administration of Potiphar's household. And we'll see this in the life of Joseph wherever we visit him in the book of Genesis that people see that there's something different about his life. All went well for a while in the house of Potiphar, and then, of course, if you know anything about Old Testament history, you know that Joseph is enticed to commit an immorality by the wife of Potiphar, who perhaps was much younger than her husband, but he refuses her continued advances. And his, of course, answer is, how can God forbid that I should do this terrible thing? Well, in an act of revenge, she accuses Joseph of rape. And Joseph, without a fair trial, is thrown into prison, and then he becomes, for a while, the forgotten servant. But it isn't long until he's recognized by the jailer, like Potiphar recognized him on one occasion. And the jailer recognizes his beautiful and his talented character, and he puts him in charge of the entire prison administration. And he makes him the number one trustee, I suppose we would say today. And for some reason, about this time, the anger of Pharaoh is aroused against both his chief baker and butler, and sends them to Joseph's prison. So the butler and the baker and Joseph become friends in prison together. And while in prison, these two men, that is to say the butler and the baker, have some mysterious dreams. And God gives Joseph the ability to correctly interpret each dream. Here Joseph must be compared, I believe, class, to the life of Daniel later on. The two men in the Bible, these men, had this similarity that they could receive dreams, that is to say, they could interpret dreams, and sometimes God would actually allow them to re-dream what the king had dreamed. This was the case in Daniel's position there in Babylon, and it's the situation here. At any rate, here we have his beginning of his ministry as a dream interpreter, I suppose we could say. And so he interprets these dreams to the baker and to the butler. And he predicts accurately that within three days, the king would free the butler, but he would execute the baker. And three days later, on the birthday of the pharaoh, he dealt with the butler and baker exactly as Joseph had predicted that he would do so. He allowed the butler to go free, and he hanged the baker. And so when Joseph said goodbye to the butler, he said, Now you remember me when you get out of here. But the butler forgot to mention anything about Joseph. Well, some two years went by and nothing happened, and I suppose Joseph in prison could have concluded that it doesn't pay to serve God. Here I am sold by my brothers into slavery. I have an unfair rape charge against me, and now I'm in prison, forgotten about everybody. But the Bible says all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are called according to his purpose. And this would certainly include the life of Joseph. And so some two years later, Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, experienced some dreams like the baker and butler once did. In fact, he dreamed two dreams, and they were rather frightening and certainly mysterious to him. And the contents of the first dream was this. Pharaoh dreamed that he was standing on the bank of the Nile River there in Egypt when suddenly seven sleek and fat cows came up out of the river and began grazing in the grass. And then seven other cows came up, but they were very skinny. In fact, they were so skinny that all their ribs stood out. And suddenly, to the consternation of the Pharaoh, he sees the skinny cows descend upon the fat cows, and lo and behold, the skinny cows ate the fat cows up. Well, and then that same night he dreamed another dream. And here he sees seven heads of grain on one stalk. And this was a very healthy grain of stalk, with every kernel well-formed and plump. And then suddenly Pharaoh sees seven more heads appear on the stalk, but these were shriveled and withered by the east wind. And then the dream ended as the thin heads devoured the plump ones in the similar way as the skinny cows had devoured the fat cows. Well, he couldn't understand this, as it was certainly an unusual dream, so he consults his magicians about these dreams the next morning, and they are unable to interpret them. Well, now, the butler, who may have been there at the council meeting, or he may have heard about it, he certainly heard about it, but at any rate, he suddenly remembered that there was a fellow in prison. See, what was his name? Oh, yes, I think his name was Joseph, he was a Hebrew, and he had an amazing ability for interpreting dreams. And so the butler then relates to the Pharaoh those events which occurred in prison two years ago. Well, Joseph is ordered to be released from the prison, and he's cleaned up, shaven, and he's brought before Pharaoh. And then Pharaoh tells him the contents of the dreams, and Joseph, without a moment's hesitation, gives the interpretation of these dreams. And according to Joseph, as he told the Pharaoh, that both dreams meant the same thing. And this is what they meant. The seven fat cows and the seven plump heads of grain meant that there would be seven years of prosperity ahead in Egypt. And the seven skinny cows and the lean heads of grain meant that a seven-year famine period would follow the years of plenty. Well, that seemed to be such a logical interpretation. By the way, Egypt was not unfamiliar with these droughts, and sometimes, and we do have historical records where they last for a period of seven years. And so Pharaoh says, what should we do about this? And Joseph said, well, Pharaoh, if I were you, I would advise you to do the following, to appoint a capable administrator over a nationwide farm program. And then he went on to tell him to divide Egypt into five districts, and the officials of these districts should then gather into the royal storehouses all the excess crops over the next seven years, in other words, prepare for this seven-year drought. Well, the Pharaoh thinks to himself, what better man can I appoint than this dream interpreter? So he appoints Joseph right on the spot to this high office, and then he does seven significant things. Number one, he places his own signet ring on Joseph's finger, and then he dresses him in beautiful clothing, he hung the royal golden chain about his neck, he gave him the chariot of his second-in-command, and he decreed that when Joseph rode along the streets there, that all should bow down to him, and he changed his name from Joseph's to another name which meant literally, the one who furnishes the substance of the land. And then he presents him with a wife whose name is Asenath, and Asenath will later give him two boys, and Joseph is now 30 years of age. One day he's been elevated from the prison to the palace, but it took God 13 years to bring him to this place of service, where we've already seen Joseph was 17 when he first arrived in Egypt. The book of Psalms speaks about this, and perhaps at this point we might turn to Psalm 105, and here we're told a few things that happened while he was in prison that even the book of Genesis did not tell us, and this is the reason we need to compare scriptures. This begins with the verse, O give thanks unto the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the people. That's in verse 1 of Psalm 105. And then in verse 16 we read, Moreover he, God, called for a famine upon the land. Speaking of Egypt now, he break the whole staff of bread. He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant, whose feet they hurt with fetters. He was laid in iron. So here we have Joseph's suffering in prison, not recorded in the book of Genesis, but recorded under divine inspiration by the psalmist. Whose feet they hurt with fetters, he was laid in iron. Until the time that his word came, the word of the Lord tried him. Here we're told that God allowed Joseph to go through these things that he might test him as he tested Abraham, as he tested Isaac, and as he tested other patriarchs in the Old Testament and the New Testament. And as far as that's concerned, the way he tests believers today. Verse 20 of Psalm 105, The king sent and loosed him, even the ruler of the people, and let him go free. He made him lord of his house and ruler of all his substance. So here we have Joseph being elevated and actually becoming sort of the Henry Kissinger of the day in Egypt. Now, Joseph's wife now presents him with two boys. As far as we know, these are the only children that they had. And he names the first Manasseh, and the second boy he names Ephraim. The word Manasseh means, literally, made to forget, or that is to say, the one who makes me to forget. I think that can be compared with the New Testament passage where Paul relates his sufferings. But he said, I count them as dung that I might win Christ. Because Paul's testimony was this, that the sufferings of this world are not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall await us. And I think Manasseh caused Joseph to consider the matter that even the sufferings in prison and the false accusations were nothing now. He forgot about those because of the great blessings that God had bestowed upon his life. Manasseh, meaning made to forget. We need to consider the Manassehs in our life. And God takes us through trials, but he always brings us out. And David says in the Psalms, and he set my feet in a large place, in a large room. I remember a song years ago, I heard George Beverly Shea sing at Moody Memorial Church. And as a young man, how it blessed my heart. I'd never heard it before. This was in the early fifties, a grand old song in shady green pastures, so rich and so sweet. God leads his dear children along where the cool green grass bathes the weary one's feet. God leads his dear children along. And then the chorus says, some through the waters and some through the flood, some through the fire, but all through the blood, some through great sorrow, but God gives a song in the night season and all the day long. Manasseh, meaning made to forget. And then the second boy is called Ephraim, which means fruitful. So these two boys are born at this time. Well, sure enough, in the fullness of time, just as Joseph had predicted, the seven fat years, a great time of crop harvest, were followed by seven lean ones, and causing the people from many lands to buy their food in Egypt. Because soon the word got around that there was a very wise and capable food administrator in the land of Egypt, and they had provided for this famine, and food could be obtained there at a cost, of course. Well, the famine, of course, spread to the land of Canaan, where Jacob and his family was living, and Hebron, and Beersheba, and the rest. And so Jacob now sends his ten older boys into Egypt from Hebron to buy food. I said his ten boys, he had twelve, of course, but he kept Benjamin behind, he was the youngest, and of course he just assumed that Joseph was dead. So these ten boys now arrive in Egypt, and they bow low before Joseph, and he recognizes them. They don't recognize him, but what a meeting this must have been when he sees these ten boys. He had not seen them for some twenty years, and the last time he was the stripling of some seventeen years of age, and now he's vice president of the entire land of Egypt, before Henry Kissinger of his day, a statesman at the age of thirty-seven. This, by the way, was a fulfillment of his dream some time ago. Remember we read that in the book of Genesis 37, that the dream he had, Joseph, where the sheaves of his brothers would bow down, actually bowed down and worshipped him, or gave homage to Joseph's sheave, and this is now coming to pass. Well, Joseph doesn't, of course, reveal himself at first, but he accuses them of being foreign spies. Now, some have wondered whether he was actually torturing them, this was revenge. I'm not sure it was. We certainly do not have any evidence of a vindictive spirit in the life of Joseph. I think later on, even after the death of his father, he could have had the boys killed on the spot, as he could have had them killed at this time, but he forgives them freely. However, I think he possibly wanted them to sweat a little, and maybe later on, before this thing is over, they're going to realize the enormity of the crime that they committed some twenty years before this in selling their own flesh and blood into slavery. I think this was their reason to impress upon them the enormity of their sin. In fact, he puts them in jail for three days, and then he releases them, but he keeps Simeon, which is the second-oldest boy, as hostage until they can return with Benjamin. And you see, he finds out from them, of course he knew all along, but he finds out from them that they have a younger brother, and he said, all right, I'm going to keep the next-to-the-oldest brother, Simeon, and I'm going to keep him as a captive until you come back again and you bring Benjamin, the youngest one, back again, and this will show me of your good faith and that you're really not spies. Well, the terrified brothers acknowledge to each other their present misfortunes had Dallas been caused by the terrible sin committed twenty years back, and so here they're talking among themselves around the marketplace there, and the marketplace has said, you know, we shouldn't have done this, our conscience has been hurting us, and I guess God's never going to let us forget this, and what are we going to do, and we're suffering for our sin. Well, they're talking in Hebrew, not knowing that Joseph can understand every single word that they're saying. Well, he can't take it any longer, Joseph, and so he leaves the room on important business, he says, but he goes out and weeps, and then he dries the tears from his eyes, and Joseph orders the servants to fill the men's sacks, the nine brothers now, because Simeon is going to be kept in jail until the brothers return with their youngest one, whose name was Benjamin, so he orders the servants to fill these men's sacks with grain as they wanted, but also to put each brother's payment at the top of each sack, and then the nine start for home. On route home, about one day out, one of the men discovers his payment, and they said, oh, no, I forgot to pay for this grain, and here's the money here, how in the world did it get here? I was sure I paid for it, and I guess they'll think that I stole that, I guess that crazy administrator there in Egypt will think that I stole that, well, imagine their consternation when they reach Hebron, and the rest, the remaining eight now, open their bags, and they find that the money's also in their bags, and they're really filled with fear, and not only that, especially concerning the safety of Simeon, they feel there's no way we can go back now, we'll really be accused not only of spies, but of thieves, and Simeon Dallas will be put to death. Well, they feel they need to go back to save Simeon's life, and in spite of their earnest pleas, Jacob at first refuses to allow Benjamin to accompany them on a future trip to Egypt. He says, look, my favorite son is dead, he was eaten by a wild animal, and it'll just break my heart, I can't stand anymore, and now Benjamin is the son of my old age, and he's the apple of my eye, and the light of my life, and the sweetness of my soul, as it were, and I just can't risk him, I'm sorry about Simeon, but I just can't allow you to take Benjamin back. But he'll have to change his mind, because the famine intensifies in Hebron, and finally Jacob is forced to allow Benjamin to go with them back into Egypt for food, and either that or they're all going to starve in Hebron. Well, Judah, who is the fourth son, he attempts to guarantee the safety of Benjamin. Do you remember Judah was the one that came up with a plan in the first place some twenty years ago to sell Joseph into slavery? They put him in a pit and were going to let him die, you remember, and then Judah said he was the fourth son, and he said, listen, we should make a little money out of this, and I'll tell you what, let's just sell him into slavery. We don't know why Judah did that. He might have done it because he wanted the money, or he might have done it in some crude way in order to save the life of Joseph, because he might have thought, well, at least the boy will have a chance to grow up, even though he's a slave, if we leave him here he'll die. So whether it was really a secret but misguided attempt to help his youngest brother or younger brother, I should say, or whether it was actually an attempt for money, make a lot of money, we don't know. But Judah now guarantees the safety of Benjamin, and he tells his dad, he said, you can hold me responsible, Pops, if I don't bring back Benjamin with you. So they again, I think with fear and trembling now, present themselves to Joseph, and he takes them to his palace for a feast. And the brothers attempt to convince Joseph's household manager that they have not stolen the payment of their former trip. And they said, you know, you're not going to believe this, but when we got home we saw all this money, and we want you to know. We're not told whether the household manager said anything, but I doubt if he comforted the hearts of these brothers at all. Of course, he knew what was going on, but for some reason his boss, who was next to the king himself, had played this trick on these strangers from Hebron. Well, Simeon is released from prison, and he joins the group. Now for the first time in 20 years, all 12 brothers are together, but of course only one of them is aware of it, and that one is Joseph. So Joseph throws a big feed for them, and the brothers are fed at a separate table from that of Joseph's. He eats alone, but to their amazement he seats them in the order of their ages, starting in with Reuben, and they didn't tell him how old they were, and they probably all looked about the same age. Obviously Benjamin looked younger, but there's no way he could have known how old they were. They thought, of course, they just didn't realize who he was, and they couldn't understand how he could do this. So he seats them in the order of their ages, and he gives them Benjamin five times as much food as the others. Well before they return home the next morning, starting for Hebron the next morning, Joseph once again secretly places the payment money in each man's sack, as he did before. But this time he takes some of his own silver and his silver cup that he drinks from, and he places it at the top of Benjamin's sack. And then they start on their way. Well they just got out of the city, and they were arrested at Joseph's command and accused of stealing silver. And Joseph said, it's bad enough that you stole money, but you stole my silver cup. They quickly denied the charge, and they said, look, this simply did not happen. And they all agreed, because they don't know what's inside the bags, of course, they haven't looked. And they all agreed, said, look, if you can find anything, if any stolen loot can be found on them, we'll gladly agree to serve as slaves. Well a quick search quickly reveals the cup in Benjamin's sack. And they just don't know what to think now. Well standing before Joseph for the third time, Judah now steps forward and begs him to accept his life in the place of Benjamin. And Judah tearfully reminds Joseph that his old father, Judah's old father, Jacob, would simply die if anything happened to Benjamin. I think this is a rather significant passage, even though Judah here is learning a lot of lessons, yet he steps forward and agrees to give his life for the life of his younger brother. And some 18, 19 centuries ago, a descendant from the line of Judah will walk up a dusty hill outside the city of Jerusalem, and there willingly agree to lay down his life for his younger brethren. And younger brethren, of course, are all believers, according to the book of Hebrew. Christ is our elder brother. And the Bible says, because he's done this, wherefore he is not ashamed to call them brethren. And so the great descendant of Judah, the Lord Jesus, the line of the tribe of Judah, will later step forward and volunteer his life for the life of his younger brothers, all believers who repent and accept Christ as Savior. Well Joseph, at this point, simply cannot contain himself any longer. He begins to weep and he reveals his identity to his brothers. I think of all the moments in the Bible, this is certainly one of the most dramatic. Some time ago we're told that Cecil D. DeMille, Hollywood producer, spent some ten million dollars on the film The Ten Commandments, attempting to capture some of the emotion involved when the Israelis crossed the Red Sea on their way to Palestine. And I think that he could have spent ten billion dollars and not have captured the emotion that must have been here when this Joseph reveals himself to his brothers. Well he reminds them after a time of tearful reuniting and everything, and he informs them that the two-year drought they had already experienced would continue another five years. And he urges that they bring Jacob, their dad and his dad also, of course, back with them and make their plans to live in Egypt. He says, now we've got another five years ahead of you, instead of coming back and forth for five years to get food, or maybe a couple times a year, why don't you go back to Hebron and bring dad with you? And I have a little influence of the Pharaoh here, and he certainly did, and we'll make sure that you get some good jobs and places to live here in Egypt. So he reassures his brother now, who are still in semi-shock, that he has no hard feelings, that in fact he said he felt that God had overruled their evil plot in such a manner so as to guarantee that Israel would indeed be a great nation. In chapter 45 you read that. Well, Pharaoh hears about all this, and he rejoices along with Joseph over his restored brethren, and he also invites the entire clan to live in Egypt. Yes, why don't you come down and live with Joseph? And so that's what they do. Well, they go back home and they tell Jacob, and of course the old patriarch at first, he simply can't comprehend the thrilling news concerning Joseph. Then he believes the report and he plans his trip to Egypt. And as he goes now from Hebron, going southeast down into Egypt, he stops a moment at Beersheba, or perhaps for the night, and there at Beersheba God reassures him that he would still bless him even though he was in Egypt. Jacob is told by God that he'll die in Egypt, but that God would bring his descendants back to Palestine someday. Now there's been some controversy as to whether Jacob's trip to Egypt was God's perfect will or was it his permissive will. And we're not sure. It might have been his permissive will, but one benefit, however, was the fact that Egypt was a country in which Jacob's descendants would be forced to remain as separate and a distinct people, for they were shepherds, of course, and shepherds were an abomination to the Egyptians. And thus there would be no intermarriage in Canaan, because the Canaanites, I should say that there would be no intermarriage in Egypt as there was in Canaan. The Canaanites apparently were the integrationists of the day, and we're not going to get into the pros and cons of racial integration except to say that the Canaanites believed in intermingling and mixing religions and everybody settling down and just worshipping the God of your own choice. The Egyptians didn't do that. The Egyptians were the segregationists, and if you weren't an Egyptian, you were a third-class citizen. And God wanted his people, of course, to remain separate and not to integrate not only racially but basically religiously with other cultures or other groups. They were to win them over to the God of Jacob, the God of Israel, but they were not to associate with him and form one ecumenical council, as it were. Apparently this had already begun to happen in the land of Canaan. For example, one of the boys, Simeon, had already married a girl from Canaan, we're told in chapter 46. So they're beginning to intermingle. Because God allowed this to take place, that he might bring the Egyptians, or that is to say he might bring the Israelis, into the land of Egypt where he knew that because of the segregational policies of the Egyptians, they would be forced to remain alone. We see this even in chapter 43, when Joseph eats alone. He was taking an Egyptian position there, of course, even before he revealed his identity to his brothers. He sits at one table and the brothers, who were the Hebrews, eat at another table. So this well may have been God's perfect well at this time in order to keep his people, a peculiar people, a separated people. Jacob enters Egypt with his entire household. And in chapter 46, Joseph and Jacob, father and son, meet in Goshen, the land of Goshen in Egypt for the first time in 22 years. My, what a meeting that must have been. The son is now 39 and the father is 130. Joseph introduces his father to the Pharaoh and then he's given choice land to live upon. As the famine continues, Pharaoh becomes richer and Joseph's wide food administration plan saves untold thousands from outright starvation. And of course, it puts all kinds of money also into the coffers of Egypt and the population of Israel and Goshen rapidly expands in spite of the famine everywhere else. Now at the age of 147, Jacob realizes that his time to depart this world is near and he's still in Egypt. So he calls for his beloved son, Joseph, and his favorite grandsons, Ephraim and Manasseh. And Joseph promises the father, his father, that he would not be buried in Egypt. Jacob reminds him of his promise and he says, Now when I die, I want you to carry me back, not to old Virginia, but carry me back to the cave of Machpelah and bury me there along with Abraham, my grandfather, and Sarah, my grandmother, and Isaac, my father, and Rebekah, my mother. That's where I want to be buried. All right, now he blesses his grandsons before he dies and then he pronounces a special prophetical blessing upon his 12 sons. But first of all, let's look at what he does to his grandsons, his favorite grandchildren, Ephraim and Manasseh. And they stand before their grandfather waiting to be blessed. Then the old man adopts them as his own sons and assures them of an equal inheritance. And even though they were the grandchildren, one generation removed, he promises them an equal blessing and inheritance along with the regular 12 sons. And then he gives them the blessing by laying hands upon them, but he does a strange thing here. Jacob lays his right hand on Ephraim's head and his left hand on Manasseh's head. Well, this sort of displeases Joseph and he attempts to reverse this, switch hands here, pointing out that Manasseh was the oldest and therefore Manasseh should have experienced the right hand of Joseph or of Jacob upon his head. But Jacob refuses to change hands, however, and he predicts now that the tribe of Ephraim, even though it was the youngest tribe, that is to say the youngest son, would be even greater than the tribe of Manasseh. And of course, many years before that, in fact, 147 years before this happened, when Jacob was still in the womb of his mother, Rebekah, along with Esau, that God had told his mother that the younger would be served by the older. That is to say that Jacob, even though he was younger, would be served by Esau. And that took place, and I hear he's doing the same thing now. He's predicting that his youngest grandson will be served by his oldest grandson. Then in chapter 49, Joseph himself and his 11 brothers are blessed by their dying father. Jacob gathers his 12 sons around his bedside just before his death. In chapter 49, verse 1, he said, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days. The New Schofield Bible has the following note on this verse. It says, this is the first occurrence of the term, the last days, in the Bible, a most important concept in biblical prophecy. In general, the expression refers to that terminal period in the history of a particular group of people or nations when God's announced purpose for them is about to be consummated. Later on, especially in the Minor Prophets, we'll be seeing a lot about the last days. That's sometimes also referred to as the latter days or the day of the Lord. It refers to the tribulation and to those days immediately preceding the great battle of Armageddon and the return of our Lord Jesus Christ, when the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ, and he shall rule forever. Very briefly, he pronounces the following prophecies upon his 12 sons. Upon Reuben, his firstborn son, he says this, that he would be as unruly as the wild waves of the sea. He says, as, well, I should say that as the firstborn, Reuben was entitled to a double share of honor and inheritance. In fact, the line leading to Christ, the promised line, should have gone through Reuben, but Jacob passes him over because of several things, including his immorality with Billa, who was Jacob's own concubine. In other words, this would have been his aunt Rachel's handmaiden. And remember, Reuben's mother was Leah, and then Leah's sister was Rachel, and Rachel's handmaiden was Billa. And so here, Reuben has immoral relations some years ago with Billa, and so because of this immorality, not only that it was an insult to Jacob himself, and it showed how little respect the firstborn Reuben had for his dad, he passes him by and does not give him the spiritual blessing that would lead to the line of Christ. The Reubenites, the tribe that Reuben founded, later would settle east of Jordan, and we'll discuss that when we come to the end of the book of Deuteronomy and the book of Joshua, along with the tribe of Ged and half-tribe of Manasseh. And they sort of lived in God's second best. They refused to cross over and live in the promised land, but lived on the eastern side of the Jordan River. In fact, later, the Reubenites almost caused a civil war in the days of Joshua by putting up a large monument on the west bank of Jordan, and this was misinterpreted by the other tribes, and a bloody civil war was averted at the last minute. We're told that in the book of Judges, the Reubenites later refused to help the armies of Israel when they really needed help against a pagan named Sisera and his 900 iron chariots. You may remember, if you know Bible history, that this battle was fought on the Israeli side by Barak and Deborah, and they defeated Sisera finally, but they did it without the help of the Reubenites, who for some reason refused to help Barak and Deborah. So Reuben and the Reubenites sort of have a questionable background in Old Testament history. Well, the next two boys, Simeon and Levi, these were the second and third sons, and Jacob also bypasses these boys, because they were men of violence and injustice. Do you remember that they are remembered for slaughtering the inhabitants of Shechem by deceit? Remember, after the rape of Dinah, or the seduction, I should say, of Dinah, their sister, they trick the Shechemites into circumcising themselves, and then they go in and murder them. So they were very bloodthirsty men. Their descendants, the Simeonites and the Levites, would be scattered throughout Israel. This meant that, especially in the case of the Levites, they would not be given regular land holdings such as were their brother's tribes. And Levi's children dwelled in various cities throughout Palestine, and were told in Numbers 18 that the Simeonites had to share that portion of land that they got that was first given to Judah. And Judah had more than they could take care of, and so the last part of the land was given to Simeon. So the Reubenites, Simeonites and the Levites, they don't come across too good in the scripture either. There were many godly Levite priests, but the boys themselves do not. And then he finally comes to the fourth boy, and that's Judah, and he predicts that the other brothers were to praise Judah and bow before him. And he predicts that Judah would destroy his enemies and would be left undisturbed like a young lion. And then he makes a very, very significant statement here. In Genesis 49, he says, the scepter, that's the ruling stick, as it were, the scepter would not depart from Judah until Shiloh came. And that's a word meaning peace. And so here is the first reference in the Bible that the line leading to Christ once started by Abel, and then after his death was passed on to Seth, and then on through the first 48 chapters in the Bible through various individuals, would now go through one of Jacob's 12 sons, and this would be his fourth son, that of Judah. So you have Abraham, after the flood that is, and then you have Isaac, and then you have Jacob, and now you have Judah. The line was to go through Judah. Okay. And the next boy is Zebulun, and he says this about Zebulun, that he would dwell near the seashore, and of course the descendants of Zebulun did this in the days of Jesus, and that his borders would extend to Sidon in the north, and this took place also. The next son was Issachar, and Jacob predicted that he would be a strong beast of burden, but that he would give up liberty for security. Issachar would do that. Then the prophecy upon Dan, a rather strange prophecy in verses 16 to 18, because here Jacob predicts that Dan would be a serpent in the pathway that bit horses' heels, causing the riders to fall off. We don't know exactly what was involved in this prophecy, but there is no Jewish tradition that because of this, the Antichrist will come from this tribe. Now it is true that in Revelation 7, where the 12,000 Hebrews are chosen from each of the 12 tribes, making up 144,000, the tribe of Dan is missing. In another tribe there was jungling around of these tribes. Joseph is in there now instead of his two sons, and we'll get into this later on, but at any rate, the tribe of Dan is missing there in Revelation 7. In Judges 13 we're told that Samson was from the tribe of Dan. The next boy was Gad, and Gad, he said, would be the opposite of Issachar and would often bravely fight for liberty. In 1 Chronicles 5 and also chapter 12, we find the Gadites did just that. And then the name of the son, Asher, and he says that Asher would produce rich food fit for kings, and in the New Testament, Luke 2, we're told that Anna, who was in the temple awaiting for the consolation of Israel along with Simeon, that Anna was from the tribe of Asher. And so she makes this tribe famous in the New Testament. And then Naphtali was the next boy, and God says that he would become known for his mobility and swiftness as a released deer, and also for his eloquence. We'll stop at this point, and during the next lecture then we'll take the final prophecies upon the two remaining boys, upon Joseph himself, and then upon the youngest, upon Benjamin.
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