Joseph: Faith in God’s Future Deliverance (Hebrews 11:22)

And when you find your place, let's pray together before we begin. Father, we pray that You would open our eyes to Your Word and our hearts to be obedient to it. We pray that the unfolding of Your Word today may bring to us light to our souls, encouragement to weary souls, and strength to those who are weak.

We pray that You would be honored and glorified through our understanding of Your Word and the preaching of it this morning, in Christ's name, amen. Well, there is a hazard to preaching and teaching, and it is a hazard that anybody who has ever preached or taught or stood behind a pulpit hates to run afoul of, hates to run aground of.

Clarifying Hebrews 11:21 and the Jacob Translation Issue

And we do this far more often than we ever want to. Of course, you never want to run aground of a preaching hazard. But the hazard is this, to have something that is crystal clear in your own mind, and then believe in your heart with all confidence that you will be able to explain this difficult thing in the moment when it comes time to explain it, but then somehow those crystal clear thoughts that you don't even need words or notes to articulate, you just…you know that you're going to be able to explain it, sometime between the brain and the mouth, someplace in there is a sausage grinder, and all of those ideas go into that grinder and come out in a form that is completely unedible.

And then in the moment, while you're preaching or teaching, you're thinking to yourself, I could continue to throw thoughts into this grinder, but there's no hope because what I've already said is already so much of a disaster, I might as well just quickly edit the sermon and move on to the next point and either hope that everybody was asleep and that those who weren't asleep understood what I was trying to say.

I hope that that doesn't happen today, but it did happen last week when I was trying to explain the difference between the Genesis account of Jacob and the Hebrews account of Jacob. In Genesis, we read that Jacob worshiped at the head of his bed, and in Hebrews, we read that he worshiped while leaning on the top of his staff.

And after the sermon last week, I thought, well, I hope that that was somewhat helpful what I said, but then in having a conversation with somebody, one of my own children who can usually make sense out of the whatever comes out of the mouth, but after the sausage grinder, he said to me, oh, now that you say that, now it makes a lot more sense.

So then, okay, now I…after getting very little sleep this whole week, what I want to do right now is back up and take another run at this. I hate being unclear, so here it is. In Hebrews, we read that by faith, Jacob, as he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph and worshiped leaning on the top of his staff.

That's Hebrews 11 .21. That passage is cited from Genesis 47, which reads, then Israel bowed in worship at the head of the bed. Now why the difference? Leaning on the top of his staff and bowing at the head of the bed.

The Hebrew word for bed and staff are the same word when they are written, not when they are pronounced, but when they are written. When pronounced, the Hebrew has vowel sounds in there, but when written, it's just a series of consonants.

So the word for bed and the word for staff would look identical to your eye, especially without the vowel points which were added later because Hebrew is just a series of consonants. So you could take the reference to staff or bed to be either staff or bed because it is just the consonants in that word.

Does that make sense so far? So imagine that English were like that. You would be reading along and you would, without any vowels in the English language, you came across the word PCK.

What would that be?

It could be pack. It could be peck. It could be pick. It could be pock. And it could be puck.

It could be any one of those words, couldn't it? You would not know unless you looked at the context what was intended by the author when he wrote PCK. So when the Hebrew Old Testament was translated into Greek, resulting in what is known as the Septuagint, the translators used the vowel sound for that word which would have translated it as staff.

And that is the translation, the Septuagint, that Jesus and the apostles used. That's the translation that the author of Hebrews uses in Hebrews chapter 11. So when they came to Genesis 47, 31, and they read…he leaned on…they would have read that leaning on the top of his staff.

And that was why the author of Hebrews cites that and uses that phrase because that was the translation that he had. Hundreds of years after Jesus and the apostles, and thus also the Septuagint, the Masoretic scribes added vowel pointings, vowel pronunciation in the form of dots and dashes to the words which indicated how those words would have been pronounced.

And they came to the word which could be the word for staff, could be the word for bed,.

Could be pack or peck.

They came to that word and they saw it as a reference then to bed. That's how they would have understood Moses' intention to make that bed. So that is not a contradiction. It is two different renderings of the same Hebrew word, either of which would fit the context and either of which would make sense in that context.

So that's why it's a difference. I feel better about that. I hope you do as well. So thank you for indulging me. Not that you had anything to do with it, you just sat there, but at least you allowed me to get that off my chest and I'll be able to sleep this week.

Joseph’s Faith in God’s Promised Future

But Jacob is not our focus this week, Joseph is, and you may be wondering, how is he going to transition from that into Joseph? I'm not even going to try. Hebrews 11, verse 22 is our text, and just for context, I want to go back to verse 17.

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son. It was he to whom it was said, in Isaac your descendants shall be called.

He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type. By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, even regarding things to come. By faith Jacob, as he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph and worshipped, leaning on the top of his staff.

By faith Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the exodus of the sons of Israel and gave orders concerning his bones. Now that is our passage. That is our text. Hebrews 11, verse 22, by faith Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the exodus of the sons of Israel and gave orders concerning his bones.

He only gets a brief mention here in Hebrews chapter 11, but a lot of text is dedicated to the story of Joseph back in the book of Genesis. And before we turn back there, I want you to notice a couple of details again, just generally speaking from Hebrews 11, before we run back and see what it is that the author is describing or making reference to here in the book of Genesis.

First, as I've mentioned the last three, two, three times that we've been in this passage, the example cited from the life of Joseph comes from his dying moments. That is the same with Isaac and with Jacob and now Joseph.

These are examples coming from their dying moments. And I think that that is intentional by the author. I want to just bring it to your attention again, and we'll move past that. Notice a second thing.

There are two things that are said of Joseph here that demonstrate his faith. The mention of the exodus and giving orders concerning his bones. There's something else that is true of all three of these last examples, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph.

What the author cites as an example of their faith is something, not something that they did, but something that they said. With Abraham and with all of the examples before that, it was something that they did that is cited.

They….

Noah built a boat. Cain offered a better sacrifice, or Abel offered a better sacrifice than Cain. Noah built the boat. Enoch walked with God. These are examples of things that they did which demonstrated their faith.

With all three of these, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, it is not what they did that so much emphasizes their faith or highlights their faith, but something that they said. Now, you might argue semantics and say, well, isn't the act of blessing really something that they did?

It is, but not in and of itself. If the blessing was merely, hey, when I die, you get my guns and my furs and you get my knives and my tools, my power tools, and you get my land. If that was what the blessing was, it wouldn't have been so much an act of faith.

But when those dying men in their dying moments talk about something that they have never possessed that was promised to them, and they're about to die, and they start partitioning out that inheritance, something that they have not even seen or had held themselves, but they start giving that to their descendants, that is faith.

So it is a blessing, but it is what they say in the blessing. They're speaking of things that are yet to come, things that they have never seen, and they were confident of them. So with these men, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, it's what they say that is emphasized.

And one other thing quickly that I want to mention about that all three of them have in common, and this is something I just realized was brought to my attention this last week. For Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, none of those three men were the oldest in their family.

Now it was the ancient custom, and it was the cultural custom, it was the custom of the day for everything that was passed on to the next generation to basically the bulk of it to be given to the oldest person, especially the biggest blessings in the family would go to the oldest born son.

But God's way is opposite of everything that we might expect from a human perspective. Isaac was not the firstborn of Abraham's son, Ishmael was. Jacob was not the firstborn of Isaac's sons, Esau was.

Joseph was not the firstborn of Jacob's son. He was the eleventh of twelve sons. See, God's electing purposes, the way that God intends to do this is not according to what we might think as human beings, and God demonstrates for three generations here that His way of accomplishing His purposes and fulfilling His promises is not what we would just consider a cultural convention.

It's not something that we might expect. It actually goes contrary, the exact opposite of what we might expect. Paul makes mention of this in 1 Corinthians. It's not the powerful, it's not the rich, it's not the noble, it's not the elite that God calls.

Whom does God call?

The foolish, the unwise, the little things in the eyes of the world. Those are the ones that God calls and uses, and this is an example of that. Now, back to Genesis chapter 37. That sort of helps set the stage for us.

Genesis 37, we're going to be looking at the example of Joseph and just taking one week to cover Joseph's life, though more could be done. I was begged by more than one person to do something more than just one sermon on Joseph.

He is, and I could do that, I could easily justify a whole series of sermons on the life of Joseph because Joseph is one of my, I'd have to say he is probably my favorite Old Testament character. His story takes us from Genesis 37 to the end of the book, and it overlaps his father Jacob and his brothers who come down into Egypt to be reunited with him.

Joseph is not introduced in chapter 37, he's introduced back in chapter 30. You don't need to turn there, but in chapter 30, Joseph is born. He is the eleventh of twelve sons. He is the oldest child of Rachel, who was Jacob's favorite wife out of the four.

Rachel ended up giving birth to one more son after Joseph, that was Benjamin, Joseph's younger brother, and she died during childbirth. That's in chapter 35. In chapter 37, the narrative switches, as it were, from Jacob and the other sons of Jacob to Joseph particularly, verse 2 of chapter 37.

These are the records of the generations of Jacob. Joseph, when seventeen years of age, was pastoring the flock with his brothers while he was still a youth, along with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives.

And Joseph brought back a bad report about them to their father. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons because he was the son of his old age and he made him a very colored tunic. 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.

Joseph was obviously the favorite of all of Jacob's sons, and we saw last week how Jacob put Rachel and Joseph at the back of the pack when he was getting ready to be reconciled to Esau, fearing that Esau might still be in his murderous rage.

He put all the other sons and all the other wives out there and reserved Rachel and Joseph for the back of that collection. Well, Jacob's favoritism towards Joseph was obviously so overt, so clear to all of his brothers that they all had that reason to hate him.

Another thing that it says here in the text is that Joseph brought back a bad report to.

Jacob.

What does that mean, brought back a bad report? Was Joseph tattling on his brothers? Or was Joseph just being honest? When he came back, did Jacob ask him a question and Joseph said, well, look, I've got to give you the bare truth of what's going on out in the field, and so he tells his father what had happened, and maybe his father took that and obviously did something that caused his other brothers to know that Joseph had made mention of what was going on out in the field.

Joseph then had two dreams of his own preeminence over them. Look at verse 5, then Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. He said to them, please listen to this dream which I've had, 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.

Then look at verse 8, and let me just pause there for just a second. You would think that by this point, Joseph, I mean, it has been said by commentators that there's nothing ill that is ever reported about Joseph, that he almost has a sinless reputation in terms of the portrayal of him in the book of Genesis.

I would disagree. He may have just lacked the wisdom and discretion that was necessary to know when to bridle his tongue. Look at verse 8, then his brothers said to him, and here is just, I think, the most beautiful phrase in all the story, are you actually going to reign over us?

Are you really going to rule over us? So they hated him even more for his dreams and his words. This was preposterous. The idea that the older would serve the younger, how absurd was that to Jacob's sons?

And here's the irony. They saw in their own father that that is what God had determined. Before Jacob was born, the Lord revealed that the older will serve the younger. That's why Jacob had the promises and not Esau.

But they thought this was preposterous, that the youngest among them would rule them in some way. Then Joseph had a second dream. He didn't learn from telling them the first one. The second one, verse 9, now he had still another dream and related it to his brothers and said, lo, I've had still another dream, and behold, the sun and the moon, the eleven stars were bowing down to me.

He related it to his father and to his brothers, and his father rebuked him and said to him, what is the dream that you have had? Shall I and your mother and your brothers actually come to bow ourselves down before you to the ground?

His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept that saying in mind. They hated him so much that shortly after this happened, then Joseph went out to the field to check on them, and his brothers saw him coming from a distance and plotted to kill him.

Reuben, one of the oldest of the sons, planned to deliver him from their hands. They put him in a pit, and Reuben was going to go back later on and deliver Joseph from their hands. But they ended up selling him instead to a passing band of traders, not traders, genesis 37, verse 28, then some Midianite traders passed by, so they pulled him up and lifted Joseph out of the pit and sold him to the Ishmaelites for 20 shekels of silver.

Thus they brought Joseph into Egypt. Now keep in mind, these were distant cousins of Joseph, they were Midianites. The Midianites were the descendants of Abraham through another one of Abraham's wives, Keturah, and they're called Ishmaelites because at this point, by the time Moses writes this, anybody who was not of the chosen seed of Isaac was referred to as Ishmaelites.

So these were Abraham's, so Joseph's great-great-grandfather, his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, his great-grandfather, this is one of the sons through their great…one of the descendants from another son through their great-grandfather.

Now I don't know if that makes them uncle cousins, cousin uncles, cousins, cousins once removed, second cousins, third cousins. I don't know what that would make them, but let's just for the sake of simplicity, refer to them as cousins, they're Midianites.

So when they see the traders coming by, Ishmaelites, Midianites, they say, hey cuz, come on over here, check this out, we got something for you. Here's one of our brothers, we can sell him into slavery, take him down to Egypt with you and sell him to the highest bidder, which they did.

Then there was this cover-up, they took Joseph's garment, they dipped it in blood and brought it back to Jacob, and Jacob assumed that Joseph must have been killed by a wild animal, and even though the brothers knew that that was not what had happened to Joseph, they did nothing to correct Jacob's leap to that conclusion, and they let him live with this deception.

They became complicit in that deception, and here's another irony of the story. Jacob then is deceived. Remember what Jacob's name means? Deceiver, a trickster, a heel-tripper, right? He was known for his deceptive ways, and now he suffers the deception from his own sons, a deception that results in him living for almost twenty-five years thinking that his youngest son at that time was dead, chapter 38, or second youngest son was dead.

Chapter 38 is the story of Judah and Judah's immorality, and you read chapter 37 and you think, okay, this is a story about Joseph, we're now talking about Joseph, he goes down into Egypt. Then chapter 38 is the story of Judah, Joseph's brother, who hires a prostitute, and that whole thing about the staff and the symbol and the seal and all of that, raising up children, and I don't want to get into any of that.

But you read chapter 38 and you wonder, why is that there? Because chapter 39 goes right back to Joseph. You know why that's there? You know why that one single chapter is there? It is to highlight Joseph's integrity, his moral purity, his uprightness with his brother.

Judah.

Here was a guy who was taken off to a foreign land, put amongst pagans, and look how he behaved himself, and here was Judah who had all the advantages of his family and his brothers and the religion of his father, and look how he behaved himself.

It's a contrast, because it sets up chapter 39, where in chapter 39, after Joseph is sold into Potiphar's house, he serves Potiphar well. Potiphar ends up giving him control over the entire household, verse 6, so he left everything he owned in Joseph's charge, and with him he did not concern himself with anything except the food which he ate.

Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance, and it came about after these events that his master's wife looked with desire at Joseph, and she said, lie with me. But he refused and said to his master's wife, Behold, with me here my master does not concern himself with anything in the house, and he has put all that he owns in my charge.

There is no one greater in this house than I, and he has withheld nothing from me except you because you are his wife. How then could I do this great evil and sin against God? How different that is from Judah and his debauchery in chapter 38.

And Potiphar's wife was relentless with her advances, and Joseph was unyielding in his integrity and his purity and his obedience. She seized him and he fled, and he left in her hand probably a loose-fitting outer cloak which she used to falsely accuse him and frame him for trying to rape her.

So Joseph was falsely accused and put into prison, and by the way, Joseph's integrity and his moral purity cost him more than probably it has cost any other man in the history of humanity. He was thrown into a prison with no hope of ever being released.

He could have been executed for that crime in Egypt. He could have been executed. He got off light with life in prison. And that was what he had to expect. Joseph soon learned that hell hath no fury like what?

A woman scorned. You know that because it's in the book of Proverbs, right?

No, it's not.

But it should be in the book of Proverbs. Some of you going through the Proverbs class are saying, is that in there? Did I miss that? In Genesis 39 verse 23, Joseph being put into prison, distinguished himself by his service.

The chief jailer did not supervise anything under Joseph's charge because the Lord was with him and whatever he did, the Lord made to prosper. And some years into that period of time, Joseph met Pharaoh's cupbearer and baker and candlestick.

Maker.

I may be a little shaky on the details because as Dave said during the announcements, I'm only on my second time through the Bible. But these two men, cupbearer and baker, had dreams which Joseph interpreted, and the dreams, according to Joseph's interpretation, turned out to be prophetic statements of what would happen to the cupbearer and the baker.

The cupbearer was exalted back to Pharaoh's right hand where he served Pharaoh in his court again, and the baker was executed just as Joseph had interpreted the dreams. And then before the cupbearer left, Joseph asked the cupbearer, please remember me before Pharaoh.

Make mention of me. Get me out of this place. I don't deserve to be here. Chapter 40 verse 23, yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph but forgot him. Chapter 41 verse 1, now it happened at the end of two full years.

Pharaoh had a dream. Now, Pharaoh's dreams end up being prophetic. I'm not going to go into Pharaoh's dreams, but there are seven years of abundance that were to come, followed by seven years of famine.

Joseph offers Pharaoh some counsel. Look, during the seven years of abundance, you ought to store up some food, and then during the seven years of famine, you have food for your nation. You'll preserve everybody.

It seemed like wise counsel, so Pharaoh made Joseph ruler over all the land of Egypt. Chapter 41 verse 38, then Pharaoh said to his servants, can we find a man like this in whom is the divine Spirit? So Pharaoh said to Joseph, since God has informed you of all this, there is no one so discerning and wise as you are.

You shall be over my house, and according to your command, all my people shall do homage. Only in the throne will I be greater than you. Pharaoh said to Joseph, see, I have set you over all the land of Egypt.

Then Pharaoh took off his signet ring from his hand and put it on Joseph's hand and clothed him in garments of fine linen and put the gold necklace around his neck. He had him ride in his second chariot, and they proclaimed before him, bow the knee.

And he set him over all the land of Egypt. Moreover, Pharaoh said to Joseph, though I am Pharaoh, yet without your permission, no one shall raise his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt. Then Pharaoh named Joseph Zappanah Paneah, and he gave him Asenath, the daughter of Potiphar, a priest of On as his wife.

And Joseph went forth over the land of Egypt. He has made second ruler over the entire nation. Verse 46, now Joseph was 30 years old when he stood before Pharaoh, king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh and went through all the land of Egypt at 30 years old.

We're only told Joseph's age at three points in his life. When he is sold into slavery, that's the age 17. When he is made ruler over Egypt, that's at the age of 30. And when he dies at 110, at the end of the book of Genesis, which we're going to get to here momentarily, 17, 30, and 110.

This means that Joseph was in either or both Potiphar's house and prison for a combination of 13 years. When he's taken out and made ruler of Egypt, he's 30 years old. When he's sold into slavery, he's 17.

So that's 13 years that he spent between prison and Potiphar's house. We're not told how much in each side, but we do know that he had at least two years that he spent in the prison after interpreting the dreams of the two men, and he had time in prison before that in order to distinguish himself amongst all the prisoners and to be entrusted with all of the keeping of the prison under the watch of the prison guard.

So he had to have been in prison for a period of time. When he stands before Pharaoh at the age of 30, now here's where we're going to get into a little bit of math to show this overlaps the lives of the other patriarchs.

All the kids who listen, they're listening for the word of the day that I might mention whatever it is.

Exodus?

There you go. They're waiting for me to mention the word Exodus. All the adults sit here with bated breath waiting for me to do complex math in front of everybody. This is your chance. Adults, this is it.

Pharaoh is 30 years old when he stands before Pharaoh and is made ruler in Egypt. That's followed by seven years of abundance, and then we find out later on that it is in the second year of the famine that his brothers come down, there's still five more years of famine left.

So he's 30 plus seven plus two, which means that when Jacob and the brothers come back down into Egypt, Joseph was 39 years old. Let's call it 40. We can round up a year because we do have all of the travel time when his brothers came down to Egypt to buy grain, did not recognize who Joseph was, left one of their brothers there, went back to their father, and they ate up all the grain, and then their father, Jacob, sends them back down into Egypt.

And this is not, it's not like traveling from Kootenai to Ponderay. You're talking about a long distance, a long period of time to get from point A to point B. So they go back down in the second time to buy grain again, and there Joseph reveals himself to his brothers, at which time they go back to Canaan to fetch Jacob, and they have to ready all of their family, all of their possessions, all of their flocks and everything and get back and make the trip all the way back down into Egypt.

So let's allow a year for that. So let's say that by the time Jacob got down into Egypt, he was 40, sorry, Joseph was 40, and we know from later on when Jacob stands before Pharaoh that when they get down to Egypt, Jacob is 130.

So if Jacob is 130 when Joseph is 40, that means that when Joseph was born, Jacob was.

How old?

Ninety years old. So Joseph was the son of his old age. Which means that since Jacob buried Isaac when Jacob was 120, that would have been about the same time Isaac dying, about the same time that Joseph was in prison, which means that when his grandfather died, Joseph had already been sold 13 years earlier into Egypt, and he was either in prison or just coming out of prison and standing before Pharaoh.

The first 17 years of Joseph's life, he would have known Isaac. After Jacob gets to Egypt, he lives another 17 years and then blesses Joseph's sons. So if Joseph was 40 when Jacob arrived and Jacob lived another 17 years, that means when Joseph was blessed, Joseph's sons were blessed by Jacob, Joseph was 57 years old.

If Joseph was 57 when that blessing was given and 110 when he died, that means that after his sons were blessed, Joseph lived another 53 years as ruler in Egypt after that. Chapter 50, verse 22, done with the complex math, now we can move on.

Verse 22 of chapter 50, yes, go forward to chapter 50 because I just, in explaining all of that, kind of gave you the whole history of what he got down there and how everybody got down there, and Jacob dying.

Chapter 50, verse 22, now Joseph stayed in Egypt, he and his father's household, and Joseph lived 110 years. Joseph saw the third generation of Ephraim's sons, and the sons of Makar, the son of Manasseh, were born on Joseph's knees.

Joseph said to his brothers, I'm about to die, but God will surely take care of you and bring you up from this land to the land which He promised on oath to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, God will surely take care of you, and you shall carry my bones up from here.

So Joseph died at the age of 110 years, and he was embalmed and placed in a coffin in.

Egypt.

Now that is the event that is mentioned in the book of Hebrews, chapter 11, verse 22, by faith Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the exodus of the sons of Israel and gave orders concerning his bones.

The two things that demonstrate his faith, two things that he said, made mention of the exodus and giving orders concerning his bones. The mention of exodus is in verse 24. He doesn't use the term exodus here, but he does describe what the exodus was in verse 24.

I'm about to die, but God will surely take care of you and bring you up from this land to the land which He promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And the order concerning his bones is in verse 25.

Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, God will surely take care of you, and you shall carry my bones up from here. Now, those two events are connected. They're connected not just because in the exodus they had to carry Joseph's bones up there, but they are connected because both of those commands that Joseph gives, both of those statements that he gives to his descendants and to his brothers expressed his faith in the promise of God to give to Abraham and his descendants the land that he promised.

Joseph knew that God had promised the land to them, and therefore the exodus had to happen. Whatever it would look like, whoever might lead it, whenever that might happen, at some point Joseph knew that God was going to take all of those descendants out of the land of Egypt and bring them into the land of promise.

Why did Joseph know that? Joseph was confident that that exodus would happen because, by implicit deduction, he knew that God would fulfill the promise that he had made to Abraham and his descendants.

Joseph knew that all of those children of Israel down in Egypt, with that in play, that God would not redefine the terms of the covenant, that he would not allegorize the covenant, that he would not spiritualize the covenant, that he was not going to make Egypt replace Canaan.

He was not going to do any of that. Joseph was convinced that God would do exactly what God had said He would do. Joseph didn't know how that would unfold. Joseph didn't know who would lead that exodus, but eventually Moses would.

Second, because God had already spoken of their time in Egypt to Abraham, and Joseph would have known of this and would have remembered it. Genesis 15, verse 12, now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and behold, terror and great darkness fell upon him.

God said to Abram, know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed 400 years, but I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions.

As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace, you will be buried at a good old age, then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete. So Joseph knew God had promised him the land, and Joseph knew that God had already told them, you're going to spend a good portion of time, a good deal of time, three, four generations in another land as servants and slaves in that land, a land that is not theirs.

And that promise of God, that God would bring them up, that they would come out of that land, had to have served as an encouragement and a blessing, not just to Joseph during all of his time in Egypt, but also to all of the children of Israel after Joseph's time when they were being enslaved and suffering.

I wonder if in the darkness of the prison, sitting there wondering as all of those years passed, sitting in that prison, if Joseph was thinking to himself, I'm outside of the land, and I'm the only descendant of Jacob that's outside of the land, and so God has promised that He'll take us out of this.

So however this is going to unfold, God is going to do something to put us into this land, to keep us in this land, to preserve us in this land, and I can't help but think that at some point Joseph might have thought to himself, I wonder if one of these days all of my brothers are going to show up, our paths are going to cross in some way.