The eleventh son of Jacob was Joseph, whose mother was Rachel. “Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his sons, because he was the son of his old age” (37:3). When all the other children know that one child is favored over them all, that will not lead to happy family dynamics. And so it proved to be in this situation.

Joseph had a gift of dreaming and interpreting dreams, which could be good but he used it badly. He told his brothers, “Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf arose and stood upright. And behold, your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf” (37:7). Older brothers might have the maturity just to laugh and say, “Ha, dream on, runt!” But the text tells us, “they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words” (37:8).

When the opportunity arose, the older brothers decided to kill him. But then they decided they might as well make some money off him, and for twenty shekels they sold him as a slave to a trade caravan bound for Egypt. When the caravan reached Egypt, they sold him to the captain of the guard, a man named Potiphar (37:36).

So the dreams of glory come to an end, and the 17-year-old Joseph will live out his life not as the favored son of the patriarch Jacob in the promised land, but as just another slave in a land full of slaves. Except, as it turns out, there are more plot twists to come …

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Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions …” (Mark 10:29).

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So often we have a worthy project and an encouraging beginning, Lord, and we are ready to press on to success: and then everything goes wrong, and it shifts to a failure and disaster, and we feel like we have lost our way. Help us to trust that you can bring good out of the most awful circumstances, for our hearts are frail.

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