I have often said that when the Hollywood writers run out of material, they can go to Genesis where there is enough plot material to keep a good writer busy for years. One of the longest and loveliest of the stories centers around Joseph and his brothers.
We all remember something of his saga from our school days:
- loved child of a mother who dies giving birth to his little brother
- hated by his ten other brothers
- sold by them into Egyptian slavery
- blessed with the gift of dream interpretation
- savior of the whole of Egypt from famine
- marvelously reunited with those same miserable brothers when their hunger drives them to the plenty of Egypt.
The story is wonderfully emotional and human.
One little fact I never learned in Bible Class—When Joseph dies in Genesis 50:24, he makes his brothers swear that when they leave the land of Egypt (and he is confident that their heirs will one day do so), his body is not to be left behind. His coffin is to be taken to the Land of Promise.
The Book of Genesis ends on the note that Joseph is embalmed and placed in a coffin. It takes a bit of biblical sleuthing to discover that, five books later, in Joshua 24, Joseph is buried for the final time.
We read: "The bones of Joseph, which the Israelites had brought from Egypt, were buried at Shechem..." This spot lies on the border of the territory allotted to the descendants of Joseph's two sons.
What an image! Four hundred years after Joseph's death, on a night when Israel was fleeing before Pharaoh's army, when every moment counted, some poor souls were charged with carrying that Egyptian coffin. And they continued to carry it across the desert sands to the foot of Mt. Sinai. Through the 40 years of wandering, they carried it, across the river Jordan, resting it only while they engaged in watching the collapse of the walls of Jericho... We can imagine it even as Cecil B. DeMille never did.
Joseph went with his people because he would not be left in a foreign land.
Talk about keeping a promise. |