Parashah Mikeitz
Genesis 41:1—44:173
Notes by Chris O’Quin
© 2007
I. Introduction
II. The Betrayal
A.
The background
narrative of Joseph and his brothers.
1.
He is treated as
the favored son.
2.
Joseph is given
the coat of many colors by his father signifying his leadership status within
his family.
3.
Jacob refers to
Rachel (Joseph’s & Benjamin’s mother) as his wife rather than Leah (the mother
of the other brothers).
4.
The brothers are
afraid of their place in the family on account of Joseph. They believe that they
will be cut-out of the inheritance in the same way as Ishmael and Esau had
been. Remember that up to this point only one son had received the blessing
from their respective fathers, Abraham and Isaac. They had no way of knowing
that Joseph wouldn’t rise as sole heir in the same way as Isaac and Jacob had.
In fact, all indications seemed to be pointing to just such an outcome.
5.
Therefore,
according to many commentators, the brothers were merely acting in justifiable
self-defense. According to Sanhedrin 72a and the Law of the Pursuer in Mishnah
(Sanhedrin 8:7), one does not need to wait until his enemy strikes the first
blow. One can act preemptively. In this way, the brothers made a decision among
themselves to act in a preemptive manner before Joseph could cut them out of
the inheritance.
6.
Was this wrong? The
Rabbis are divided. Some argue that their sin was not necessarily acting
preemptively against their brother, but only in closing their ears to his cries
for mercy from the well. And in a foreshadowing of the future destruction of
the
B. The Betrayal of Yeshua
1. Yeshua is also portrayed as the favored son.
Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your
Law, 'I have said you are gods'? If he called them 'gods,' to whom the word of
God came—and the Scripture cannot be broken—what about the one whom the Father
set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of
blasphemy because I said, 'I am God's Son'? (John 10:34—36)
While he was speaking, a cloud appeared and enveloped
them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. A voice came from the
cloud, saying, "This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him."
(Luke
Just as Joseph could not keep to himself the divine
dreams HaShem had shown him, neither could Yeshua keep silent about his
identity or mission. Given the intransigence of the Jewish authorities, it was
a train wreck waiting to happen. Explain
2.
Yeshua “loosened”
halakhah—something only a king (i.e. King Messiah) was permitted to do. Explain
At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on
the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain
and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, "Look! Your
disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath." He answered,
"Haven't you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry?
He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated
bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven't
you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple desecrate the
day and yet are innocent? I tell you that one greater than the
temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, 'I desire mercy, not
sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son
of Man is Lord of the Sabbath." Going
on from that place, he went into their synagogue, and a man with a shriveled
hand was there. Looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, they asked him, "Is
it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?" He said to them, "If any of you
has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of
it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a man than a sheep! Therefore it
is lawful to do good on the Sabbath." Then he said to the man,
"Stretch out your hand." So he stretched it out and it was completely
restored, just as sound as the other. But the Pharisees went out and plotted
how they might kill Jesus. (Matthew 12:1--14)
3.
Then Yeshua went
on to tell the same leadership that in his coming kingdom they will not be on
his “team.”
Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who
planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a
watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a
journey. When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants
to collect his fruit. The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed
another, and stoned a third. Then he sent other servants to them, more than the
first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. Last of all, he sent his
son to them. 'They will respect my son,' he said. But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each
other, 'This is the heir. Come, let's kill him and take his inheritance.' So
they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore, when
the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants? He will
bring those wretches to a wretched end, they replied, and he will rent the vineyard
to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time. Jesus
said to them, Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone the builders
rejected has become the capstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous
in our eyes'? Therefore I tell you that
the
4. We find that just as Joseph’s brothers justified their
actions in the name of the Law of the Pursuer, so too, the religious leaders of
Yeshua’s day, in effect, used the same argument.
Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a
meeting of the Sanhedrin. "What are we accomplishing?" they asked.
"Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. If we let him go on
like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take
away both our place and our nation." Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who
was high priest that year, spoke up, "You know nothing at all! You do not
realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the
whole nation perish." (John 11:47-50)
5.
Blasphemy may
have been the pretext for Yeshua’s betrayal but not necessarily the crime.
6. And just as Joseph’s cries went unheeded, so too
Yeshua’s enemies were equally callas to his pain.
In the same way the
chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. "He
saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself! He's the King
of
III.
Hidden Identities
1. Joseph
A.
Joseph was alive and
well in
R.
Munk tells us that Joseph was afraid that revealing his situation would cause
the family to break up. Indeed, his brothers, fearing that Joseph would take
revenge, might have decided to flee far and wide, leaving their father to die
of sadness. And so Joseph preferred to wait, knowing that sooner or later,
because of the famine his brothers would appear before him and then he could
reveal himself to them and immediately allay their fears. (Munk, p. 567)
But
more than anything, Joseph needed to know that his brothers had repented of
their jealousy towards Rachel’s sons. It was necessary that they would, in
fact, demonstrate their repentance and atone for their past sin by their
willingness to fight body and soul for Benjamin. Therefore, he would only
reveal himself to them when he was sure that they were ready.
B. How did Joseph keep his identity a secrete?
1. He made a false accusation against them as spies to
keep them from asking too many questions.
2. He kept them off balance by vacillating between
harshness and mercy.
3. Step by step he increasingly forced them to recognize
their utter powerlessness before him.
4. He used the ruse of a magic goblet to intimidate them.
2. Yeshua
A.
Many skeptics of
Yeshua’s resurrection point to the fact that after his resurrection Yeshua did
not present himself to the Sanhedrin. Instead he presented himself only to
those who had been his followers.
B.
But much like Joseph,
Yeshua seemed to be under no compulsion to show himself. In fact, he said:
O Jerusalem,
This seems to be an
allusion to Zachariah 12:10: "And I will pour out on the house of David
and the inhabitants of
C. Similarly, Joseph said to his brothers that they would
not see his face again until they showed him their brother Benjamin.
D. Just as Joseph kept his identity hidden until the time
was right and trusted in the Lord for the outcome, so too Yeshua continues to
wait until
E. We are told in John 11 that after Yeshua raised
Lazarus from the dead the Chief Priests and Elders, rather than show contrition
plotted how they might kill Yeshua. Yeshua would have gained nothing by
revealing himself to those who were not properly contrite.
F. Judaism teaches us that the Messiah is born to each
generation and that he waits to reveal himself to that generation which shows
itself worthy of him.
IV.
Conclusion
A.
Just as HaShem
sent Joseph down into
B.
And in the same
way that Joseph’s mission resulted in the salvation of gentiles from the
surrounding lands, so too many from among the gentiles have been brought into
the family of G-d through the mission of Yeshua.
C.
One thing is
different, however, between Joseph and Yeshua at present. The Rabbis tell us
that in spite of being immersed within the gentile Egyptian culture, Joseph
never lost his distinction as a Jew and never stopped practicing the Mitzvoth.
Sadly, however, the Jesus of the Christian Church seems to have become
completely assimilated into the gentile culture. He has become a product and a
mirror image of our gentile culture rather than being seen for what he really
was. In this sense we might say that the true identity of Yeshua seems to be
hidden from the greater gentile Church every bit as much as it is from greater
Judaism.
D.
It is sobering to
note that nowhere does Scripture tell us that, for example, ten Jews will grab
hold of the garment of one Christian and ask him to take him to church. But we
do read in Zechariah 8:23 that, "In
those days ten men from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one
Jew by the hem of his robe and say, 'Let us go with you, because we have heard
that God is with you.' "
E.
Our challenge—our
opportunity as Messianics is to do all that we can to peel away at the layers
of misunderstanding and misperceptions regarding the mission and identity of
Yeshua and present before the Church and the Jewish nation an accurate and
Scripturally sound picture of Yeshua ben Joseph. And in this way we may be able
to hasten the day of his coming.