Day 20: Betrayal, Exile, and an Empty Well

Today we read Genesis 37, Job 27-28, and Proverbs 3:25-27. We start the Joseph story. I introduce some sources and perspectives from the Jewish tradition that I had not learned before, which I thought was interesting and I hope you think so too. It’s a story about a teenager, favoritism, sibling jealousy, and then the conflict - kidnapping, human trafficking, and a cover-up. Yet, I believe there is a telling in this story about betrayal, exile, and an empty well that lays an expectation to the unified story of the Bible where Jesus will be betrayed by Judas, not Judah - like this story. Jesus will be sentenced to death, which is a similar word to exile in Hebrew and yet we know that Jesus will conquer death, which is why there is an empty grave and His disciples find it hard to believe. Likewise, Reuben, in this story, cannot believe the well, where Joseph was supposed to be, was empty.

Resources:

Marty Solomon and Brett Billing (March, 2021). BEMA Discipleship Podcast. Character Study - Jacob Part I, https://www.bemadiscipleship.com/212 

Genesis: A Parsha Companion by Rabbi David Fohrman

 

Credits:

Podcast music by Stockaudios from Pixabay. Speaker, Dr. Rachel Bodell. Podcast Sound Engineer, Alan Darling. Podcast Artwork, Will Gerard.