Day 27: A Crown and Thorns on a Threshing Floor

Today we read Genesis 49-50, Job 41-42, and Psalms 17. This ends our story of Genesis and Job, but the story of Israel is just beginning. Rabbi Fohrman makes comparisons between the story of Joseph and the story of Esther. He also concludes the story of Genesis with a really cool possibility regarding the dispossessed children of Ham (the Canaanites) and Abraham (Ishmaelites) seeing Joseph (another disposed child) laying his crown on Jacob’s coffin at the threshing floor at Atad and choosing restoration and redemption over vengeance. A threshing floor is a place of judgment in Scripture and Rabbi Fohrman’s Genesis Parsha companion makes the point that Hebrew words used to describe a threshing floor here include the provision that is surrounded by thorn bushes. The picture he paints is that the Canaanites and Ishmaelites came to take from the favored and accepted children but when they saw Joseph, a man like them who had been exiled by the blessed family, a man who chose restoration and redemption over vengeance, this softened their hearts to lay their crowns on Jacob’s coffin creating the visual of crowns surrounding a threshing floor with thorn bushes. For those who have read ahead, this paints a picture like the one we know of Jesus with a crown of thorns who took our place in judgment. Wow. 

Resources:

Marty Solomon and Brent Billings (2021) Character Study - Joseph Part 2. BEMA Discipleship Project https://www.bemadiscipleship.com/215 

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.