HATRED COMES TO A HEAD

Not long afterward, Jacob sent young Joseph on  a journey. The older sons were tending the flocks up north near Shechem, where they  had recently made bitter enemies.  Naturally, Jacob was concerned about his sons, so he sent Joseph  to check on their welfare. Can you imagine Joseph's feelings?  He knew that his brothers hated him more than ever!  How would they like it when he came to them as their father's spokesman?  Nonetheless, Joseph obediently set out. -Genesis 34:25-30; 37:12-14. 

It was quite a trek-in all, perhaps four or five days of walking. Shechem lay about 50 miles  (80 km)  to the north of Hebron. But at Shechem, Joseph learned that his brothers had moved on to Dothan, which lay another 14 miles (22 km) or so to the north.  When Joseph finally  neared Dothan, his brothers saw him coming from a distance. Immediately their hatred boiled to the surface. The account reads:  "They said to one another:  'Look!  Here comes that dreamer. Come, now, let us kill him and pitch him into one of the water pits, and we will say that a vicious animal devoured him.  Then let us see what will become of his dreams. ' " Reuben, however, persuaded his brothers to throw Joseph into a pit alive, hoping that he could rescue the boy later on. -Genesis 37:19-22. 

Unsuspecting, Joseph approached them, no doubt hoping for a peaceful meeting. Instead, his brothers attacked him!  Roughly , they stripped him of his special robe, dragged him to a dried-out water pit, and pushed him in.  Down Joseph  fell! Recovering from the shock, he struggled to his feet, but he could never climb out  on his own.   He saw only a circle of sky as his brother's voices receded. He cried out to them, pleading, but they ignored him. Callously,m they ate a meal nearby.  While Reuben was absent, they again considered killing the boy, but Judah persuaded them  to sell him to passing merchants instead. Dothan was near the trade route to Egypt, and it was not long before a caravan of Ismaelites and Midianites  came by. Before Reuben returned, the deed was done. For 20 shekels, they had sold their brother as a slave." -Genesis 37:23-28; 42:21.

So we find ourselves back at our starting point. As Joseph was taken south along the road to Egypt, he seemed to have lost everything.  He was cut off!  For years, he would know nothing of his family-nothing of Reuben's anguish when he returned to find Joseph gone; nothing of Jacob's  grief when he was deceived into believing  that his beloved Joseph was dead; nothing of his aged grandfather Isaac, who still lived; and noting of his beloved younger brother, Benjamin, whom he would miss dearly. But was Joseph left with nothing at all? -Genesis 37:209-35.

 Joseph still had something that his brothers could never take from him: faith. He knew much about his God, Jehovah, and nothing could rob him of that-not he loss of his home, not the hardships of captivity on the long journey to Egypt, and not even the humiliation of being sold as a slave to a wealthy Egyptian named Potiphar. (Genesis 37:36) Joseph's faith and his determination to stay close to his God only grew stronger through such hardships. In future articles, we will see how that faith made Joseph ever more useful to his God, Jehovah, as well as  to his troubled family. How wise we would be to imitate the faith of Joseph!  

Next time:  WHO MADE GOD?

From the Watchtower magazine, 2014