WITH JOY

 

I was reading the prophecies of Joseph in the Joseph Smith Translation yesterday and was overcome with emotion. I understood for the first time exactly why Joseph was blessed with the double portion of Jacob’s inheritance. This man was exceptional.

Chapter 50 of the JST begins with Joseph approaching death and saying to his brethren "... I go down to my grave with joy" (JST Genesis 50:24). Ever the optimist, he saw his life in balance. In “The Testament of the Patriarchs” he says this in his own words:  "My brethren hated me...they wanted to kill me.....into a cistern they lowered me....they sold me into slavery.....I was taken into captivity....I was overtaken by hunger....I was alone....I was in weakness...I was in prison.....I was in bonds....assaulted by bitter words of the Egyptians...a slave" (The Old Testament Pseudepigraha, p 819).

But then this: "....the Lord loved me....the God of my fathers preserved me...the Most High raised me up....the Lord of all set me free....the strength of His hand came to my aid....the Lord himself fed me generously....God came to help me.....the Lord showed His concern for me...the Saviour acted graciously in my behalf......He rescued me and He exalted me." (The OT Pseudepigraha, p 819)

I cried at the end of chapter 50 when I read he requested that his bones be carried out of Egypt: “So Joseph died when he was an hundred and ten years old and they embalmed him and they put him in a coffin in Egypt; and he was kept from burial by the children of Israel, that he might be carried up and laid in the sepulchre with his father….” (JST 50:37,38)

Joseph’s greatest joy before he died centered on the promises he received from the Lord regarding his posterity through his sons Ephraim and Manasseh….namely, a deliverance from bondage and ‘a righteous branch that shall be carried off into a far country’ (JST 50:24,25):

“I suppose Jacob saw this land as well as Moses, and he designated it a….. very distant land. He said this land was over and above, what his progenitors gave to him and he would give it to Joseph…..The precious things of heaven were to be given to Joseph on this land. Blessed of the Lord be his land for the precious things of heaven, more precious than the fullness of earth…..more precious than the gold and silver of the earth. The precious things of heaven revealed to the people of Joseph on the great land given to them unto the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills.” (Orson Pratt, in “Journal of Discourses”, 18:167-68; see also Genesis 49:26)

And so Lehi of the tribe of Manasseh (Alma 10:3) and Ishmael of the tribe of Ephraim (see Erastus Snow, in “Journal of Discourses”, 23:184-85), arrived in the most precious land ‘unto the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills’ in 600 B.C. to fulfil the promise made to Joseph about his posterity.

You who stand on the hallowed ground of America and claim it as your home….know what a privilege it is to be born and bred there. Your land belongs to Joseph, your patriarch and the prototype of Him who ultimately owns everything…..our God of Israel, who so freely gives, who guards the land of everlasting hills and all His promises faithfully fulfills…..

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Focus on Joy by Michael Malm)

THE POWER OF PREPARATION

 

Joseph, the son of Jacob, would have to be the greatest example of the importance of preparation. Joseph started off as somewhat of an insufferable teenager. Not that he was unrighteous but because his advantages in early life were leading him to a possible path of pride. Here’s what I mean by that:

1.       He was favoured and most loved of all of his father’s children. He was the only one who was honoured with a coat of many colours which symbolized not only favouritism but high status in the ancient world  (Genesis 37:3). This alone had the potential of going to his head;

2.       He policed his brothers and reported their evil doings to his father (v 2);

3.       He bragged about his dreams of the prosperous future and leadership that they promised (v 5-10). This earned him the derision of his brothers who named him ‘the dreamer’ (v 19).

The favouritism, the self-righteousness, the revelations, all point to a teenage lack of humility and a slippery slide in the opposite direction. Joseph was 17 when his brothers cut him off from his home and sold him into servitude in Egypt but by the time he was 30 he was Egypt’s ruler (Genesis 37:2; 41:46). When his brothers arrived in Egypt to buy food, we see a different Joseph, a Joseph with a tender heart willing to forgive and yearning to embrace his brothers and re-unite with his family (Genesis 42:24; 43:24-31). This story alone is worth the weeping.

There was something wonderful about Joseph….besides his integrity and righteousness, he had an uncanny ability to make lemonade out of lemons. He possessed a positive attitude and God used this attribute to refine and teach him. Through his optimism Joseph could see and understand that his servitude in Egypt had a higher purpose, that of saving the entire House of Israel (Genesis 45:5-8). There was no pride in this admission, only credit and honour to God.

This was the preparation of Joseph, a prolific figure in the patriarchal line and a prototype of the promised Messiah. His life heralds the exciting and complicated history of the House of Israel that we belong to. Knowing the patriarchs and the people who shaped this history is a privilege we should consider to be of immense worth.

Sometimes God is preparing us for something great when it least seems like it…. “He has the ability to turn everything into something good. This is a godly characteristic. Everything, no matter how dire, becomes a victory to the Lord” (Hartman Rector Jr., “Live Above the Law To Be Free”, Ensign Jan 1973, p 130). It reminds me of this poem by Benjamin Malachi Franklin:

My life is but a weaving between my God and me,

I cannot choose the colours, He weaveth skillfully.

Oft times He weaveth sorrow; And I in foolish pride

Forget He sees the upper and I the underside.

Not till the loom is silent and the shuttles cease to fly

Will God unroll the canvas and reveal the reason why

The dark threads are as needful in the weaver’s skillful hand

As the threads of gold and silver

In the pattern He has planned.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Joseph of Egypt by Michael T. Malm)