What worked well for you this week? Any especially good teaching moments or discussions in your families?
We’re going to go out of order this week. Because we never get to cover everything in Sunday School and this is one of the things I really want to talk about. So we’re going to go to the last couple of chapters for this week, then we’ll go back and talk about some of the other great things in these chapters. I hope that’s okay!
We’re going to start in Genesis 48. We’ll get back to the story of the reunion of Joseph and his brothers and his father. But they have been reunited. Israel is old, and Joseph goes to his father.
Genesis 48: 3 –4 He recounts his experience in Luz/Bethel which we discussed two weeks ago. *I think it is interesting to note the place name. Bethel literally means house of God. Jacob named it Bethel because he had a temple experience there. And while Luz doesn’t seem to have any meaning in Hebrew that I could find, luz does mean light in Spanish/Latin. From what I could find that meaning doesn’t have any direct connection to why the town was named Luz, but I still think that is pretty neat as this experience did bring so much light for Jacob and his posterity and us.
In Genesis 48 and 49, Jacob blesses each of his sons as well as Joseph’s sons. He gives them patriarchal blessings.
QUOTE #1: President Monson gave a beautiful talk about Patriarchal Blessings. He said, “The same Lord who provided a Liahona for Lehi provides for you and for me today a rare and valuable gift to give direction to our lives, to mark the hazards to our safety, and to chart the way, even safe passage—not to a promised land, but to our heavenly home. The gift to which I refer is known as your patriarchal blessing. Every worthy member of the Church is entitled to receive such a precious and priceless personal treasure.
“Patriarchal blessings,” wrote the First Presidency in a letter to stake presidents, “contemplate an inspired declaration of the lineage of the recipient and, when so moved upon by the Spirit, an inspired and prophetic statement of the life mission of the recipient, together with such blessings, cautions and admonitions as the patriarch may be prompted to give for the accomplishment of such life’s mission, it being always made clear that the realization of all promised blessings is conditioned upon faithfulness to the gospel of our Lord, whose servant the patriarch is” (First Presidency Letter to stake presidents, 28 June 1958).
QUOTE #2: President Monson also said, “A patriarchal blessing is a revelation to the recipient, even a white line down the middle of the road, to protect, inspire, and motivate activity and righteousness. A patriarchal blessing literally contains chapters from your book of eternal possibilities.”
Quote #3: President Monson said: “Your patriarchal blessing is yours and yours alone. It may be brief or lengthy, simple or profound. Length and language do not a patriarchal blessing make. It is the Spirit that conveys the true meaning. Your blessing is not to be folded neatly and tucked away. It is not to be framed or published. Rather, it is to be read. It is to be loved. It is to be followed. Your patriarchal blessing will see you through the darkest night. It will guide you through life’s dangers.... Your patriarchal blessing is your passport to peace in this life. It is a Liahona of light to guide you unerringly to your heavenly home.”
How has your patriarchal blessing been a source of protection, inspiration or peace or comfort to you? Keep in mind the sacred nature of patriarchal blessings but if you have an experience where it has helped you, I would love for you to share.
*Brother Garcia shared that when he first received his patriarchal blessing it didn’t really make sense. He was a convert and the language was difficult and he just didn’t know what it meant. He didn’t understand what it meant. But about ten years later, he reread it and he could see how it was being fulfilled and better understand its meaning.
*Natalie shared that her father, who was not active in the church, went with her when she received her patriarchal blessing. And this patriarch gave her a blessing that was so personal to her and that so accurately described her, that afterward her father asked how the patriarch knew her so well. (I had similar experiences to this when both Michelle and Ella received their blessings.)
*Heidi shared that she didn’t love her blessing at first. It didn’t say anything about getting married or having a family. (Not everything that will happen in our lives is in our blessings.) But it does talk a lot about how she has goodly parents, and she has found that they have been a source of such good counsel and help in her life.
*John Jeppesen shared that his talks about him being a good example and blessing the lives of youth. He said that he has spent little time in the church serving with the youth. BUT he volunteers at the elementary school and really loves his time there, and he helps those children so much. And every time he talks about this, he gets teary and you can tell that he makes such a difference in their lives.
*I love that, like scripture, it has layers of meaning. And what a line might mean at one point in life might be completely different than what it means or how it helps you at another point. I can remember a time when I was struggling and opened my blessing and a line that MUST have always been there seemed to jump off the page. I couldn’t remember ever noticing it before but it seemed to be exactly what I needed then—it didn’t solve the problem but gave me the perspective to realize that I wasn’t alone and I could solve the problem, eventually.
48:15-16
Jacob blesses Ephraim and Manasseh...putting his right hand on Ephraim’s head, even though Manasseh was the elder son. (One thing in my reading of Genesis...even though birthright blessing was to go to older son...it seems that was often NOT what actually happened.)
48:19-22 What do these blessings mean?
Genesis 49: He blesses each of his sons. Honestly, some of the promises given to his sons seem a bit confusing to me, but I found a great resource from this religion professor at BYU named Kerry Muhlestein that I think is really helpful. And as the blessings given to them are also promised to those of their lineage, I want to spend just a few minutes going through them. You should also compare Genesis 49 with Deuteronomy 33 where Moses blesses each tribe. The blessings given by Moses were not given to the individuals but to the tribes. Because we come from their lineage, these blessings are for all of us. And while it’s most common for members in the US to be declared to be of the lineage of Ephraim, it’s certainly not the only tribe represented. Sister Nelson, in a devotional for youth, explained that once she was in a meeting and asked to have people stand if they belonged to each tribe...and all but one tribe was represented in that meeting. And the very next day she met someone from the last tribe. (She did also point out that this these declarations of lineage are sacred and she later learned that it wasn’t really appropriate to ask people to stand to share their lineage.) So these blessings are blessings for us as well.
49: 3 – 4 Reuben: praised for his strength and status but warned of instability. He’s compared to water...which can be a source of life or a source of destruction. This seems to warn Reuben and his descendants...and all of us...to bridle our power and use it for good. By Moses, they are blessed with posterity and appear to be heeding the warning to be consistent.
49:5-7 Levi and Simeon receive the same blessing: warned not to be violent and to control their passions, tempers. Descendants of Simeon were absorbed into other tribes, especially Judah. Levi’s tribe eventually were chosen to be the high priests (as Aaron and Levites sided with Moses after golden calf was erected at Sinai). Moses didn’t bless Simeon’s tribe as they’d been scattered among all the tribes, but blessed Levi’s tribe in their ministering to all of Israel and blessed them with protection.
Judah: Judah blessed to be a servant-leader. Christ would come through his descendants. He was compared to a lion. He was blessed with power over his enemies. Moses blessed God to hear Judah’s prayers, make their hands able to do their work and deliver them from enemies.
Dan: His name means judge. He was blessed to lead and to make right. He’s given power like a snake and said Dan had waited for the salvation of God. Moses compared him to a lion.
Naphtali: Blessed to experience freedom like a running deer, speak good things. Perhaps this means he’d be a swift messenger bearing good news (missionary). Moses blessed him with favor and great blessings from God. He seems to have freedom, wisdom, eloquence, and an ability to spread covenant blessings to others.
Gad: He’d eventually overcome his oppressors. Moses promised blessings for any who helped Gad: Compared to a lion. Moses said that because of his zealousness in keeping the commandments, he’d work with rulers and overcome enemies.
Asher is told he’ll have an abundance of food. Prosperity. He’ll provide food for kings—perhaps have so much abundance he can share will all. Moses promised numerous posterity, being loved by brethren, and dipping foot in oil...generously sharing the covenant with others.
Issachar: Hard to understand. He’d be a strong donkey lying down between two burdens. Probably means Issachar would have hard times but be able to accomplish difficult/heavy tasks, burdens. Given strength.
Zebulun: Dwell by sea and provide haven for ships. He didn’t actually inherit land by the sea and Moses promised Issachar and Zebulun the same promises but said Issachar would enjoy them from his tent and Zebulun by going out...perhaps he’d have to travel to enjoy his blessings.
Benjamin: Blessed to be like a ravenous wolf, devouring prey in the morning and his spoils at night. Moses called him beloved of the Lord and said the Lord would be with him and surround or protect him. He will have ambition and power and God’s help.
Joseph: He and Judah appear to share the birthright blessing. He is compared to a fruitful bough whose branches run over the wall. This may mean that many of his descendants left to come to the Americas and other lands. It may also have partial fulfillment in his inheriting land in Egypt. He’d be persecuted. But he would be able to wield his own bow because God would be his rock and shepherd. He’d have prosperity, posterity, and that his abundance would come consistently and continually. He’d be given power to gather others.
Ephraim and Manasseh: All the blessings promised to Joseph. The names of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob would be on them. They’d grow into a multitude. Receive the blessings of Abrahamic covenant in abundance. Both would be great nations, great people though Ephraim would be greater/larger meaning more numerous. Ephraim have great responsibilities in leadership and gathering Israel. Ephraim and Manasseh would work together to gather Israel in latter days. They’d be blessed with the strength of a wild bull to complete this work.
(From God Will Prevail, pages 87-94)
Kerry Muhlestein writes: “It is not only important to recognize these roles, it is equally or more crucial that we recognize that this call to leadership is not a call to privilege or power, but a call to service. It is a mechanism for getting things done, and the bestowal of the blessings given to Ephraim and Manasseh, particularly numerous posterity, was merely the bestowal of the ability to do what God would ask them to do. When viewed and performed correctly, with the purity of heart intended by God, there is no privilege or prestige in the role Joseph and his sons received. There is only service, the ability to perform that service, and hopefully a willingness to do so.” (God Will Prevail, page 94)
** Have this on chart and go through all of this fairly quickly. But I love these blessings and want to share what I learned about them.
Now let’s go back to the heart of the story. It’s a story of a family. A family with problems and imperfections. A family that has suffered and experienced loss and heartache and jealousy and guilt. AND a family that God uses to do His work. A family that has and will bless all the nations of the Earth. A family that God blesses, despite their imperfections...because Joseph and Jacob are willing to let God prevail and Joseph and Jacob recognize that God is with them...even in their difficulties. It gives me hope that my family—despite our imperfections and weaknesses and arguments and trials—can also be tools in God’s hands and can also be part of blessing the nations of the Earth. That’s a part of the promises made to several of the tribes of Israel in these patriarchal blessings, and part of the promise made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob...therefore it is part of the blessings and responsibilities WE have as their descendants. Kerry Muhlestein points out that as we read the Old Testament, we are reading our family history. These are our many great-grandparents and we’ve inherited some of their predilections. And like them, we have covenanted with God to be His people and for Him to be our God.
So let’s quickly go over the history of what’s happening. (Have someone summarize the story/background.) There is a famine in the land. In the chapters we read last week, we learned of Joseph’s ability to interpret Pharaoh’s dream and so Egypt prepared for this time of famine by storing grain. (There’s a lesson in there for us as well! We’ve also received counsel to store food.)
*An interesting piece of history is that Joseph most likely was in Egypt during the reign of the Hyksos. The Hyksos were Semitic (descendants of Shem and distant relatives to Abraham’s descendants) and had settled near Egypt. Then around 1640 they gained power in Egypt. This may help explain why the Pharaoh and Potiphar trusted Joseph. It may also explain why we read of the Egyptians selling their lands to Pharaoh and paying him tributes of their crops if he was a foreign ruler rather than an Egyptian ruler. It may also explain why we don’t find records of Joseph in Egypt because when the Hyksos were overthrown, the Egyptians destroyed most of the artifacts from that time period.
So the famine is clearly pretty extensive and Jacob sends his sons to Egypt to get food. As we’re reading these verses, I’d love to focus on the ways in which Joseph acts as a type for Christ...the ways in which he points our minds to Christ and what Christ would do for us.
Genesis 42:7-11 Joseph recognizes them but they don’t recognize him. He sets up some tests for them, but also ways to get information about his family.
42: 15-20 Simeon imprisoned and they are sent to get Benjamin. But listen to Joseph’s response:
(Write the ways in which Joseph is a type of Christ on board)
42: 24-25 He weeps (7 times in these chapters!) He restores their money. He gives them provisions. They return home and tell Jacob all that has happened.
42:36 All of these things seem true to Jacob. But they aren’t actually. I think sometimes our problems appear worse than they actually are...because we don’t see things clearly. I don’t mean to make light of Jacob’s suffering because his suffering is real, just as yours is and mine is. But I know sometimes I see the worse case scenario rather than the blessings or even the reality. Does this happen to any of you? How can we avoid this worst case scenario/wo is me thinking?
President Nelson, in his talk Let God Prevail, spoke of his granddaughter-in-law really struggling when her father was ill and dying. When he heard of her struggles, he responded that she was being myopic. That initially stung her; she had been hoping for empathy and counsel.
“After Jill’s father passed on, the word myopic kept coming to her mind. She opened her heart to understand even more deeply that myopic meant “nearsighted.” And her thinking began to shift. Jill then said, “Myopic caused me to stop, think, and heal. That word now fills me with peace. It reminds me to expand my perspective and seek the eternal. It reminds me that there is a divine plan and that my dad still lives and loves and looks out for me. Myopic has led me to God.”
S. Michael Wilcox in the Follow Him podcast said that one of the lessons that Joseph teaches us is: "God can turn all negatives into positives." Drawing on the meaning of Joseph's two sons names. "God can turn all negatives into positives, and make us fruitful even in the land of our afflictions."
And another lesson: “I say it this way, "Things that appear to be against you, may in reality be blessings." They may be for you. Just the opposite of what you perceive.”
QUOTE #4: In The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis' mentor was a congregational minister named George McDonald. And he escorts Lewis on this trip in The Great Divorce. "Son, you cannot, in your presence state, understand eternity, but you can get some likeness of it if you say that both good and evil, when they are full grown, are retrospective. All this earthly past will have been heaven to those who are saved. All their life on earth too, will be seen by the damned to have been hell. That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering 'no future bliss can make up for it,' not knowing that heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. Or they say of some sinful pleasure, 'Let me have but this, and I will take the consequences,' little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of them. Both processes begin even before death. The good man's past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of heaven. And the bad man's past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why at the end of all things, when the sun rises here in heaven and the twilight turns to blackness down there, the blessed will say, 'We have never lived anywhere except in heaven.' And the lost, 'We were always in hell.' And both will speak truth. And the saved, what happens to them is best described as the opposite of a mirage. What seemed, when they entered it, to be the vale of misery, turns , when they look back, to have been a well; and where present experience saw only salt deserts, memory truthfully records that the pools were full of water."
Story of Agnes Caldwell: She was part of the Willie and Martin Handcart company. About age 8 or 9, if I remember correctly. When rescuers arrived, those who were able still had to walk alongside the wagons. After awhile, she was exhausted and so cold. The wagon driver asked if she would like to ride for awhile. She gratefully nodded yes, and he grabbed her hand. But as he grabbed her hand, he clucked for the horses to go faster, and she had to run to keep up. She thought he was the meanest man alive. But then he pulled her into the wagon and wrapped her in a blanket. He explained that if he had pulled her in without making her run, she was so cold that she likely would have frozen to death. But making her run, this act that had seemed to be utterly cruel, had saved her life. Perhaps some of the really hard things we experience are actually the things that save us.
They had been told not to return unless Benjamin was with them. So they tell their father they must bring him. He says it will kill him... and is angry that they said they had a younger brother.
And then Judah...Judah who had suggested they sell Joseph to the caravaners, Judah who had not been righteous in his dealings with Tamar, Judah steps forward and offers to be surety for Benjamin.
**Somewhere around this point, Jennifer Hunt made a beautiful comment. I can’t remember all of it. But she shared the last two verses of Nearer, My God To Thee which we had sung in sacrament meeting.
Then with my waking thoughts
Bright with thy praise,
Out of my stony griefs
Bethel I’ll raise;
So by my woes to be
Nearer, my God, to thee,
Nearer, my God, to thee,
Nearer to thee!
5. Or if, on joyful wing
Cleaving the sky,
Sun, moon, and stars forgot,
Upward I fly,
Still all my song shall be
Nearer, my God, to thee,
Nearer, my God, to thee,
Nearer to thee!
Jennifer shared that this song talks about Bethel where Jacob had his temple experience. And it reminds us that God has promised “I will be with thee.” Yes, Jacob and Joseph had really hard things happen in their lives. Really hard things. But they never had to go through it alone. God was with them. And that we, too, can trust God, raise our woes to Him, sing praise to Him. And just as we can see types of Christ in Judah and in Joseph, we can also see them in each other. There was more to her comment, but I can’t recall the rest.
43: 8-10 (Judah offers to be surety)
43: 11-14 Jacob gives them counsel to take gifts and asks God to give them mercy.
When they arrive, they tell the servants that somehow their money ended up back in their bags but they have it with them plus more. They are worried.
Servants’ response: 43: 23
43:24 Give them water, provender for animals, wash their feet (types of Christ)
43: 27- 28 Fulfillment of his dream in Genesis 37
43: 30 He weeps again
44:1 Christ also is generous with us and gives us as much as we can carry and more...fills us.
*Test with the silver cup.
44: 29-34 IN these verses, we see how much Judah has changed. And we see a beautiful example of Judah in this instance acting as a type of Christ. Benjamin appears to be guilty of stealing the silver cup, and Judah offers to take his place, to pay the price for Benjamin. Because of His great love, concern and devotion to his father, and his love for his brother, he cannot bear to let Benjamin be taken. So he intercedes in Benjamin’s behalf. Just as Christ intercedes in our behalf. In this case, Benjamin is not guilty. It was a trick/ a test. But in our case, we are guilty. We do commit sins and Christ willingly pays the price for us. Because He loves the Father and wants Him to be reunited with his beloved children. And because He loves us.
This may just be one of my favorite parts of the Old Testament now. It’s so beautiful.
Genesis 45: 2-7 Ways Joseph acts as a type of Christ: weeps, come near, preserves life, preserves posterity
Have class read 45: 8-end on own...can you see other ways that Joseph acts as a type of Christ?
**One of the ways is how forgiving he is.
Read Genesis 50: 19-20
President Hinckley said, “Somehow forgiveness accomplishes miracles that can happen in no other way.”
Elder Larry J. Echo Hawk gave a beautiful talk on forgiveness. He shared how his brother and sister in law were killed by a speeding, reckless drunk driver. After both families left court, the parents of the drunk driver were weeping. Elder Echo Hawk’s parents and sister went to the parents and offered comfort and forgiveness. This began the process of healing and forgiveness for Elder Echo Hawk and allowed him to remember his brother and sister in law with joy instead of anger and bitterness.
Quote #5 “We can all receive unspeakable peace and partnering with our Savior as we learn to freely forgive those who have trespassed against us. This partnering brings the Savior’s power into our lives in an unmistakable and never-to-be-forgotten way.”
Quote #6 “Brothers and sisters, are there people in our lives who have hurt us? Do we harbor what seem like fully justified feelings of resentment and anger? Are we letting pride keep us from forgiving and letting go? I invite all of us to forgive completely and let healing occur from within. And even if forgiveness doesn’t come today, know that as we desire it and work for it, it will come—just as it eventually did for me after my brother’s death.”
How have you been able to forgive others when you have been deeply hurt or wronged?
Such a beautiful reunion between father and son, between brothers. A reconciliation. A time of tears and forgiveness and love and hope. Joseph forgives.
