Joseph Character Development Gen 29-37

[alon]

Since we are in the story of Joseph in the last few par’shot, and I came across this old study assignment from one of the ministries I used to be involved in, I thought I might share it here. It is a bit long, so I’ll break it up into three posts. Hope it is of use to someone.

Joseph, Character Development:

I am going to focus on Joseph’s life up to his betrayal and subsequent sale into slavery. It is my contention that his and his brother’s characters were formed at home in this period. Events after this turning point merely refined and strengthened what was already there. Scriptural quotes are all from “The Complete Jewish Bible.”

The Story From Scripture:

Gen 29 tells the story of Jacob, how he fell in love with Rachael and worked 7 yrs for her, but was cheated by Laban, tricked into marrying Leah, and had to work another 7 yrs to get Rachael.

“30 So not only did Ya'akov go in and sleep with Rachel, but he also loved Rachel more than Le'ah. Then he served Lavan another seven years. 31 ADONAI saw that Le'ah was unloved, so he made her fertile, while Rachel remained childless. 32 Le'ah conceived and gave birth to a son, whom she named Re'uven [see, a son!], for she said, "It is because ADONAI has seen how humiliated I have been, but now my husband will love me." 33 She conceived again, gave birth to a son and said, "It is because ADONAI has heard that I am unloved; therefore he has given me this son also." So she named him Shim'on [hearing]. 34 Once more she conceived and had a son; and she said, "Now this time my husband will be joined to me, because I have borne him three sons." Therefore she named him Levi [joining]. 35 She conceived yet again, had a son and said, "This time I will praise ADONAI"; therefore she named him Y'hudah [praise]. Then she stopped having children.”

Poor Leah thought as many women that children would bring love to a lifeless relationship. In reality, it usually just brings more stress and tension, resentment and heartache.

Gen 30 goes on to tell of an unhealthy spirit of competition developing in what can only be seen as a dysfunctional family group: “1 When Rachel saw that she was not bearing children for Ya'akov, she envied her sister and said to Ya'akov, "Give me children, or I will die!" 2 This made Ya'akov angry at Rachel; he answered, "Am I in God's place? He's the one who is denying you children." 3 She said, "Here is my maid Bilhah. Go, sleep with her, and let her give birth to a child that will be laid on my knees, so that through her I too can build a family." 4 So she gave him Bilhah her slave-girl as his wife, and Ya'akov went in and slept with her.”

With the example of Hagar before her (Gen 20 & 21) you would think Rachael would have known better. However, “5 Bilhah conceived and bore Ya'akov a son. 6 Rachel said, "God has judged in my favor; indeed he has heard me and given me a son." Therefore she called him Dan [he judged]. 7 Bilhah Rachel's slave-girl conceived again and bore Ya'akov a second son. 8 Rachel said, "I have wrestled mightily with my sister and won," and called him Naftali [my wrestling].”

Leah reacted predictably, “9 When Le'ah saw that she had stopped having children, she took Zilpah her slave-girl and gave her to Ya'akov as his wife. 10 Zilpah Le'ah's slave-girl bore Ya'akov a son; 11 and Le'ah said, "Good fortune has come," calling him Gad [good fortune]. 12 Zilpah Le'ah's slave-girl bore Ya'akov a second son; 13 and Le'ah said, "How happy I am! Women will say I am happy!" and called him Asher [happy]. 14 During the wheat harvest season Re'uven went and found mandrakes in the field and brought them to his mother Le'ah. Rachel said to Le'ah, "Please give me some of your son's mandrakes [so that I can be fertile]." 15 She answered, "Isn't it enough that you have taken away my husband? Do you have to take my son's mandrakes too?" Rachel said, "Very well; in exchange for your son's mandrakes, sleep with him tonight."” Leah’s plight was so bad she had to resort to bartering time with Jacob. And still she held out hope in a hopeless situation;

“19 Le'ah conceived again and bore a sixth son to Ya'akov. 20 Le'ah said, "God has given me a wonderful gift. Now at last my husband will live with me, since I have borne him six sons. "And she called him Z'vulun [living together]. 21 After this, she gave birth to a daughter and named her Dinah [controversy over rights]. 22 Then God took note of Rachel, heeded her prayer and made her fertile. 23 She conceived, had a son and said, "God has taken away my disgrace." 24 She called him Yosef [may he add], saying, "May ADONAI add to me another son."”

Poor Jacob, apparently used to taking orders from a strong woman (Gen 27) now has four women telling him what to do- not a happy situation for any man. However, they knew Laban’s character and so in ch 31 did advise him wisely; “14 Rachel and Le'ah answered him, "We no longer have any inheritance from our father's possessions; 15 and he considers us foreigners, since he has sold us; moreover, he has consumed everything he received in exchange for us. 16 Nevertheless, the wealth which God has taken away from our father has become ours and our children's anyway; so whatever God has told you to do, do."”

The narrative goes on to describe how Jacob out-schemes the schemer Laban, and his temerity and obsequiousness when meeting Esau again. His sons would have witnessed this lack of moral and spiritual character on the part of their father.

In Gen 35, Jacob, now Israel, gets another son by Rachael, however the unthinkable happens; Rachael dies. “16 Then they traveled on from Beit-El, and while there was still some distance to go before arriving in Efrat, Rachel went into labor, and she had great difficulty with it. 17 While she was undergoing this hard labor, the midwife said to her, "Don't worry, this is also a son for you." 18 But she died in childbirth. As she was dying she named her son Ben-Oni [son of my grief], but his father called him Binyamin [son of the right hand, son of the south].” His favorite wife dead, we can only imagine the turmoil this caused in the already hostile family.

Gen 37 picks up the narrative of Joseph. “2 ... When Yosef was seventeen years old he used to pasture the flock with his brothers, even though he was still a boy. Once when he was with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives, he brought a bad report about them to their father.” So we see here a boy already developing a sense of right and wrong and the courage to face the wrong. However we may also be witnessing the actions of one spoiled and thinking himself under the protection of his father; one naïve enough to think he could escape the consequences of carrying tales.

“3 Now Isra'el loved Yosef the most of all his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he made him a long-sleeved robe.” This verse is key. In the entire narrative we see the contrast of children raised in an environment of hostility, a good measure of apathy from and towards their mothers, and by extension to their sons; and those raised in a loving, caring environment. Joseph, and later Benjamin received all their fathers love and affection. The sons of the other three women were left wanting. In the entire story, the only variable is Joseph, his attitude toward the sub-family groups and the environment this created in which the children were raised.

[alon]

“4 When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they began to hate him and reached the point where they couldn't even talk with him in a civil manner. 5 Yosef had a dream which he told his brothers, and that made them hate him all the more. 6 He said to them, "Listen while I tell you about this dream of mine. 7 We were tying up bundles of wheat in the field when suddenly my bundle got up by itself and stood upright; then your bundles came, gathered around mine and prostrated themselves before it." 8 His brothers retorted, "Yes, you will certainly be our king. You'll do a great job of bossing us around!" And they hated him still more for his dreams and for what he said. 9 He had another dream which he told his brothers: "Here, I had another dream, and there were the sun, the moon and eleven stars prostrating themselves before me." 10 He told his father too, as well as his brothers, but his father rebuked him: "What is this dream you have had? Do you really expect me, your mother and your brothers to come and prostrate ourselves before you on the ground?" 11 His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.” Again we see some of Joseph’s character that would later have to be refined in the crucible of bondage and imprisonment; the spoiled and naïve boy who later would be our shining example of manhood and leadership.

The story of Joseph’s early childhood development culminates in the ultimate act of aggression and maltreatment by his brothers. 17 “... Yosef went after his brothers and found them in Dotan. 18 They spotted him in the distance, and before he had arrived where they were, they had already plotted to kill him. … 23 So it was that when Yosef arrived to be with his brothers, they stripped off his robe, the long-sleeved robe he was wearing, 24 and took him and threw him into the cistern (the cistern was empty; without any water in it). 25 Then they sat down to eat their meal; but as they looked up, they saw in front of them a caravan of Yishma'elim coming from Gil'ad, their camels loaded with aromatic gum, healing resin and opium, on their way down to Egypt. 26 Y'hudah said to his brothers, "What advantage is it to us if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? 27 Come, let's sell him to the Yishma'elim, instead of putting him to death with our own hands. After all, he is our brother, our own flesh." His brothers paid attention to him.” Note the callousness displayed by his brothers as they ate the food Joseph had brought for them while they conspired around the cistern where Joseph awaited his fate at their hands.

“31 They took Yosef's robe, killed a male goat and dipped the robe in the blood. 32 Then they sent the long-sleeved robe and brought it to their father, saying, "We found this. Do you know if it's your son's robe or not?" 33 He recognized it and cried, "It's my son's robe! Some wild animal has torn Yosef in pieces and eaten him!" 34 Ya'akov tore his clothes and, putting sackcloth around his waist, mourned his son for many days. 35 Though all his sons and daughters tried to comfort him, he refused all consolation, saying, "No, I will go down to the grave, to my son, mourning." And his father wept for him.” So we come full circle as Jacob (“deceiver”) the trickster is tricked in his own turn. Rejected by his own father in favor of Esau (Gen 25:27-28) he was by worldly necessity a schemer. Cheated by his father-in-law at every turn, he eventually outfoxed Laban and left his household a wealthy man at Laban’s expense. Now his most beloved son is taken from him at the hands of the sons of his other wives and they trick Jacob into believing he was taken by a wild animal so he wouldn’t go after and free Joseph. We are not told, but can well imagine the turmoil of the brothers as they saw their father’s grief and witnessed one consequence of their actions. Their emotions would probably have vacillated from grief and to fear and anger at their father and for Joseph, then to apathy and callousness for the father who never really loved them and the fate of a brother who stole that love.

“Fire purifies ore and strengthens steel. The fire you go through will purify and strengthen you.” (Ed Cole). I’ve worked in foundries, and can tell you if you want to pig iron, you have to start with iron ore. Steel is a process of mixing and working the right components at right temperatures at right times. But you have to start with pure iron to get good steel.

Character is developed in the setting a person is raised in. “One of the basic principles of life is that the characteristics of the kingdom emanate from the character of the king.” (Cole). Nowhere is this truer than in the family. “We can easily be conditioned to failure by environment or circumstances.” (Cole). “What happens to us in our early years creates images and causes us anxiety, stress and tension in later life. … Every image created has the potential for good or harm.” (Cole).

“There are millions who have been crippled by receiving verbal abuse from a parent or caregiver. This cursing takes two forms: One is the destruction of verbal assault. … The other is the devastating lack of speech altogether, which also carries deadly consequences for one’s identity and destiny. When a person never receives affirmation, … his inner confidence slips away in the silence and the void fills with feelings of worthlessness. You see, verbal blessing and affirmation are emotional building blocks vital for personal growth and development.” (Aaron Fruh). Prov. 12:25- “Anxiety in a person's heart weighs him down, but a kind word cheers him up.”

“Words have creative power. Words will create in the positive or negative. They will build up or tear down.” (Cole). What must Joseph’s brothers have heard in the loveless family relationships between Jacob and their mothers?

“The Forgotten Blessing” on pgs. 29 & 30 enumerates some of the emotions and behaviors of victims of an abusive childhood:
• sense of unworthiness
• sense of worthlessness
• conditioning to expect abuse later in life
• defilement of identity
•
• feeling infected, defective
• anger
• fear of emotion
• fear of losing control
• difficulty saying “no”
• fear of trying
• fear of failing
• depression
• compulsive sin or addiction
• procrastination
• isolation
• difficulty making close friends
• avoidance of need or dependence
• difficulty asking for help
• feeling of being tolerated rather than chosen
• restlessness
• compulsively drawn to schemes

We should keep these in mind when looking at the brothers character and actions.

[alon]

“The greatest thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.” (Cole). Jacob did not love any of any of his wives other than Rachael. His attitude towards them was also evident in his treatment of his sons. All Jacob’s love and affection was placed on the one sub-family unit of Rachael, Joseph, and Benjamin. All the negative emotions and attitudes from the list above were probably evident in the children here suffering the abuse of neglect. “When you do not forgive someone’s sin against you, you bear that sin; you carry it. You also make the same mistake again and again with person after person.” (Cole). In the entire narrative, there is no evidence that any of the children of Jacob’s neglect ever forgave him. Gen 50:15-21 shows that even after all Joseph did to demonstrate his love and forgiveness to them, they in their own hatred and jealousy had not forgiven him or their father, and so they feared Joseph after their father had passed.

“Sins are not hereditary. They are unforgiven, and, in their retention, passed from … generation to generation,” (Cole). And so the sins of Jacob were retained by the sons of Leah and both handmaidens. “You keep what you do not release.” (Cole). John 20:22-23 “Having said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Ruach HaKodesh! If you forgive someone's sins, their sins are forgiven; if you hold them, they are held." “Hearing from God doesn’t depend on age but on relationship.” (Cole). According to Aaron Fruh, “a person who feels worthless and ashamed has a difficult time trusting that a father in heaven loves him.”

Joseph’s brothers might have been better off without Jacob in their lives. In a study by Columbia University, researchers found that children in single-parent homes led by a mother were better off than in homes with an unconcerned father. Add to this that all four women were raised in the household of Laban, and so would have carried and ultimately passed on considerable baggage of their own; you now have the elements in place for very destructive early child development in the three unloved sub-households. This negative early development would have affected every relationship in their lives. “When you leave home … you cannot carry resentments, bitterness, hatred, loneliness, inferiority or any other excess baggage. If you carry it with you, you will be stuck with it in the next stage, situation or relationship you enter.” (Cole)

Still, how could his brothers have gotten to the point of conspiring to kill Joseph? We find some clues in ‘The Forgotten Blessing’, pges. 34 & 35, “Developing intimate relationships later in life is difficult if a person was not nurtured and loved at a young age." They:
• feel no pull to form intimate relationships
• find little pleasure in being close to or with others
• have few, if any friends
• are distant and develope no bonds to family
• have no intact emotional bond to anyone
• are self-absorbed and aloof

So there was no pull to form intimate relations, especially with family. Joseph’s brothers portrait of Joseph was colored by their own selfish, lustful, petty spirits. Joseph faced jealousy, anger, hatred, envy and slander. He was betrayed, ignored, rejected and humiliated. He was almost killed, but sold into slavery instead. The actions of all Jacob’s children greatly illustrate the truth of my contention that the basic foundation upon which character is built is developed in the environment of the early childhood of a man. “Empathy, caring, sharing, and capacity to love and a host of other characteristics of a healthy, happy and productive person are related to the core attachment capabilities which are formed in infancy and early childhood.” (Cole).

“Depression is often caused by resentment or a sense of loss” (Cole). The brothers childhood would have been marred by feelings of rejection and being treated guilty of unspecified crimes while innocent. “Next to actual rejection, the most difficult thing for men to suffer is being treated as guilty when they are innocent.” (Cole). Joseph’s brothers would have felt they were unjustly punished by loss of a father’s love, and they would probably have seen Joseph as the cause. They harbored deep seated resentments that eventually became real hostility. As noted prior, these resentments culminated in the ultimate act of hostility; the seizure and conspiracy to kill Joseph by his brothers. If not for God’s intervention evident in this story, Joseph would not have survived to be taken to Egypt, refined and worked by the Master’s hand to become a leader who God used to save his family and all of Egypt.

The story of Joseph is as much about how to train up children to be well adjusted and successful and potentially good leaders, as it is about leadership itself. It is a contrast in children raised in a loving household and those raised in neglectful, unhappy households.

Dan C

[Elizabeth]

Really helpful post. Thanks for posting!