Power. The story of Joseph
comes down to power. You may remember this story from Sunday School or from
watching Joseph and the Amazing
Technicolor Dreamcoat at some point along the way; it’s familiar but in
case the details are fuzzy I’m going to run through them quick. Israel, whose
original name was Jacob, had twelve sons. Now, Jacob was married to both Leah
and Rachel at the same time because of some trickery done by his father-in-law
and uncle, Laban. By the way, this is one of the reasons to be skeptical of anybody
who says there is one singular biblical definition of marriage, because
marriage in this time was wacky. Jacob has two wives and at least two
mistresses and nothing was the bother with it.
Of
Jacob’s twelve sons, the first four were from Leah; the next two with Rachel’s
maid, Bilhah; the next two were with Leah’s maid, Zilpah; the next two were
again with Leah; and then there was one daughter with Leah as well. Then, in
Genesis 30:22-24 it says, “Then God remembered Rachel, and God heeded her and
opened her womb. She conceived and bore a son, and said, ‘God has taken away my
reproach’; and she named him Joseph, saying, ‘May the Lord add to me another
son!’” Some time later, Benjamin is born to Rachel and we have our twelve
tribes of Israel—a hodgepodge of mothers, a strange accumulation of
brothers—and, as usual, God elects one we would not expect to rule over the
others.
There’s
a long scriptural tradition of choosing the unexpected one, so maybe it’s not
as unexpected after all. Joseph was the second-youngest, the child of Israel’s
old age. But Joseph was the first son of Rachel, the one wife Israel loved
most. We’re told that Joseph was destined for great things and had the dreams
of one whom God favored. But this is not how power was established in those
days. The eldest had the claim to the inheritance. Israel knew this; after all,
it was he who stole the birthright and the inheritance from his older twin
brother, Esau. To all rights Reuben, the eldest son, should have been the
blessed one here, but Israel held a special place for Rachel, the wife he had
always wanted first of all, and so it is Joseph who is chosen and set apart.
Now,
that’s a lot of names to keep straight if this story isn’t particularly
familiar to you. Suffice it to say, Joseph was 11th of 12, but in
his father’s eyes he was greatest of all. So we come to this story. And power.
It came down to power.