Genesis 42-50 Part 1 • Dr. Stephen Smoot • Mar. 16-22 • Come, Follow Me

Even when people exercise their agency wickedly or unrighteously or evilly, that will not

frustrate or thwart God's power in his purposes that he has for his children. Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of Follow Him. My name is Hanksmith, I'm your host. And Doth, my co-host, yet live. John, by the way. Yeah, I'm still going. He has a pulse. John, do you know where that question comes from? It's chapter 45 of Genesis when Joseph reunites with his brothers and he says, "Doth my father, yet live."

“The more I think about this story, this is one of the greatest stories ever.”

Joseph's life, the lowest of lows in prison, the highest of highs, the pharaoh, his family. They should make a Broadway play out of it or something. They should make a movie. John, we are privileged today to be joined by brother Stephen Sput. Here from now he will be Dr. Stephen Sput, but right now we're going to just call him brother. Stephen Sput, which is an awesome thing to be, a brother. Stephen, welcome to Follow Him.

Well, thank you, Hank. Glad to be here. Thank you, John, for having me. I've been watching the podcast for a long time, and now I'm in the hot seat myself. So I've stepped up my game, hopefully, and this should be a lot of fun. John and I both know Stephen from the internet.

Basically, Stephen has been working online doing scriptures with the interpreter foundation.

Now he's with the Rapplies, Jasmine, and Neil, all things that we 100% support. And we can talk more about that. John, last week we were with Dr. Wilcox. We began this story, and now we're going to finish the story of Joseph. The story of Joseph of Egypt. The thing that I love is the emphasis on the Lord was with him.

In the lowest of lows in the highest of highs, maybe people can feel his the Lord with me. Yes, he's still with us, like he was with Joseph, a good takeaway. John, I feel the same way that if someone is in deep distress, we can read ahead in Joseph's story, and we know the goodness that's coming. We could take that same thing into our lives that if you are in your own chapters,

37, 38, or 940, there are chapters coming in your life.

“Stephen, what are you hoping to do today? What are you hoping our listeners walk away with?”

Number one, I hope that in our conversation, we can look at the really intricate literary structure of this story. The story of Joseph and Egypt, if nothing else is phenomenal world literature.

Reading it as a story, it's powerful, it's impactful.

It is very tightly structured as a story. You're going to see recurring motifs, you're going to see moments of deep irony, much pathos we're going to encounter with Joseph weeping when his brothers don't recognize them and all that sort of stuff. Certainly we want to get personal meaning out of the story, but just appreciating it as a work of art, as a work of literary art. That's one thing I hope to discuss and see what we can unpack there.

I also hope that we can appreciate how the story ends. We sometimes think it just ends on this happy note of Joseph and the brothers are reconciled and reunited, and that's certainly true, but it also ends with their father giving them a patriarchal blessing,

“which I think especially for later day St. listeners is highly significant.”

We get two chapters of it. We get chapter 48 with Ephraim and the Menassa and then chapter 49 is the rest of the sons. I see that as a culmination of this entire story. We walk away with the impression that the story is about how even in times of adversity, God can reach down in our afflictions and help us out of these problems. That's certainly true. More than just that, it culminates with God pronouncing blessings through our covenant patriarch Jacob or Israel onto his children and by extension upon us.

So if we see ourselves as part of the story as well, it culminates with that patriarchal blessing. That will be something to look at and hopefully take away from our conversation. The other thing that I hope to add to the conversation in my very modest way is maybe some cultural contextual notes on the story to help us understand why are they doing the things the way they do? Why does Joseph have a silver cup that he's using to divine with things like that? Why do they recognize Joseph for example? You think you'd recognize your own brother, cultural and historical, and even some fun linguistic stuff I hope to introduce to our conversation.

For example, Genesis chapter 49 is some of the oldest poetry of the Hebrew Bible. If you pop up in your King James Bible in English, that may obscure the fact that Genesis 49 is really archaic and really beautiful Hebrew poetry. Jacob or Israel is blessing his children in a poetic register using poetic and literary devices. So that would be kind of fun to sort of note some of these things to sort of all culminate in package together to say.

of a patriarchal blessing. And by understanding the cultural and historical context in which the story was written and which it takes place, that can help us appreciate the story even more.

This is fantastic. John, I love to be blessed both. Hey, how can I live a better life? How can I be more faithful, be closer to God, and become more competent in my scripture study. Understand the Bible more. We're going to worship God with our heart and mind. If someone is online quite a bit, they already know who Stephen is, but there might be someone out there who is like, who is Stephen Snoop.

“John, what do you know of you? Did you hang out outside of his house for a while to get some information? Did you hide in the bushes? What did you find?”

I actually had Lisa Spice email me some things, so that was okay. Okay. Stephen O. Smooth is a doctoral candidate in Semitic and Egyptian languages and literature at the Catholic University of America. He's currently an adjunct instructor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University and a research associate with the ancient America Foundation. Stephen has contributed to Latter-day St. publication such as interpreter, a journal of Latter-day St. Faith in Scholarship. I love the interpreter Foundation website.

The religious educator, journal of Mormon history, Latter-day St. Historical Studies, and non-Latter-day St. publications such as Catholic Biblical Quarterly. The journal for the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities? How cool is that? He's also editor of the Prologue Great Price, a study edition for Latter-day Saints, and the co-author of the volumes Joseph Smith Jr.'s Uncanonized Revelation and a guide to the Book of Abraham. That's a special edition of BYU Studies. I could read more, but like you said, "Hey, I've just seen Stephen's face and heard his voice so many times online teaching us and defending the faith.

I'm just excited to have him here today." Well, thank you. I guess it is my pleasure to be here. The follow him podcast. Now, if I came in the A-League, the big leagues here on the follow him podcast with you two, fine gentlemen. It's been great. My experience in publishing and writing, doing research, teaching a BYU, going on various podcasts. Recently, the Rapplies, Neil and Jasmine Rapply and I, we started a podcast called "Enformed Saints" if I may shamelessly plug our own podcast here. We seek to both address questions and concerns that people have about the church and various topics way to the church.

And also, per the name of the podcast, we want to inform Latter-day Saints on the best scholarship that's out there on various topics.

We've addressed everything from Plural Marriage to the Book of Abraham to the first vision accounts to DNA in the Book of Mormon. There's no shortage of interesting topics.

I don't think personally, I tell the Rapplies, especially Jasmine. How much I appreciate what she does. Jasmine is in the front lines of Latter-day Saints online work and we love her. Neil, we love you too, but Jasmine, you have our heart. Now, Stephen, I don't think John could love what you do more unless you flew airplanes.

“John has a thing for Egyptology. You just see him kind of light up. So what's it been like?”

Let's something that we grew up with watching Indiana Jones. What's it like in real life? Let me put it this way, perhaps. Whenever undergrad students or others come to me and they express their interest in Egyptology or Near Eastern Studies and they say,

"I want to go into the subject like you did. I always tell them, you have so much to live for. You have such a bright future. Why would you throw it away going into Egyptology?"

It's a very niche subject, right? There aren't many out there in the world that study this stuff compared to doctors and engineers. It's been a very gratifying experience for me, both as sort of a career choice, also just in my own personal interest. I see Egyptology and biblical studies merging in many important ways into understand these ancient texts that we have, both our Bible, but also texts in our Pilgrimage Prize, even the Book of Mormon, of course. Having that foundation for me, at least, has been worthwhile to help me understand the scriptural texts.

Besides that, it's also been helpful to help me address questions that people have about the Pilgrimage Prize or about the Bible or the Book of Mormon.

“I really believe strongly in what the doctor and covenant says about seeking learning by study and also by faith.”

I've tried to have that be one of my cardinal guides in my life, both in my academic career and in my personal devotion and my personal religious profession. I've tried to keep that balance of both academic rigor and groundiness, but also faith and spirituality and acknowledging that these texts that we're studying, that they're more than just dusty old scrolls. They're deeply meaningful and important for us today as scripture.

It's just really connecting with that world that these texts emerged out of both the Holy Land and Israel, but also in Egypt and other parts of the ancient Near East.

“It really brings the scriptures alive. You had carry Mealstein, our friend on, a little while ago, the scriptures are real as kind of his big push. And one way to learn how the scriptures are real is through these academic disciplines.”

And that's at least been my experience. Oh, that's fantastic. I have a good friend, Andy McFarland. He had a really difficult experience in Egypt to himself to tell you both about John, aren't you excited? I can tell. I can tell that you're excited. We're going to talk to Egypt today. Yeah, and one of the things that I love is that so many of us love to claim our connection to Joseph, but his wife was in Egyptian, it's just think that's cool. If we're part Joseph, we're part Egypt too. Yeah, John, wasn't you who told me you can get off the plane in Cairo and say, don't you know who I am? I am royalty here. I'm a descendant of the-- No, that wasn't me.

No, that wasn't me. That's so fun. Well, they didn't recognize Joseph in the story. So I can see how that would happen to you. Let's jump in. God meant it unto good. That's the title of the lesson this week. It had been 22 years since Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery.

Joseph had suffered many trials, including false accusations and imprisonment. When he finally saw his brothers again, Joseph was the governor of all Egypt.

Second only to Pharaoh. He could easily have taken revenge on his brothers and considering what they had done to Joseph. That might seem understandable, and yet Joseph forgave them. Not only that, but he helped them see divine purpose in his suffering. God meant it unto good. He told them, because it put him in a position to save all his father's household from fame. In many ways, Joseph was like Jesus Christ. Even though our sins caused Jesus' great suffering, he offers forgiveness, delivering all of us from a fate far worse than famine.

Whether we need to receive forgiveness or extend it at some point we all need to do both, Joseph's example points us to the Savior, the true source of healing and reconciliation.

“That is beautiful. What a great way to start. Stephen, how should we begin this lesson? Do you want to jump right in or do we need some background?”

Let's first take a look at the literary shape of these chapters, so we can see the sort of discrete literary units that are happening here.

Genesis 42, where we're going to start, 42 through 45, I'd like to call that the repentance trial, the repentance audit of Joseph's brothers. We are going to find out, once and for all, whether these guys are sincere, when they profess to feel sorry for what they did, and if they are sincere for their care for the younger brother Benjamin. In other words, we're going to see to use a script of phrase, "Have they brought forth fruit meat for repentance?" Is there repentance in here? So that's the first thing we're going to find in chapter 42 through 45.

Chapter 46 and 47 is going to be the relocation of the tribes of Israel, the brothers and their families into Egypt and their preservation from the famine. Obviously, the famine is looming in the background, the entire time in the story. Think of it like it's the death star hovering over all the ran about to blow them up. How is that going to factor in here? We need to get them into Egypt and we need them to be safe and preserved. That's going to be those two chapters. As I mentioned earlier at the outset, chapters 48 through 50 are going to be the covenant blessings that Jacob is going to give to his children and his grandchildren as a matter of fact.

We're going to have the death spoiler alert of both Jacob and Joseph. They're going to die in these chapters. And there's an interesting note or detail about that that the text gives us. And then, are closing theology. You had it there. God meant it for good. Joseph's concluding statement. I'll quiz you real quick. What do you know about Egypt and its status in the ancient world as the place where this is all happening in the story of Joseph? Based on what you know about ancient Egypt, we don't know the full chronology of Joseph of Egypt, but we'll put it roughly around maybe 15 or 1400 BC, give or take.

What can you guys tell me if I were to quiz you in one of my classes? Why is Egypt so prominent in the story?

“Obviously, it was prosperous. I think the Nile was so important and how it flooded every year. I mean, it was so reliable that they could grow crops from it.”

If that happens, maybe that means there's not famine is often. You're not depending on rain, because you've got the Nile. One of the main features, as John described we said, Egypt has a big river running down it. That river predictably floods. Those floods bring with them black silt that you can use to grow your crops. If you're stuck in Canaan, which is where the brothers are, which is where Israel is, you don't have a big river. You have a little river called the Jordan.

you're much more likely to survive in Egypt, the sort of the bread basket of the ancient world, the emergency pantry of the ancient areas.

“If you want to call it that, you're much more likely to have a better time there than you would be somewhere in like Syria, Canaan, Anatolia.”

That's one of the main reasons why it features so prominently, for much of its history, as, quote, a world empire, if we want to call that, at least by the measures of the ancient Near East, Egypt has had a very prominent presence in the ancient Levant in the ancient Near East during the time of Abraham, during the time of Joseph,

later, New Kingdom Egypt, using of Ramsey's, the Great Egyptian Empire of the New Kingdom, they've always had a cultural and political dominating presence in the region.

That combined with the actual geography of Egypt is why we're going to spend so much time in Egypt. Even after the Exodus, there are still machinations happening with the Egyptians and the time of Solomon, and later the time of Jeremiah, keep that in mind. That's why we're here to begin with Joseph's office, his position as the Vizier. If you look at what his jobs are when he gets elevated by Pharaoh, he's the chief administrator. In fact, it even says Pharaoh gives him his personal seal he can use. He's the overseer of the storehouses in the agriculture.

He's a judicial authority. He's also the gatekeeper for foreign dignitaries or foreign delegations coming into Egypt.

“If you want to imagine what Joseph's responsibilities are, he's the prime minister, and he's the treasurer secretary, and he's the chief justice of the Supreme Court, like all the same time.”

So no pressure on you, Joseph. There's been some interesting conversation in discussion and scholarship about how this picture of Joseph in the story maps onto what we know about ancient administrative government roles in ancient Egypt. We don't need to go into that too much. I do also just want to point out that Joseph is thoroughly Egyptianized at this point. He has an Egyptian name. He's married to an Egyptian woman. He's wearing Egyptian clothes. He even uses an Egyptian interpreter to pretend that he doesn't speak Canaanite or whatever the brothers are speaking at this time.

It says how he is shaved. That's a pretty well-known facet of ancient Egyptian hygiene, especially for royals and officials and elites and priests. Shaving, yeah, hair is kind of gross for the Egyptians, at least for priests and for officials and royalties, typically they'll shave and they'll wear like fake beards, as opposed to Semitic men, which are commonly wearing beards. There's two things happening here. This is all in service of the story to explain what's happening, but it also is grounding our story in the world of the ancient Near East.

It has, we would call, local flavor, local color. Ancient listeners of the story, who are more familiar with this world than we are, they would have picked up on these cues, which both adds to the literary arts. And like I said, ratching up the drama and the tension of the story, but also gives it a flavor of authenticity. And it makes it relatable to these ancient peoples who would have had the story be able to them. The last thing I'll just mention and then I'll stop filibustering here, Goshen, the land of Goshen. Where is that exactly? When people say the brothers go down into Egypt, they may assume, oh, are they going to Memphis or are they going to thieves?

Are going to these major metropolitan centers?

No, it says most of you there in the land of Goshen, which as far as we can tell, the Eastern Nile Delta, basically right by the Sinai Peninsula, right? Is you're getting it to Sinai?

There's a couple reasons why we're going to locate in Goshen. First of all, it's pasture friendly. It's the best place to have your flocks.

“It's going to be near trade route. Makes sense that you want to have a good highway to get out of town if you need to pretty quickly.”

So you're going to stick next to the trade routes. You don't want to go too deep into Egyptian territory because then you might get lost. Also, it's keeping us separated from Egypt's cultural heartland. Again, thieves are Memphis or some of these big cities. You want to stay in the hinterlands. You don't want to go so deep into Egypt, they get sucked in and absorbed by Egypt if you want to think about it in that way. By staying in the Goshen in the Nile Delta, we're creating a buffer zone between the land of promise for Abraham and his family and the land of Egypt, which can be a scary dark, bad place if you're not careful.

Hopefully that will situate us a little bit as we jump into the story. No, that's exciting. We can start a chapter 42 for listeners. I'm going to be using a modern English translation. I may use the King James occasionally, but I'm going to be using the new revised standard version. Specifically, the updated edition that came out a few years ago, but the NRSV recently.

There were some changes made to the church's handbook where they, I don't want to say aloud because you're always allowed to use other Bible translations.

We've suggestions and recommendations for other English Bible translations that could be useful in your personal study. The NRSV is one of them. I've always been using it. I think it's a great modern English translation. If you're listening along and you are disturbed by the lack of the and thy and saith pronouns and things like that in verb endings, that's okay.

Maybe we can jump right in there then to chapter 42. We don't have to go verse by verse by any means, but maybe it's worth picking up the major plot beats and seeing what we can learn. So the brothers are going to go down into Egypt. They're going to go there to buy food. The reason why we've discussed it's the emergency pantry of the ancient world, especially in times of famine. Of course, they're going to leave behind Benjamin.

We know why Jacob, he's already lost one son as far as he knows. He's not going to lose his other beloved youngest son. Benjamin's going to stay behind. That's setting it up for later. We get there.

And the first little literary or narrative nod we get earlier in the story is when they come to Joseph who is disguised.

He's the vizier. They don't know it's him. Verse 6. Now in Joseph as governor over the land, it was he who sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph's brothers came and bowed themselves before him with their faces to the ground. There you go. You get the payoff from the dream that Joseph earlier had with the seven stars and the seven sheaves of grain, bowing down to him. They say, "Why are you here? We're here to buy food." Verse 8 is really sort of our lynchpin.

Although Joseph had recognized his brothers, they did not recognize him.

“That's what's going to set up the tension leading throughout the rest of the story.”

The fact that they don't recognize you, Joseph is why not? Why can't they recognize his brother? Because at this point, he's thoroughly Egyptianized. We don't have to necessarily summarize the rest of it.

We all know the story. He accused them of being spies. That's always a perennial problem in the nature world.

Foreign people coming into your country, especially Egypt. They're knee jerk, distrustful and suspicious of foreigners coming into the country. Why are you actually here? He's going to accuse them of being spies. We get the set up that simian is going to be left behind. They're going to have to go back and get Benjamin to prove that they have a younger brother. Because they keep saying, "Oh no, we're not spies. We're just here to get food. We have a younger brother."

Test one of their sincerity, like I was saying earlier, is are they going to leave simian out to dry or are they going to actually follow through and save him? Because at any point, they could leave him in prison. They've already done it once before. Gentlemen, what do we care if we lose another brother? We're already at that point where we've done that once before. Test number one, if they are serious about their repentance and their change of heart,

“are they going to do to simian what they already did to Joseph? Are they going to leave him behind?”

We see sort of a mirror reflection or a literary repetition. The other thing we'll just kind of mention is we're going through here is we get another mirror scene with the grain that they bring back. A grain with some money turns out in the sacks of grain. Earlier in the story, they bring back the coat. Joseph's torn coat to their father as a token that Joseph is dead. They slaughtered a goat and put blood on it, all that stuff. They're going to do this again, but now they're bringing back grain.

The grain and the sacks of money that comes with it. Both times, it serves as a token for something happening in the story. For the coat, it's Joseph presumably being slaughtered. Jacob believes here with the grain and then with the money, they kind of freak out. So they think, why is their money? We went down there to get the food and pay it. Now it's coming back here. It kind of freaks them out.

So they don't know what's going to happen here. This is going to set up for all we have to go back down in the Egypt eventually. So we see again the literary repetition, these motifs, recurring back here in new and interesting ways.

“That's what I see sort of predominantly happening in chapter 42, at least on the narrative level.”

What the brothers are doing is exactly what you would expect in a famine economy. This will be picked up later in chapter 46 and 47. When there are threats of famine, that's when the state is going to step in and we're going to have a strong centralized administration.

For indeligations coming in and wanting food, they're going to have to go through the government basically.

Some people might wonder, why did the brothers just go talk to the local farmer or something like that? Could he get them their food? Well, no. In situations like this, you have to go through the administration. You have to go through the government. One of the things I love that you're just pointing out is that there's more than just the storyline. There's so many things that are hidden in plain sight as far as you're talking about the literary things.

It's to imagine that in our time, we've started to see in the book of Mormon in a translated document, there are also literary devices. I love how much scholarship recently has pointed out things like parallelisms and chiasmosis. While we're reading this storyline, it's fun for you to say, "Yeah, there's a whole lot more in the way it's presented in the structure in which it's presented it." Makes you think this is ancient stuff.

It's ancient art. I hope that we appreciate that our scriptures are works of literary art. A lot of intentionality went into these stories to tell them the way that they are. I don't think that they're just being made up like fiction, right? They're not just making everything up here. There has been a certain level of deliberate craft to go into how the story is being told.

The dialogue, things like that.

“You see the same thing in the book of Mormon when Mormon is an artist.”

As he crafts together, the book of Leia and Alman.

I want to focus, for a second, on one verse, if you two don't mind.

You might have a tendency to think that Joseph is the only one who has suffered because of this decision that they made years and years ago. And we think maybe, "Oh, they got away with it." In verse 21, they're talking with each other and Joseph is testing them. And they said to one another, "We are very guilty concerning our brother." Joseph, they're talking about, in that we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us.

And we would not hear. Therefore is this distress come upon us, meaning we're still being punished for this. It sounds like this has haunted them. For two decades, they remember his cries. To them, he must have been yelling out for them. Don't do this to me.

You're my family. Come help me. I know that's not more suffering. I don't want to say, "Well, they've suffered more than Joseph." But there has been some deep suffering by these brothers for a decision they made. Twenty something years ago.

“I'm glad you pointed out that out, Hank, because I think in verse 21,”

we see sincere guilt can be an act of transformative grace if it drives the repentance process. This seems to be one of our important verses where we see, again, I called it the repentance audit. The trial of the brothers is their repentance sincere. This is one of our first indications to say that yes, it is sincere, because it's going to impel them or drive them towards, we'll get to the story right,

saving Benjamin here. They had two opportunities to leave brothers out to dry, both simian and then Benjamin, and both times they step in to do the right thing. A very important verse 21 in chapter 42. Wow, I love what you just said there's even transformative guilt, because I'll be honest, there are things in my 47 years on this planet that I regret deeply.

Let that guilt work in you, move you to a better way of living. It doesn't have to be just pointless guilt. It can be transformative.

I've never thought about that. Thank you.

Thank you for saying that, Hank, because I feel the same way I hear people say I can go to the next life with no regrets. No, I've got some. I do. I wish I could say that, but use it to move you to be better now. Verse 22. Just Rubin says, "Did I not tell you not to wrong the boy, but you would not listen?" And I just thought, here's Joseph learning something about Rubin.

Right there. He has been thinking about this for 20 plus years. Yeah, he's listening to them, discuss him. And they don't know he can hear the whole thing. The irony is very rich. We as the readers know that, but the brothers, the characters, and the story don't know that yet. Oh, yeah. And he found out about them.

The repentance audit. He found out that they truly have been haunted. Yeah, by this decision. Rubin. I told you so. I told you so. I wonder how many times he said. I did not tell you not to wrong the boy. I told you to regret this. Let's keep going. Steven.

Great. It may be worth pointing out at the very end, chapter 38. Jacob says, "My son Benjamin shall not go down with you. For his brother is dead and he alone is left. If harm should come to him on the journey that you are to make, you would bring my gray hairs with sorrow down to.

And in the King James Bible, it's the grave." That's the translation. In the NRSV, they decided to translate the Hebrew Shell, which could be the grave than the sense of where you go to die. It could also mean like the underworld.

We would maybe call it the spear world. You get little notes here of ancient Israelite cosmology and their beliefs about the afterlife. Well, details like that are fun. This is why I recommend you console other modern translations as because you might miss those little nuances.

If Benjamin dies, my gray hairs will go with sorrow down to Shell, down to the pits of the underworld. It may be a little bit more dramatic there to think of it in that sense. But any case, we know Jacob's concern is why he doesn't want Benjamin to go with the brother. Let's jump into 43. We're going to continue the story.

First one, the famine is severe in the land.

“You need to go back down. We need to get more grain.”

Judah is going to step in. He's going to persuade Jacob to let them bring Benjamin down. He's going to act as His surety. Verse 9, "I myself will be surety for him." This is Judah speaking to Jacob about Benjamin.

You can hold me accountable for him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him before you,

Judah stepping up, this is his moment to prove that his repentance is sincere.

Hopefully, as the readers, we think this is both very moving,

“but also deeply kind of ironic because remember,”

who was the brother that wanted to sell him into slavery. Joseph and a slavery is Judah. He's one of the guys that steps into the bright idea. Let's sell him into slavery. It's better that we make a profit off of our brother rather than let him die. Once again, we see the motif of the younger favorite brother is in this precarious situation.

The older brother steps in. Initially, Judah is the bad guy. Now Judah is going to be the good guy. We're seeing the transformation happening in Judah there. They load up all their good stuff. They're going to take double the money with them.

It says in verse 12 because they're so spooked by the fact that money was brought back with them unbeknownst to them. Joseph sneaks it in there.

They're going over above and beyond.

Bring back all this nice stuff to give to the Egyptians to rescue Simian. They go back in there. Let's start in verse 16. When Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the steward of his house,

bring the man into the house and slaughter an animal and make ready for the men are to dine with me at noon. Notice why he does this. It's for Benjamin. He's happy that he sees younger brother. We're going to give him a big feast, a big banquet, younger brother. The man did as Joseph said and brought the man to Joseph's house. Verse 18, it says that they were afraid because they're brought into Joseph's house.

You can imagine how nerve-wracking would be to have dinner with your boss at their house with the president of the university or something right with the dean. We're bringing him into the house. We can tell why they're scared about this. Maybe we can talk a minute here about this idea of this banquet.

Why Joseph is slaughtering this animal for them?

“Why they're going to have this big fancy party with him in this feast?”

This idea of hospitality in the west. It's like, okay, you want to be nice. Somebody give him a glass of water. Make sure he's doing okay. You go to the Middle East. People will go out of their way to make sure that your needs are taken care of

and that you feel you are a respected guest under their house. Last time I was in Egypt, my wife and I went into a little bookstore that was by our hotel. You walk in there and the shopkeeper speaks very good English. He's very nice, very personable. He offers us some refreshment. Can I get you anything?

I politely declined his offer of refreshment both because I really didn't need it. And he got mad and he said, "No, no, no. I need to get you something. You are a guest in my store. I need to make sure that you're taken care of. So what can I get you?" I'm like, "Well, I guess a glass of water would be fine."

He said, "No, no, no, no. Water is for the horses. I need to get you some kind of a drink." He ran outside and got me whatever some yogurt drink or whatever. I had like almost offended him by refusing his offer of hospitality. There is a deeply ingrained, almost religious obligation to take care of strangers

and foreigners who may come under your roof. There's two dynamics at play here for why he's going to bust out the nice fatted calf. It's also in service of the bigger story of setting the brothers up here. Joseph's being a little slie in how he's setting this up. But there's also very much a sincere element there of taking care of his family.

Let's look at this moment. It should be one of the most touching moments of Scripture. It certainly is one of the most touching moments in this story. In chapter 43 verse 26, he brings them the brothers into his house and they again bow down to the ground before him. Once again fulfilling the dream, he inquired about their welfare and said,

"Is your father well, the old man of whom you spoke, is he still alive?" The old man. You can imagine why that's on Joseph's mind. So, you mentioned that old man, how's he doing? How's he doing?

They're going to say in verse 28, "Your servant, our father, is well, he is alive." And they bowed their heads and did obeisances. Then he looked up and saw his brother Benjamin, his mother's son.

“Remember, this is his biological brother here, right?”

Not a half brother. And said, "Is this your youngest brother of whom you spoke to me? God be gracious to you, my son." Again, he has to keep up the rules. Oh, this is the guy, right?

This is the brother you're saying, of course he knows it's Benjamin. Verse 30, "With that, Joseph hurried out because he was overcome with affection for his brother, and he was about to weep. So he went into a private room and wept there." He's doing this often.

He's a very emotional guy, Joseph is. And you know what? There's nothing wrong with that. Because if I run his situation, I'd probably feel the exact same way and do the exact same thing. Deep, deep pathos in this story with examples like this.

It's so fun because the reader knows what's going on. Yeah. The reader knows who he's talking about. The brothers don't. We're in on it with Joseph.

Hopefully we're sympathizing with him. Hopefully even this gets us choked up too as reading this here in the story.

And controlling himself so he gets his composure back.

Yes, to be Mr. Mean's journey, Egyptian, Vizier administrator again, it becomes out. He says, "Serve the meal. This is interesting. This is funny." Verse 33, "When they were seated before him, the firstborn according to his birthright and the

youngest according to his youth, the men looked at one another in amazement." Why would that amaze them, gentlemen?

“Why do you suppose the brothers are freaking out that he has them seated according to their birth order?”

Is it that he would know? Yes, exactly. How does this guy know? Who's the oldest? Who's the youngest?

Wow.

Again, ratcheting up the tension here in the story.

The brothers right though, they are in amazement. Who is this guy? And how does he know who we are? The stories ratcheting up the drama and the tension is ratcheting up. I will point out again this banquet.

We've talked about the hospitality aspect here. And there's the literary function of this banquet to mess with the brothers. We have to also understand, even today, these sorts of formal state dinners or bankwits. It signals relationship and rank. Seating by birth order, you're establishing this social hierarchy in addition to the impossible

moment knowledge building up the tension. It's not just dinner. There's something more important happening here with this dinner both in its literary context and its social context.

And that should be ratcheting up the tension.

And I can verse 34, portions were taken to them from Joseph's table. But Benjamin's portion was five times as much as any of theirs. So they drank and remarried. I love that, right? That little detail.

Joseph's favoritism is coming out here for Benjamin. And again, the other brothers should probably like, why is Benjamin so special? Again, we're repeating though the motif of the favored younger son. The other thing that's happening here in this chapter is the family accountability moment is coming. Joseph is stepping in.

And I don't want to say he's like messing with his brothers in a trivial way. But he is trying to sort of light a fire under their feet to make them accountable for what they've done. And he's slowly hinting at them that there's more going on here than they perhaps suspect by placing them in the birth order. He's giving Benjamin more food, things like that.

“If you're one of the brothers, you should have alarm bells going off in your head.”

Like who is this guy? Like I said before, this is one of the best stories ever told. There's all these little intricate details. You're going, oh wow, five times the food on Benjamin, Benjamin's right. Why does this guy like me so much?

And the fact that he put them all in there, order? I love that. Yeah, that's a pretty telling moment. A couple things in chapter 44 to look at. Now we're getting up to the decisive test for Judah for the brothers to see if they're really serious about their repentance.

We know the story, so we don't want to summarize it again, but I do want to point out a few things. Okay, the ruse that Joseph comes up with here. We all know famously he's going to put the silver cup in Benjamin's sack. And he's going to use that as the ruse to then detain him to test the brother. Let's take a minute and look at verse five.

Because this is the detail that some people might miss or gloss over. Joseph tells his servant, this is what you're supposed to go tell to the brothers when you find the cup.

“Verse four, go follow after the men and many overtake them, say to them, why have you returned evil for good?”

Why have you stolen my silver cup? Isn't not from this that my Lord drinks, does he not indeed use it for divination? You have done wrong in doing this. Gentlemen, when you hear the word divination, what comes to mind? I think of Oliver Cowdry automatically.

He had the gift of the divining rod. John, how about you? Yeah, same thing I was thinking of it. He uses it to discern things like water underground, but there must be something. What is an Egyptian use it for?

I'm not just I John, because I have some notes on it here that we can look at very brief. Let's point out, there's a little bit of ambiguity in the story. Whether Joseph is actually using the cup for divination. It's part of the ploy to get the brothers in trouble. You could potentially read it as saying, Joseph is just using this as a pretense to get the brothers in trouble.

So he's not really using it for divination. He's telling the servant, tell them I use it for divination to make the cup appear special. It's possible to read it that way. I personally actually hope that he was using it for divination. Precisely because Oliver Cowdry has a gift of a rod.

The doctrine of covenant says, Joseph Smith is using serostones. Other prophets, ancient and modern use these devices that we now consider, quote, sort of magic. We won't get into that, that's a whole other subject. It would be within continuity if Joseph is using a silver divining cup for some purpose. Let me read a few notes I have on the practice of divination in ancient Egypt.

It's most basic. Divination is, again, we call it quote unquote magic. I try to avoid that terminology for different reasons, but we'll say, it is an attempt to use to access divine knowledge through supernatural means.

Typically, you are going to use objects to penetrate the unseen, spiritual realm

“and communicate with supernatural forces to give you knowledge or information.”

In the ancient world, there's lots of forms of divination that you can do. My favorite form is ExdisPC, which is reading animal entrails. So you slaughter an animal and you read their entrails and you're supposed to unlock secrets of the universe. We look at that in kind of our minds below. The punchline is here in the ancient world, the ancient mindset.

If you believe that the gods control all aspects of the elements and the cosmos, then clearly, if there's something out of line in natural things around you, that must be a divine sign of something significant. So if you cut open an animal and you look at their entrails, and there's something weird going on with the entrails, that has to be some kind of a sign that a god has stepped into the natural world and influenced it that way for some purpose.

That's kind of the baseline assumption for how a lot of this works in antiquity.

With that said, let me read a couple of notes here from our friend and colleague at BYU Jongi, who's a fantastic Egyptologist.

“He has a great article from the religious study center called Clothes and Cups, the tangible world of Joseph.”

This is published in the book from Creation to Sinai, the Old Testament through the lens of the restoration. And it's for free on the religious study center website. I recommend our listeners check that out. Quote, from the Egyptian perspective, using a cup for divination is a known technique. The normal term for a drinking cup in the middle kingdom that's Egypt around the time of 2200 to 18RBC, middle kingdom is Hennu,

which in Joseph's time can refer to a shallow bowl, but is normally used for a generic container. This however is precisely the term used in text describing divination cup, Hennu. Egyptian texts describing divination through cups reveal a variety of procedures. And they date long after Joseph's time. Most of these cups, though, are said to be copper or pottery, not silver,

but that probably reflects the impoverished times in which these late accounts were written. These practices are thought to be much older than the texts describing them. Here we go. I'm going to read the descriptions. In your mind's eye, ladies and gentlemen, picturing maybe this is what Joseph is doing,

either of actually representing to do for the brothers. The individual is dressed in clean clothes, would have his face bent over the vessel, which was filled with oil, his lights closed while praying. Upon opening his eyes, he would see a light in which the gods would appear and answer questions. In the Egyptian divinatory use, the cup often given as a young boy or two young boy,

is a means to open the eyes of the user to reveal things otherwise invisible to the eyes. Is that something familiar, gentlemen? Yes. The fact that in our tradition too, we call Joseph of Egypt a sear. That's language from the book of Mormon.

This is why again, I hope he's using a cup for divination, but look at this. He closes his eyes, he says a prayer, he opens it, and he sees a light. And in that light, God is able to appear and answer questions. This should be ringing alarm bells for like urine and thumb-um, sear stone, interpreters, brother of Jared shining rocks, things like that.

Yeah, we're kind of in that world, that world of divination of divine knowledge coming through physical means, cups, stones, sticks, things like that. Wow. It's interesting to me if you look at the history of the church that here are people joining the church early on, which Joseph Smith, they know the Bible.

It's not odd to them.

It's probably amazing to them that here we have a sear.

If I read the Bible, I'm going, oh, this is familiar. Interesting how many critics today will look back at early history of the church and think is that crazy while the people, the converts of that day were thinking, this is proof to me. Yeah, if you're going to get mad at Joseph Smith for using stones as sear stones,

if you're going to get mad at all of a cowdry for having a sprout or a rod that he's

“using for divination, you have to get mad at Moses for having a magic stick that he uses”

to perform miracles. You have to get mad at the ancient Israelites for having a magic box called the Ark of the Covenant that they used to split the river Jordan and perform miracles. You have to get mad at Jesus for spitting and dirt and using that as clay to a night, a man's eyes to heal a blind man.

You have to get mad at Elijah in Elijah for having a magic coat that they used to go to perform miracles. Yeah, I'm being a little facetious here, but you get the punchline. If you take for granted, the world of the miraculous and the world of the divine, then who might say that God can't use stones or sticks or clothing or boxes of

a casher wood in the case of Ark of the Covenant or spit in mud, which is still blind man.

objects or instruments to channel God's power to perform the miraculous. Like you Hank, I don't take that criticism too seriously.

“At least from our friends of other faith traditions that made, oh yeah, I don't remember”

problem. Magic rocks in the Bible. Magic cups in the Bible. No problem. Magic rocks in 1829?

Well, I don't know about that guy. That seems a little bit too much, right? Yeah. Especially from a resurrected Lord. Here we have someone who died.

Came back to life.

He's never going to die and can leave the planet at will.

Walk through walls. Yeah, I'm pretty sure he knows stuff. We don't know. We've had our little mini divination lesson here on the follow him podcast. Let's just jump down again.

We know the story. They find the silver cup in Benjamin's sack and they're going to take him back. Going to arrest him. This is exactly what Judah did not want to have happened. Let's look at Judah's response to this because there's a lot that reveals about Judah

in his plea for Benjamin's release. Judah steps in. He says to Joseph, "Oh, my Lord, let your servant speak a word in my Lord's ear and do not be angry with your servant for you or like Pharaoh himself." Then he goes and he hashes everything about the dad.

And we have to go bring the brother back and so forth.

Let's go to verse 30. Now therefore, when I come to your servant, my father and the boy is not with us,

“then as his life is bound up in the boy's life when he sees that the boy is not with us.”

He will die. And your servants will bring down the gray hairs of your servant and our father with sorrow to shel to the underworld. For your servant became surety for the boy to my father, saying, "If I do not bring him back to you, then I will bear the blame in the sight of my father

all my life." Verse 33. Now therefore, please let your servant remain as a slave to my Lord in place of the boy and let the boy go back with his brothers. For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me?

I fear to see the suffering that would come upon my father.

That is a powerful speech from Judah.

And it is a beautiful encapsulation of the ministry that Christ performed for us, stepping in as our intercessor in times of certain doom. Like Judah, he stepped into rescue and save us. I love this, and we see the full character transformation of Judah. He went from the guy who was willing to sell his younger brother into slavery because he hated him

because he was a jerk. To now he's going to save his other younger brother after certain doom was going to befall him. And even says, "I am a surety for the boy. So let the boy go back with his brothers and I will be a slave to my Lord in the place of the boy." This is great.

On the narrative level, it's beautiful. On the theological level, it's beautiful. Hopefully again, as Christians and Latter-day Saints, we can see the ultimate Christlike expression that Judah is now stepping into and inhabiting by acting this way. There's a great Christological reading of this that we can take from that.

Christ is from the house of Judah.

“Indeed, there's another nice little element there to that, right?”

How can I go up to my father and you can put your name in there? How can I go up to the father and John not be with me? How can I go to the father and Stephen not be with me? I can't. Take me instead so they can go to the father.

It's beautiful. Take me instead. Well, maybe we should get to the big climax of the story, which is chapter 45. We've talked about Judah stepping in as this Christlike figure to be an intercessory figure for Benjamin. I love how chapter 45 verse 1 begins.

Then, Joseph could no longer control himself before all those who stood before him. I mean, come on, give the guy a break. He has a lot going on there. He's already had to once before go to the room to have a good cry to come back. He can no longer control it.

And I love the fact that it's in response to Judah stepping up and proving his repentance. Remember, this is the guy that sold Joseph into slavery, that led that. Now he's stepping up and saying, I will look after my younger brother. He sends everybody else away. Verse 2, he went so loudly that the Egyptians heard it and the household of Pharaoh heard it.

So this is a right proper cry. It's been bottled up for what 20 something years now at this point. Verse 4, Joseph came to his brothers. He had come closer to me and they came closer and he said, I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt.

Do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here for God sent me before you to preserve life. Let's take a minute there and unpack that. There's two things happening here at once. Number 1, Joseph identifies the what the brother did was evil.

We don't want to overlook that. This is not just all smell the ends well and we sort of gloss over this horrible thing that the brothers did. Who hasn't sold this sibling? Come on. Like no, it's a big deal.

It's a big deal. You sold your brother, Joseph, into Egypt. But so he acknowledges the evil there, right? But do not be distressed or angry because God has sent me to preserve life. In other words, even in this moment of evil, this evil action that the brothers did,

God stepped in and fulfilled it in a sort of redemptive role. My favorite way to describe this is what Lehigh tells his son Jacob and second if I do. God will consecrate thine afflictions for that game. This doesn't negate the evil, the affliction. Rather, the point of the story here that the big moral message is that even in that evil,

God is always two or three steps ahead and he will, I'd like to say he will alchemyze it for our good.

If we have faith and if we have trust in him, it's not just, oh great, we're all friends again. Oh, no problem guys. What under the bridge? No, we have to call out evil for what it is. But we can recognize that God will take the evil around us, the suffering around us.

And he can consecrate it for us for a bigger, better noble cause.

“And see logically, we can ask, did God predestine that to happen or did God allow them to use their agency badly?”

And I think it's the latter, but he can always find a way to bring good out of it. I like that too, John. I think that's right. I think we as Leader Day Saints, we would shy away from any discussion of like predestination, the idea that the brothers, they had no agency, no choice in the matter.

They just were little puppets, gods, puppets on the strings, doing all these things. We would understand and say that even when people exercise their agency wickedly or unrighteously or evenly, that will not frustrate or thwart God's power in his purposes that he has for his children. Yes, absolutely. I love also what's happening.

So after he says this, okay, I'm your brother so many Egypt. The next thing he asks from the brothers is to go and get dad. Vers9, hurry up, go to my father and say to him, thus says your son Joseph. Wait, Joseph's alive, so he wants him to go back and tell their dad that Joseph is alive. God has made me Lord of all Egypt come down to me, do not delay.

You can see Joseph's very sincere concern for his family, both for his brothers, especially Benjamin and for his dad. Remember when they came back before? Oh, so yeah, this this old man of yours back in Canaan, he's still alive.

“And then the next thing, go and tell dad, I am alive and you need to come down here into Egypt.”

Verse 10, you shall settle the land of Goshen, you shall be near me. You and your children and your children as well as your flocks and your hurts that you have, okay? They're going to go do that. One more thing here to mention, again, Joseph, he's a little softy here. Verse 14, he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck and wept.

Benjamin wept upon his neck and he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them after that his brothers talked with him. This is sincere, powerful healing and reconciliation. I don't know if I have an immediate frigate of my siblings that they sold me into slavery, right? If I'm being totally honest, here, it absolutely is on display with Joseph. It's another powerful pathos-filled moment in the story.

Notice the brothers are crying with him. This is real true sincere reconciliation in the family. I think it's beautiful. I think the stories that touch us the most are when their family stories like this. When the Book of Mormon begins with a family with all sorts of problems and there's attempts at reconciliation.

They're always trying to do that.

Here's one that it turns out that they're all weeping on each other and talking. Reconciliation is a good word there because it's a theological word, but the Savior is going to do for all of us.

“There's an older talk that I remember from 2003.”

I'm sad that 2003 is an older talk. It was given by David Sornsson, who you might recognize that name, John. He is one of our benefactors. He's father of Steve. Mr. Johnson, both of whom have passed away, he tells the story of "Chet and Walt." It was over water, which is a pretty big deal in the farming community.

Here's what Elder Sornsson said. A group in a farming town where water was the lifeblood of the community. I remember the people of our society constantly watching, worrying and praying over the rain, irrigation rights, and water in general.

Sometimes my children chied me, they say they never knew someone so preoccupied with rain.

It was a matter of survival.

“So he says, "In that type of environment, two men lived near our mountain pasture,”

whom I will call "Chet and Walt." These two neighbors began to quarrel over water from the irrigation ditch they shared.

It was innocent enough at first.

But over the years, the two men allowed their disagreements to turn into resentment, and then arguments, even to the point of threats. One July morning, both men felt they were once short of water. Each went to the ditch to see what had happened. Each and his own mind reckoning the other had stolen his water.

They arrived at the headgate at the same time. Angry words were exchanged, a scuffle ensued. Walt was a large man with great strength. Chet was small, wiring, tenacious. In the heat of the scuffle, the shovels the men were carrying,

were used as weapons.

“Walt accidentally struck one of Chet's eyes with the shovel,”

leaving him blind in that eye.

Months and years passed, yet Chet could not forget nor forgive. The anger that he had felt over losing his eye, boiled inside him and his hatred grew more intense. One day, Chet went to his barn, took down the gun from its rack, got on his horse and rode to the headgate of the ditch.

He put a dam in the ditch and diverted the water away from Walt's farm, knowing that Walt would soon come to see what had happened. Then Chet slipped into the brush and waited. When Walt appeared, Chet shot him dead. Then he got on his horse, went back to his home and called the sheriff

to inform him that he had just shot Walt. My father was asked to be on the jury that tried Chet for murder. Father disqualified himself because he was a longtime friend of both men and their families. Chet was tried and convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. After many years, Chet's wife came to my father,

and asked if he would sign a petition to the governor, asking for clemency for her husband whose health was now broken after serving so many years in the state penitentiary. Father signed the petition. A few nights later, two of Walt's grown sons appeared at our door.

They were very angry and upset. They said that because father had signed the petition, many others had signed. They asked father to have his name withdrawn from the petition. He said no. He felt that Chet was a broken and sick man.

He had suffered these many years in prison for that terrible crime. He wanted to see Chet have a decent funeral in burial beside his family. Walt's sons were old and anger and said if he is released from prison, we will see that harm comes to him and his family. Chet was eventually released and allowed to come home to die with his family.

Fortunately, there was no further violence between the families. My father often lamented how tragic it was that Chet and Walt, these two neighbors and boyhood friends had fallen captive to their anger and let it destroy their lives. He goes on to give this great talk.

You can read the whole thing, it's called forgiveness, we'll change bitterness to love and guess which scripture character he brings up in the rest of the talk. Joseph of Egypt. Joseph's will to forgive changed bitterness to love. Towards the end of the talk, Elder Sorenson says,

this is not to say that forgiveness is easy. When someone has heard us, or those we care about, the pain can almost be overwhelming.

“It can feel as if the pain or the injustice is the most important thing of the world”

and that we have no choice but to seek vengeance. But Christ, the Prince of Peace, teaches us a better way. It can be very difficult to forgive someone the harm they've done us, but when we do, we open ourselves up to a better future. No longer to someone else's wrongdoing control our course.

When we forgive others, it frees us to choose how we will live our own lives. Forgiveness means that problems of the past no longer dictate our destinies and we can focus on the future with God's love in our hearts.

Traject story, but a beautiful message of how incredible Joseph's decision is.

And this is decades of pain that he suffered. By all rights, Joseph is entitled to enact his revenge on his brothers. I don't think anybody would necessarily fault him if he did everything he could to meet their evil with justice. Much like Judah being a Christ-like figure standing in and giving intercession for Benjamin. Joseph is also a Christ-like figure in how he meets evil with mercy and with reconciliation.

Not to excuse that evil or to justify it, but rather to point out the point of the story which you've discussed is that even with that evil, even when people act wickedly, the atonement could override that and can create that healing that we need to resolve that. That's a beautiful illustration and story for the principle we're trying to talk here, so thank you for that Hank.

Giving Judah the opportunity to come forth that way and offer himself, I think that it must have been healing for Joseph just to see that happen.

Yeah, I think so too. For sure.

We looked at chapter 44 verse 34 as something the Savior might say, "How can I go up to my father and this person not be with me?"

“I think it's very similar. You can hear the Savior in verse 4 of chapter 45, "Come near to me, I pray you. Come unto me."”

Therefore, be not grieved nor angry with yourselves that you sinned for God did send me to preserve your life. Very much a shadow or a type of Christ in both of these brothers.

Absolutely. Coming up in part 2. Knowing that I'm a latter day saint, my Catholic professor came to me. And he said, "Steven, if it's all right, I would love for you to share with us why or how Joseph of Egypt is significant in the latter days hate faith traditions."

“Specifically in the Book of Mormon. Could you do that for us? And I was like, "Sure, I think so."”

It was generally very nerve-wracking for me, not because I didn't know the material. It was because I wanted to make sure I properly represented this important figure in our faith tradition to my Catholic friends and my classmates. [Music]