HealingStrong's Around the Word

Episode 12 - The Joseph Series: Famine and Forgiveness (Genesis 41:53-57, 42:1-9 NIV)

• HealingStrong • Episode 12

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God orchestrates a pivotal reunion between Joseph and his brothers during a severe famine, forcing Joseph to confront his buried past and emotional wounds. This encounter marks the turning point in Joseph's story, setting the stage for reconciliation that would ultimately save his family and fulfill God's greater purposes.

This quick episode covers:

• Joseph has become governor of Egypt and manages grain distribution during a severe famine
• Jacob sends ten sons to Egypt to buy grain but keeps Benjamin at home
• Joseph's brothers bow before him, fulfilling the dreams they once resented
• Joseph recognizes his brothers but they don't recognize him
• Despite his position of power, Joseph had never sought out his family
• This unexpected reunion forces Joseph to address unresolved wounds
• The brothers' arrival presents Joseph with a choice between vengeance and forgiveness
• What seemed like a tragedy (famine) becomes the vehicle for healing and reconciliation
• Joseph's story demonstrates how God works through painful circumstances for greater purposes

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Suggested Resources:

BIBLE PLAN - Trusting God's Plan in the Waiting: Lessons from the Life of Joseph

PODCAST - Genesis to Revelation Bible Reading

TOOLS - Refresh Your Spirit through God's Word




Speaker 1:

So I love this part of the story because I feel like it's the climax, the turning point of the fullness of who Joseph is.

Speaker 2:

Hello, my name is Cheryl and you're listening to Healing Strong's Around the Word. We're a group of friends sitting around the table who love God's Word and we love digging deep into it. Each day you'll hear me read a Bible passage and then you'll hear us discussing what we're learning from it. Today I'll be reading Genesis, chapter 41, verses 53 through 57, and Genesis 42, verses 1 through 9, all from the NIV version of the Bible. So go ahead and join us Around the Word. Genesis 41, verses 53 through 57.

Speaker 2:

The seven years of abundance in Egypt came to an end and the seven years of famine began. Just as Joseph had said, there was famine in all the other lands, but in the whole land of Egypt there was food. When all Egypt began to feel the famine, the people cried to Pharaoh for food. Then Pharaoh told all the Egyptians go to Joseph and do what he tells you. When the famine had spread over the whole country, joseph opened all the storehouses and sold grain to the Egyptians, for the famine was severe throughout Egypt and all the world came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph because the famine was severe everywhere. Genesis 42, verses 1 through 9.

Speaker 2:

When Jacob learned that there was grain in Egypt. He said to his sons why do you just keep looking at each other? He continued I have heard that there is grain in Egypt. Go down there and buy some for us so that we may live and not die. Then 10 of Joseph's brothers went down to buy grain from Egypt. But Jacob did not send Benjamin, joseph's brother, with the others because he was afraid that harm might come to him. So Israel's sons were among those who went to buy grain, for there was famine in the land of Canaan also.

Speaker 2:

Now, joseph was the governor of the land, the person who sold grain to all its people. So when Joseph's brothers arrived, they bowed down to him with their faces to the ground. As soon as Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them, but he pretended to be a stranger and spoke harshly to them when do you come from? He asked From the land of Canaan. They replied to buy food. Although Joseph recognized his brothers, they did not recognize him. Then he remembered his dreams about them and said to them you are spies. You've come to see where our land is unprotected. You've come to see where our land is unprotected. Now it's time to listen in to Susie, angie Maren and myself and find all those treasures we were finding around the Word.

Speaker 3:

Well, the title of today's reading the Famine. It's really bad. A famine is terrible, so it looks like the most horrible thing that could happen from Jacob's perspective and his family's perspective. But God sees above it all and sees. He's not constrained by time. So Jacob and his family think it's the worst time ever. And then, when they come to Egypt, Joseph may be thinking this is the best time ever, I'm going to get to see my brothers, I'm going to get to see my father. At least I'll find out if my father's still alive and this could be a good time for him. He could have also had these thoughts. We see a little bit of evidence that he might have said okay, you're going to get yours now. You know you're here before me, You're bowing before me.

Speaker 2:

But funny that he had forgotten that dream. Like it's at that point when he literally sees them bowing before him that he remembers the dreams.

Speaker 1:

But remember too that he named his brother. I mean, he named his kids, you know, a name that helped him to forget the trouble and suffering in his own family. So I think he tried to forget who he was. If, when this happened, if he even expected that he was going to see anyone from his family, much less they were going to be bowing before him, you know, at that point. So I just wonder if this was just a complete surprise, a shock to him at that point.

Speaker 2:

I'd seen another devotional that at least posed that question too that with him being as powerful as he was, he could have gotten a chariot and gone over and found his dad and all of them and said look at me now, look look at me, I'm number two. Blah, blah, blah. He didn't. He literally moved on. He was like I'm done with y'all. So then, to have kind of what would be some of your worst enemy, or at least people that hurt you so badly, right in front of you, in your presence.

Speaker 1:

Isn't that just? It's so good because you know, you think about a wound that we have or something that we've buried deep. Unless we deal with that will true healing and will God really be able to be magnified and glorified in it. And so here Joseph is, he is buried. He has stuffed what's happened in his past and become his identity, has become this great Egyptian right. But now here he's, faced with this past again, and we know, as we continue to read, that he had such an important part to play in saving his people and he never, you know, he never would have dreamed that his own life would have led into the saving of his people. He thought his identity now was the Egyptians. But how beautiful was it for God to bring his family there and to help him to deal with what had happened in the past, so that God could be glorified and save the people of Israel.

Speaker 3:

He had to open those wounds, didn't he? He had to address those wounds.

Speaker 4:

Here's an interesting little extra All 10 of the brothers that were involved were there, not his dad, not his youngest brother, that nobody that wasn't involved was there right only the 10, all 10, and I thought that was interesting that he sent all 10.

Speaker 1:

I love what we're getting into because now this is where we can get to the nitty-gritty of what it was that needed to change in Joseph's life to allow God to step in and heal. And what happened in the future was magnificent.

Speaker 4:

Right, it didn't just save his family, it saved the world, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Well, this saved Joseph too, if you think about it. I know he saved a nation ultimately, but this saved his soul.

Speaker 1:

Yeah Right, it saved his dad, it saved his brothers, it restored his dad, and there's so many things about Joseph's story that I think we can just write home about that are just. Our. God is so good.

Speaker 2:

He's full of grace and there's so much grace in this story.

Speaker 3:

That's what the book is about redeeming us to the Father.

Speaker 4:

That's right and it was easy for Joseph to forgive his brothers at that point, when he saw that God had done all this and that made him weep for the years that were lost, but he loved his brothers. Now he restored that bond relationship goes crazy.

Speaker 1:

And I love this because it shows the humanity of Joseph, how he responds to his brothers in this real kind of angry, tough man kind of way. But yet we know later on that he had to leave the room to go cry because his heart was so for his brothers. You know, we're so torn between you know who we are in Christ, and this human side of us that wants to respond this way. But we know that with God, you know he leads us a different path and that path is so much greater. And so I love this part of the story because I feel like it's the climax, the turning point of the fullness of who Joseph is.

Speaker 2:

Don't you just love learning from other people and hearing their perspectives on different things, especially God's word? That's the whole point of Around the Word, the podcast. It's hoping to have another perspective that you can hear and, more importantly, encouraging you to get into God's Word and get some friends Sit around the table, read His Word, learn from Him and learn from each other. That's what we hope you'll do. We also hope you'll check out our website, healingstrongorg, where you can find out more about our mission and our community groups. Until next time, remember faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.