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One Man’s Obedience to God Saved the Lives of Thousands

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Published on: October 10, 2014

If you go to the book of Genesis, you will find the story of Joseph. Today, we are going to learn about Joseph and all that God did through him.

One day, there was a man named Jacob who had a son named Joseph. Joseph had 12 brothers, but his father loved Joseph the most. Because of his love toward Joseph, Joseph’s father made him a coat of many colors. His brothers saw this and became jealous of Joseph.

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Joseph went to his brothers one day and said to them, “I dreamed a dream that we were gathering sheaves and my sheave stood up while all your sheaves bowed down to my sheave.” Hearing this, his brothers hated him more.

Joseph went to them again and said, “I dreamed another dream that the sun and the stars and the moon were all bowing down to me.” His brothers were even more furious than the last time, so they said let us kill him when we see him.

However, one of the brothers said not to kill him, but throw him into a nearby pit. He said they should tell their father that an animal killed him. The brothers agreed.

When Joseph came up to meet them, the brothers grabbed him, ripped his coat off, and threw him into the pit.

An Ishmaelite wagon, on its way to Egypt, was passing by and so the brothers took Joseph and sold him as a slave. Following this, they went and lied to their father about what had happened to Joseph.

When Joseph came into Egypt, he was sold to a man named Potiphar. Potiphar found him responsible, so he made him ruler over his house.

However, Potiphar’s wife made advances toward Joseph so much that Joseph had to flee from her. She grabbed his coat as he was fleeing so that Joseph ran leaving his coat behind. When Joseph was running, she started to scream. One of the people of the house heard her scream, so they went to see what was happening. When they asked what had happened, she lied and said, “I was attacked by Joseph.”

When Potiphar heard of this, he put Joseph into prison. However, the prison keeper liked Joseph a lot and so he made him keeper of the prison. Eventually, Joseph was called upon by Pharaoh to interpret a couple of dreams he had and Joseph received the interpretation of them from God, warning Pharaoh of an impending famine throughout the land.

Pharaoh saw that Joseph was a good and wise man. Therefore, he made him the second ruler over the whole land of Egypt.

A famine arose in the land of Egypt and all around Egypt, including Canaan where Joseph’s brothers and father lived.

Egypt had lots of food because God had shown Joseph what was coming and Egypt prepared for it. Because of this, Joseph’s brothers went into Egypt to buy food. When they came to Joseph, they didn’t know it was him, but Joseph knew exactly who they were.

Joseph said to them, “Ye are spies,” but they said, “Nay, we are come from the land of Canaan to buy food, we are the 12 sons of Jacob.” Then Joseph said, “I count 10.” And they said, “The youngest is at home with his father and the other one died.” So Joseph said to them that he was going to put one of them in prison until the others went and fetched the younger brother, so he would know that they were not spies.

But they told Joseph, “Our father loves the youngest the most, the brother that died our father loved the most if we shall take the youngest away whom our father loveth the most, he will die.” Then Joseph said, “Fetch him.” Finally, their father allowed Benjamin (the youngest) to go only if the brothers had promised to bring him back safely. So they went back and Joseph made them a feast. After the feast, Joseph told one of his servants to put a silver cup in Benjamin’s sack. Joseph was testing them to see if their hearts had changed.

When the brothers left, Jacob’s servants went after them and found the cup in Benjamin’s sack.

However, through this Joseph realized that his brother’s hearts had changed, when they were willing to sacrifice themselves for Benjamin and gave Joseph reverence. Therefore, Joseph said, “Look at me brothers, I am Joseph who you sold into Egypt as a slave.” Then the brothers told their father. Jacob was happy and they brought him to Egypt to see Joseph. When Jacob saw Joseph he said, “Now let me die” because he was now content.

In the end, God used Joseph to save not only his family, but thousands of people in Egypt and the surrounding lands.

What did you think of that? Pretty cool, huh? God was faithful to Joseph despite all that happened to him because Joseph was faithful to God. I hope you had fun while reading about this Bible story. Thank you for taking time to read this with me.

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