12 sons…Joseph…

 12 sons…Joseph…

Now the sons of Jacob were twelve. The sons of Leah: Reuben (Jacob's firstborn), Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. The sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin. The sons of Bilhah, Rachel's servant: Dan and Naphtali. The sons of Zilpah, Leah's servant: Gad and Asher. These were the sons of Jacob who were born to him in Paddan-aram.

Genesis 35:22b-26

Then God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb. She conceived and bore a son and said, “God has taken away my reproach.” And she called his name Joseph, saying, “May the Lord add to me another son!”

Genesis 30:22-24 

Jacob’s blessing….

“Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a spring; his branches run over the wall. 

The archers bitterly attacked him, shot at him, and harassed him severely, yet his bow remained unmoved; his arms were made agile by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob (from there is the Shepherd,  the Stone of Israel), by the God of your father who will help you, by the Almighty  who will bless you with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that crouches beneath, blessings of the breasts and of the womb. 

The blessings of your father are mighty beyond the blessings of my parents, up to the bounties of the everlasting hills. 

May they be on the head of Joseph, and on the brow of him who was set apart from his brothers.

Genesis 49:22-26

Mose’s blessing…

And of Joseph he said, “Blessed by the Lord be his land, with the choicest gifts of heaven above, and of the deep that crouches beneath, with the choicest fruits of the sun and the rich yield of the months, with the finest produce of the ancient mountains and the abundance of the everlasting hills, with the best gifts of the earth and its fullness and the favor of him who dwells in the bush. May these rest on the head of Joseph, on the pate of him who is prince among his brothers. 

A firstborn bull —he has majesty, and his horns are the horns of a wild ox; with them he shall gore the peoples, all of them, to the ends of the earth; they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh.”

Deuteronomy 33:13-17

Joseph meaning..increaser…

https://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/joseph/

When I think of Jacob’s son Joseph as opposed to other Josephs found in the scriptures…I think of the words…favorite, coat, slave, dreamer, interpreter of dreams, faithful in adversity, God follower, and finally the words he spoke to his brothers,

 “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.

Genesis 50:20

Instead of a tribe of Joseph as his brothers, his descendants become the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, named for his two sons born in Egypt…Joseph’s descendants are spoken of as the “house of Joseph “ over time…

Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh. “For,” he said, “God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father's house.” The name of the second he called Ephraim, “For God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.”

Genesis 41:51-52 

Genesis 48 speaks of Jacob (Israel) blessing Joseph’s son, taking them as his own…

Joshua 16 and 17 speak of the inheritance of Joseph’s son in the promised land.

The burial of Joseph’s bones…

As for the bones of Joseph, which the people of Israel brought up from Egypt, they buried them at Shechem, in the piece of land that Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for a hundred pieces of money. It became an inheritance of the descendants of Joseph.

Joshua 24:32

There are so many references to Joseph from Joshua to Revelations promises, positive implications…at the end, in Revelations, it again speaks of the Tribe of Joseph …interesting…

“I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph. I will bring them back because I have compassion on them, and they shall be as though I had not rejected them, for I am the Lord their God and I will answer them. 

Then Ephraim shall become like a mighty warrior, and their hearts shall be glad as with wine. Their children shall see it and be glad; their hearts shall rejoice in the Lord.

Zechariah 10:6-7

By faith Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, bowing in worship over the head of his staff. By faith Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones.

Hebrews 11:21-22

12,000 from the tribe of Zebulun, 12,000 from the tribe of Joseph, 12,000 from the tribe of Benjamin were sealed.

Revelation 7:8

Takeaway…for me this time around…Joseph was found faithful in adversity, he even named his sons  with that same trait…fruitful, forgetting hardship and looking to his Lord rather than the past circumstances….he grew and flourished through hard times…

Thank YOU for these lessons which are just as  important today as they were thousands of years ago…