Twelve

Wednesday, July 9, 2025

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Twelve

“Now comes the reckoning for his blood.” His brothers did not know that Joseph understood what they said. But turning away from them, he wept.

Much has happened since Jacob crossed the Jabbok with his new name, Israel. As David Stevens writes, “Jacob entered his midnight match physically whole, but spiritually lame. He then crossed the Jabbok physically lame, but spiritually whole.”

 

Jacob had twelve sons, the last of which, Joseph and Benjamin, were born from his second wife Rachel, the woman he had always loved, although first his uncle Laban tricked him into marrying Leah, the mother of his ten other sons.

His sons walked with Jacob toward Esau, toward their first meeting since Jacob and his mother betrayed Esau with animal furs and the smell of raw meat to receive Isaac’s blessing. The Bible doesn’t delve into Jacob’s thoughts until now, but now he is deeply afraid of this meeting, knowing his cowardly, guilty obedience to his mother Rebekah might have destroyed the relationship with his brother.

Once Jacob is alone, after everyone else has crossed the river, in the sudden silence an angel engages Jacob in combat. All night they fought. Stevens continues:

The divine touch allowed Jacob to move from fighting his foe to tenaciously embracing his foe. Whatever the cost, he wanted God’s blessing.

At last he could see that Isaac’s blessing had been hollow, pointing him away from God rather than toward Him.

To become victors, we must be vanquished. This is the paradoxical nature of the pilgrimage of faith, of which Jacob’s birth order was a constant reminder.

Cain’s younger brother Abel was murdered by Cain, and Seth took his place. Just a few generations later Esau’s younger brother Jacob, vanquished but not killed, was blessed by Jehovah with the new name of Israel. Just one generation more and Jacob’s ten older sons, who hated their younger brother Joseph’s favorite son status, his arrogance and unaccountable ability to interpret dreams in his own favor, tried to kill him, although one did not and succeeded in saving him to become the world’s most important man. How many times can a man turn his head, and pretend that he just doesn’t see?

Things are looking up in the genealogy of Jesus.

Tomorrow we head back to Mt. Pulaski for basketball games, move Dad’s tractor-on-a-stick closer to the middle of the cemetery stone, and seek for the second time the small flat stones of Dad’s grandparents, George and Frances.

Today’s Joseph’s story continues. This year’s lectionary skips his struggles with the brothers, their jealousy of his coat of many colors and their debate about murdering him, his capture and enslavement by rich Egyptians, his imprisonment on false charges of adultery, his skill at interpreting dreams and release from prison, and finally gaining the Pharaoh’s trust, which soon would save the entire Middle East from death by famine. How many ears must one man have before he can hear people cry?

Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you.

When the famine had spread throughout the land,

Joseph opened all the cities that had grain

and rationed it to the Egyptians,

since the famine had gripped the land of Egypt.

In fact, all the world came to Joseph to obtain rations of grain,

for famine had gripped the whole world.

And so then came the sons of Israel, come to save their family the Israelites, and unknown to them …

It was their brother Joseph, as governor of the country, who dispensed the rations to all of the people.

How many roads must a man walk down, before you call him a man?

It will not be long, now, until the twelve brothers are reunited. Joseph insists on it as a condition of their survival.

A few thousand years later Jesus will choose twelve disciples to follow him.

Jesus summoned his Twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness.

And at Bible’s end twelve gates and foundations mark Revelation 21’s New Jerusalem.

It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.  It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel.

How many seas must a white dove sail, before she sleeps in the sand?

Oh, yes, we are here at last, ready to enter by the gates into the beautiful city – allelu!

(Genesis 41, Psalm 33, Mark 1, Matthew 10)

(posted at www.davesandel.net)

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