When the author of Hebrews looks back on the life of Joseph, he does not mention Joseph’s wisdom or managerial skills, Joseph’s rise to power, or his brush with death. He does not mention Joseph’s ability to interpret dreams. But the author of Hebrews does mention Joseph’s desire to be buried in the land of promise. This is the sure sign that Joseph believed God’s promise to give his people the land of Canaan. And this makes Joseph a man of faith.
A key figure in the closing chapters of the Book of Genesis, Joseph is known for several things: his “coat of many colors,” being sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, and for his remarkable ability to interpret the dreams of the Egyptian Pharaoh. But when the author of Hebrews looks back on the life of Joseph in Hebrews 11 (the so-called “hall of faith”), Joseph is remembered for something often overlooked. “By faith Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones” (Hebrews 11:22).
Joseph was the eleventh son of Jacob. Rachel was his mother. Joseph became the apple of his father’s eye and the recipient of the famous multi-colored coat–a gift from his doting father, provoking great jealousy on the part of his brothers. Joseph even had the nerve to claim that he had a dream in which his older brothers bowed down to him. When Jacob sent the seventeen year-old upstart Joseph to find his brothers, they plotted to kill him. One of his brothers, Reuben, talked the others into throwing Joseph down a well, knowing that he (Reuben) would return later and rescue him. But in the mysterious providence of God, Joseph was sold to traders, who took Joseph into Egypt as a slave, where he was sold again to Potiphar. While in Potiphar’s care, God was with Joseph, and the young Israelite thrived. Through a series of remarkable events, including interpreting Pharaoh’s dream (as recounted in Genesis 41), Joseph eventually became viceroy over all of Egypt.
When famine struck the land of Palestine, Jacob sent his sons to Egypt to purchase grain–Egypt possessed a great surplus of grain, thanks in part, to the skills of Joseph. In one of the greatest of biblical ironies, Joseph recognized his brothers, who were forced to bow down before him–in fulfillment of Joseph’s earlier dream. Joseph even quizzed them for information about his family and father. He arranged for his brothers to return to Egypt to retrieve a missing brother (Benjamin).
