Oh, What a Tangled Web We Weave
Sir Walter Scott’s epic poem, “Marmion”, perfectly sums up our reading today when it says, “Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.” The irony of Jacob who once deceived his father to steal his brother’s blessing now being deceived by his sons is actually quite tragic. Jacob was more than a little heartbroken by his sons’ deception. Though verse 35 says that all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him, we know that his sons were holding back the only truth that would honestly bring his father comfort. Only they knew Joseph’s fate, and yet they concocted an elaborate deception to keep their guilt hidden.
“When Satan has taught men to commit one sin, he teaches them to try to conceal it with another.” (Matthew Henry) Sin gives birth to more and more sin unless we confess it and find freedom from its snares. The sin of jealousy festered and twisted inside these men (for they were no longer children who might be excused for some adolescent lack of restraint). Jealousy led to rage; rage to malice; malice to aggression; aggression to lying; lying to the cruelty of allowing another to suffer while you hold the remedy to their pain in secret. These brothers surely found themselves in a worse place than Joseph did.
The telling of Joseph being betrayed by his brothers affects each of us slightly differently. Perhaps, depending on where you are in this particular moment, different parts of the story pull at your heart more than others. To be betrayed and hated by the people who should love you is one of the bitterest pains we can experience. To lose a child tears a part of a parent’s heart from them completely. To carry the guilt of something you wish you could go back in time and redo can eat away at your peace. All these elements make the lives of these men very relatable to us even today. But what is important about this story isn’t the pain that we read. It isn’t even entirely the lesson of the consequences of sin. Perhaps, the most important thing we can take away from this passage today is the presence of God that is not written in the verses we read.
Though His name does not appear, His hand surely does. The groundwork for the saving of Joseph began long before Jacob asked his son to go and check on his brothers. It began when Rueben slept with his father’s concubine. Reuben’s fall from grace with his father led him to concoct the first of the brothers’ deceptions. Reuben convinced his brothers to not kill Joseph so he could play the hero and deliver the abused son back to his father – thereby regaining this father’s favor. If Reuben had not seen a profitable reason to keep Joseph alive, the story might have ended much differently. Add to this, Judah’s greed and the happenstance of a caravan of traders passing by at just that moment and God’s sovereign providence unfolds. God had a plan for Joseph. We will soon read how all of these events play into a series of events that lead to the saving of many people.
No matter where you are in your story, God’s hand still weaves the tale together. When we are in the pit, we can praise God for the lack of water. When we are being sold, we can praise God for preserving our life. When good and bad befall us, when we are walking in a right relationship with our Heavenly Father, we can trust that all things work together for our good (Romans 8:28). This chapter of your life may be challenging, but God has not put His powerful pen down yet. Though it may feel like He is silent or absent from your struggle, He is there… protecting, guiding, and providing in ways we may not realize until the end of our story. Walk in faith – even when hanging out at the bottom of a pit.
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