JOSEPH

A Story of Reconciliation
BY MATTANAH DEWITT
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF MARKETING
INTRODUCTION
Hello,

This devotional was created as a 7-day guided reflection upon the story of Joseph
from the book of Genesis.

Like Joseph’s story, our own stories contain places of brokenness and experiences of
rejection, jealousy, injustice, and grief. We also find glimpses of hope, perseverance,
forgiveness, and unexpected blessing.

Each reflection includes an excerpt from Scripture, a reflection and some questions
for you to ponder in the silence of your heart. We've included some space for you to
write your thoughts after each reading.

This plan will guide you in an honest exploration of your own experiences and how
they’ve shaped you. You’ll watch the God of Israel miraculously reconcile and restore
Joseph and his family, while you reflect on your own journey of healing.

In Christ,
Mattanah DeWitt
DAY ONE.
How Favor and
Rejection Shape Us
READING Genesis 12:1-3, Genesis 37
REFLECTION
The story of Joseph begins with a relationally-splintered family. But this family
is also special, because God chose them and promised Joseph’s great-
grandfather, Abraham, that one day he will give them the land of Canaan, the
land we know today as Israel.
The promise guarantees Abraham’s descendents will become a great nation
and a blessing to the world. Over the span of many centuries, God plans to
restore all people through this one family. In the meantime, they live as
foreigners in Canaan. As a nomadic people, they sojourn throughout the
region, living in tents and raising livestock.
This is where we meet Joseph, a 17-year-old who shepherds his father’s flocks
and enjoys a position in the family as his father, Jacob’s, favorite child—
evidenced by a coat of many colors. This infuriates Joseph’s half-brothers.
To make matters worse in this already complicated family dynamic, Joseph has
a special ability: he dreams. He dreams of himself in places of power and
prestige with his family bowing down to him.
The brothers grow more angry and jealous as a result. They feel rejected by
their father and insulted by Joseph’s favored position, unique abilities, and
outlandish dreams. These feelings quickly morph into a deep hatred for
Joseph.
REFLECTION, CONT'D
One day, they scheme together, and at the suggestion of Joseph’s brother
Judah, the brothers throw him into a pit and then sell him as a slave to
merchants on their way to Egypt. Then, the brothers lead their father to
believe that Joseph was killed by a wild animal.
“I will go to my grave mourning for my son,” Jacob says, as he weeps.
In the meantime, an officer of Pharaoh in Egypt purchases Joseph as a slave.
This is undoubtedly a difficult start to our story. But the good news is this:
we’ll see God orchestrating solutions in the background. Sometimes what he
does will make sense to us. And sometimes, it might not. At times, we may not
recognize God in the story unless the narrator or a character points us to him
and his unfolding plan. But we’ll see as the story moves forward, God is
moving on behalf of this family—especially Joseph—in powerful ways, to
restore the family and even an entire nation!
Maybe you’ve known someone like Joseph, the favorite in the family or friend
group who has everything handed to him and whom everyone seems to like
best. Maybe you’ve felt the wound of rejection that Joseph’s brothers felt.
Maybe, like Joseph, you’re someone with special gifts, but instead faces the
resentment and jealousy of others on a regular basis. Maybe you’ve
experienced the bitter taste of injustice and its effects on what you hold dear.
One thing is certain: both unusual favor and rejection are experiences that
shape us. Sometimes, they can lead us to develop bitterness and hatred in our
hearts. We may do desperate things in an effort to right a wrong our own way,
to feel loved, or to eliminate whatever—or whomever—makes us feel unloved.
Sometimes, though, these experiences shape us in ways that make us stronger
and more compassionate. They often mark the beginning of a personal journey
of growth, of healing, of becoming.
DAY ONE. WRITE YOUR RESPONSE

QUESTIONS TO PONDER
As you think about the beginning of the Joseph story, consider your own
experiences of unusual favor or rejection. How have these experiences
shaped you? How would you define the journey you’re on? Where do
you need healing and restoration in your own heart?
DAY TWO.
Our Responsibility to
Restore
READING Genesis 15:5-6, Genesis 38
REFLECTION
The story of Joseph’s brother Judah and a woman named Tamar shows us
once again that this family whom God has chosen—is broken and messy, not
unlike our own families or life circumstances. Even so, God is at work, guiding
his people along a road to restoration.
After Judah betrays Joseph, he marries and has three sons: Er, Onan, and
Sheleh.
Time passes, and Judah arranges for a woman named Tamar to marry his
eldest son Er. But God kills Er because of his wickedness, leaving him without
an heir to inherit his portion of Judah’s land and possessions. So, Judah tells
Onan to marry Tamar in order to produce an heir for his deceased brother.
To understand Judah’s instructions, it’s important to know how the law of
levirate marriage works during this time. If a man—who has not yet received
his allotment of his father’s inheritance—dies without an heir, it is the
responsibility of his brother to marry his widow and produce an heir in place of
the deceased.
Onan has an opportunity to restore the dignity and inheritance of his dead
brother. But he intentionally avoids this obligation, because he sees another
opportunity for himself: if an heir isn’t produced for Er, Onan only has to share
his father’s inheritance with one brother instead of two.
REFLECTION
This would increase his allotment of the inheritance. Because of this greedy
act, the Lord kills Onan too.
While Judah has lost two of his three sons, he promises Tamar that she can
marry his last son Sheleh once he’s old enough, in keeping with the law of
Levirate marriage. Tamar returns to live with her father in the meantime. But
when the time comes and goes for Sheleh to be married, Tamar realizes Judah
has no intention of keeping his promise.
One day she recognizes an opportunity and forms a plan to produce an heir
within her deceased husband’s family line, the only way she knows how.
Tamar pretends to be a prostitute when Judah comes into town.
He sleeps with her and gives her his identification seal and cord, along with his
walking stick—maybe our modern-day version of a passport and car keys—as
collateral. When he tries to pay her, she is nowhere to be found.
After three months, someone tells Judah that Tamar is pregnant as a result of
prostitution. Judah is furious. He demands her public execution. But Tamar
sends Judah a message just in time, along with the collateral he had given her.
When Judah realizes that she is pregnant because of him, he stops the
execution and says something remarkable: “She is more righteous than I,
because I didn’t arrange for her to marry my son Sheleh.”
Only two times in the book of Genesis is someone considered to be
“righteous.” The first time, it’s Abraham (Genesis 15:5-6).
The second time, it’s Tamar, when she risks her own life to restore the lineage
that two dead—and evil!—men have lost. Her methods are unconventional. But
God still blesses them, and gives her twins, the exact number of heirs needed
to take the place of Judah’s first two sons.
Tamar’s actions change Judah. calls righteous, we see a change in him.
The story of Judah serves as a parallel narrative to what’s happening with
Joseph in Egypt over the course of many years. The way Judah changes in this
DAY TWO. WRITE YOUR RESPONSE

REFLECTION, CONT'D
story will become vitally important later.

From Judah and Tamar, we understand that when we are presented with an
opportunity to restore what is lost or broken, it’s not optional: it’s a
responsibility. And it remains a responsibility even when there’s personal risk
involved, and even when the person for whom we are to do good doesn’t
seem to deserve it.

Judah honors Tamar for being righteous, even when it means recognizing that
he isn’t. The first step on the path of righteousness is to recognize what’s right
and good, even if we don’t see it in ourselves yet. Then we must admire and
even reach for what is good and right—even if it seems as far from us as the
stars. Remember, it’s the reaching that counts!

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

As you think about the beginning of the Joseph story, consider your
own experiences of unusual favor or rejection. How have these
experiences shaped you? How would you define the journey you’re
on? Where do you need healing and restoration in your own heart?
DAY THREE.
REFLECTION

What We CAN In Egypt, Joseph is forced into to slavery. Separated from his community,
extracted from his home country, and stripped of the favor and honor he once

Control enjoyed, Joseph finds himself in a position to do hard, undignified labor for a
foreign people, in a foreign land.

And yet, even in these circumstances, Joseph begins to rise. Under his
Egyptian master Potiphar—the captain of the guard—Joseph becomes a
trusted administrator over the entire household. When Potiphar’s wife
attempts to seduce Joseph, he rejects her advances so she accuses him falsely.
READING Genesis 39 As a result, he is thrown into prison. Yet even here, Joseph gains favor with
the warden and becomes the administrator over the entire prison.

Imagine being Joseph. In some of the worst circumstances possible, you climb
your way up, make progress, find the light again, earn back pieces of your
dignity—only to be crushed once again because you chose to do the right
thing.

It would make sense to many of us for Joseph to question God at this point,
right? Maybe Joseph does question God or go through a time of struggling
with God’s plan, but that’s not where the story draws our attention. We only
see Joseph persevere. Without any distinction between Potiphar’s house or
the prison, he applies his vision, integrity, and steady effort to better the
people and places around him. And God continues to bless him wherever he is.

Joseph doesn’t have control over what happens to him. He only has control
over how he responds to what happens to him. He could blame God. He could
decide to just stop trying, to stop building the properties and profits of a
foreign nation and its people who have enslaved him. But Joseph chooses to
persevere instead.

Like Joseph, we’ll find strength and hope and better days ahead when we trust
God with circumstances we don’t understand and focus on what we can
control—our attitudes, our beliefs, our words, our actions—rather than what
we can’t control. God has given us this divine gift: that even when the light is
stolen from us, we can create it again. We can persevere.
DAY THREE. WRITE YOUR RESPONSE

QUESTIONS TO PONDER
Where do you need the Lord’s help right now to persevere? What are
some ways you can reorient your perspective by acknowledging what
you can and can’t control? How do you want to respond differently?
DAY FOUR.
God’s Purpose in
Our Gifts
READING Genesis 40-41
REFLECTION
We’ve seen how Joseph’s dreams back in Canaan upset his family and led to a
downward spiral of events, ending with slavery in Egypt. But now, a new series
of dreams—those of two fellow prisoners and, eventually, of Pharaoh himself—
will change the trajectory of Joseph’s life again, this time for the better.
Remember, Joseph’s ability to dream and interpret dreams is a gift from God
himself. The purpose of this gift is to understand what God is saying and what
has yet to take place.
Sometimes, when God gives us a gift, we may not understand the reason right
away. We may see the effects of the gift (e.g., Joseph's dreams at 17 years
old), but we may not see the purpose of the gift until years later (e.g., Joseph’s
interpretation of Pharaoh’s dream that saves a whole nation from famine).
God gives good gifts to his people for his purposes. And with those gifts come
the necessity to steward them faithfully, to use them with integrity under
pressure, and to deploy them alongside God’s purposes rather than our own.
REFLECTION CONT'D
Joseph learns how to steward his gift over the course of many hard years and
it provides him a ticket out of prison. Because of his gift and his wise use of it,
Joseph gains not only his freedom, but also authority, power, and pretty much
anything else he could want. He even marries and has two sons—a family of
his own to ease the pain inflicted by his family in Canaan. Most importantly, his
gift positions him to preserve countless lives during a famine.
In all of this, Joseph recognizes something: his gift doesn’t belong to him. Each
time an opportunity arises to interpret someone’s dream—even as he stands
before Pharaoh—Joseph clarifies that his ability to interpret dreams come
directly from God.
As God elevates Joseph in the eyes of an entire nation, we watch him steward
his gift in a way that elevates the eyes of the people toward the God who
speaks through dreams and preserves life.
At times, we may be tempted to misuse our gifts if we don’t have the quality
of character to sustain them. Or, if we haven’t begun the journey of healing
from past wounds, those wounds can leave scars on our hearts that threaten
to corrupt the gifts God has given us to use for good.
But, we can steward our gifts well when we believe at our core that the
greatest gift is our connection with the Lord. Because he is with us, we need
not claim any special ability as our own, and we need not hold onto any gift
with a white-knuckled grip, thinking it will provide us the security or validation
we crave.
Everything belongs to the Lord, and what we need is in his hands. Because he
cares for us, we can hold our gifts with open hands and use them as he
instructs us. Under God’s administration, our gifts can be the vehicle through
which he blesses, restores, and provides for countless people.
DAY FOUR. WRITE YOUR RESPONSE

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

What gifts or unique abilities has God given you, and how can they
be a blessing to others? How can you guard against misusing your
gift? Where can you grow in your connection with and dependence
upon the Lord?
DAY FIVE.
Healthy Forgiveness
and Reconciliation
READING Genesis 42-43
REFLECTION
The famine arrives. And it comes with a vengeance. People travel across the
region to buy grain. There’s plenty of it in Egypt, thanks to Joseph’s leadership.
One thing is clear: the famine hasn’t just affected Egypt. It’s crippled the whole
region.
In an agrarian society—groups of people whose livelihoods center around
farmland and depend upon a plentiful harvest each year in order to survive—a
famine is about the worst natural disaster there can be. While Joseph’s family
members are nomadic shepherds, they too depend on the health of the fields
in which their livestock grazes.
When Jacob sends his sons to Egypt to buy grain, it’s the first time Joseph has
seen them in years. They bow down as a sign of respect to the governor of
Egypt, not recognizing him as their brother. Joseph immediately recalls his
dreams back in Canaan: the dreams in which his brothers bowed down to him,
dreams of himself in a position of prestige and power. It’s all coming true
before his eyes.
Something in Joseph—maybe the deep, ever-present burden of his estranged
relationships with his brothers—starts to stir. He has everything he needs and
wants, except the family he’s lost. Now is a chance to reconcile with them. But
REFLECTION
have they changed? Can he trust them?
It’s clear that seeing his family again has a visceral impact on Joseph. Several
times, he has to step away from his brothers to weep and regain his
composure. He’s not ready to reveal his identity to them yet, until he tests
them. He keeps himself guarded until he knows whether the long years have
brought about the change in their hearts he hopes is there.
Many of us understand forgiveness as a concept, but it’s harder to understand
in practice. Is forgiveness simply about forgetting all wrongs done against us?
Is forgiveness about showing mercy, yet keeping the memory of the pain? At
what point do we draw the line to protect ourselves emotionally? What does
forgiveness actually require of us?
Every situation is different and most of us won’t be in a position to use
Joseph’s methods of testing character. But what we can do is protect our
hearts, while, at the same time, doing right by the people who have wronged
us.
Joseph takes his time revealing his true identity to his brothers. They’ve come
to him in need. They’ve come to him at a disadvantage—not just because he
has what they need, but because he is in a rare position of power. And power
differentials tend to motivate people to present only the best parts of
themselves. These are the barriers Joseph’s test must dismantle.
But all along, he still cares for his brothers, while hiding his strong emotions
temporarily. We get the impression that in his own heart, Joseph holds no
bitterness, and he wants to embrace them and restore their relationships. But
he’s careful and he’s patient.
The truth is, we can’t make those who have hurt us sorry for what they’ve
done. We can’t force reconciliation, even if we’re the victims. Joseph knows
this. He knows that if his brothers haven’t already changed, he can’t make
them change.
But, what he can do is take care of them from a distance until he sees whether
they’ve changed. He can do right by them in providing what they need to
survive the famine. And he can let time reveal what’s truly in their hearts.
DAY FIVE. WRITE YOUR RESPONSE

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

What people or situations come to mind when you think about

forgiveness? Who have you hoped and prayed would change? How is
God calling you to do right by those who have hurt you, and what
might it look like for you to guard your heart along the way?
DAY SIX.
How God Changes
Hearts
READING Genesis 44, Genesis 45:1—15
REFLECTION
Joseph’s brothers bear a heavy burden of guilt. Throughout their time visiting
Egypt so far, in the moments when they feel the odds are against them, their
immediate assumption is: “We’re being punished for what we did to Joseph.”
Think about a mistake you’ve made. Perhaps a wrong you’ve committed and
concealed. The people you had to lie to along the way to keep your wrong
covered, the sleepless nights, the way the memory of your wrong ripped you
apart from the inside out.
We all share in this experience at one level or another, because we all share in
the painful reality of sin. Every heart bears its mark, leaving none of us exempt.
Imagine the years of wear-and-tear the sin of Joseph’s brothers has inflicted
upon their inner lives. Every time something goes wrong, they see it as
punishment. Maybe that in itself is a kind of punishment.
The final phase of Joseph’s test for his brothers is now in play. He has given
instructions for his own silver cup to be buried in his youngest brother
Benjamin’s bag of grain. After the brothers leave, Joseph has them pursued
and captured. Upon confronting them for Benjamin’s apparent thievery,
Joseph offers to let the other brothers go and to keep Benjamin as a prisoner.
REFLECTION, CONT'D
If they agree to this offer, Joseph will know that they haven’t changed since
their betrayal so many years ago, when they were willing to sacrifice him to
quench their thirst for vengeance and soothe their jealous rage. If they agree
to this offer, they prove they’re still more interested in self-preservation than
doing the right thing.
However, if they refuse the offer and choose to protect Benjamin—Joseph’s
younger brother and Jacob’s new favorite son—they prove that over the long,
hard years, their hearts have indeed changed.
Joseph awaits their answer.
Then, Judah steps forward and speaks. Remember Judah, the brother who had
the idea of selling Joseph into slavery? Judah, whose self-interest kept him
from doing right by Tamar and his two dead sons? Judah, whose eyes have
been opened over the years to his own flaws and failures?
This Judah begs to take Benjamin’s place in prison, so Benjamin can go free.
Judah knows that if he returns to his father without the only favored son he
has left, Jacob would likely die of grief.
Judah is willing to sacrifice everything—to put his own life and well-being at
risk—in order to honor the very person who wounded him the most: his father.
Undoubtedly, he remembers the personal risk Tamar took in order to do the
right thing, to protect the dignity of even a wicked, dead man. While Jacob
clearly loved Judah less, Judah refuses to let that reality keep him from doing
the right thing, from protecting his father from a tragic end in grief.
Joseph is overwhelmed, and he can’t hide his identity any longer. He weeps
and the brothers embrace one another. He asks about his father. He releases
them from the burden of their guilt, telling them not to be “distressed” or
“angry with themselves” for selling him into Egypt. He even claims that God
himself brought him to Egypt so that their whole family and the region could
be delivered.
DAY SIX. WRITE YOUR RESPONSE

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

Where have you experienced the weight of guilt in your life? How can
your experiences of confession, repentance, and forgiveness deepen
your connection with God and with others?
DAY SEVEN.
Our Unfinished
Stories
READING Genesis 45:16—28. Genesis 46:28—34,
Genesis 49:29—33, Genesis 50:14—21
REFLECTION
Where Joseph’s test of his brothers reveals whether they have really changed,
the death of their father reveals whether Joseph has really forgiven them.
As Jacob, his sons, and their families approach Egypt with all their livestock
and possessions, Joseph runs out to meet his dad. The two hug one another
and weep together for a long time. Reading this in Scripture, it’s cinematic. It’s
the stuff feel-good movies are made of. But this is real, raw, and unscripted.
After all these years believing they’d never see the other again, they are finally
brought back together.
Jacob says to Joseph, “Now I am ready to die, since I have seen your face again
and know you are still alive.”
Surprisingly, Jacob doesn’t die as quickly as he expects. He actually lives 17
years after his arrival in Egypt, dying peacefully of natural causes at the age of
147.
After burying their father in Canaan with his ancestors, Joseph’s brothers grow
fearful. They suspect that Joseph only treated them kindly as long as their
father was with them. Now that Jacob is dead, they’re sure Joseph will punish
them for the wrong they committed against him. So, they devise a preemptive
strategy and plead with Joseph for their lives, offering to become his slaves if
he’ll spare them.
REFLECTION
Joseph responds once again with kindness, assuring them that he has forgiven
them, that he will care for them and their children, and that God has used even
their evil-intended actions for good.
The story of Joseph has a beautiful ending. Sometimes, though, our own
circumstances don’t resolve as beautifully. The truth about our own stories is
that we don’t know how they’ll end.
For many of us, though, our deepest fear isn’t that our stories will end poorly,
but that our lives aren’t stories at all—that there’s no living, loving, reconciling,
restoring God who’s writing and making sense and meaning out of them.
The story of Joseph has its fair share of messy situations, ups and downs, as
any compelling story does. The satisfying ending of this story doesn’t negate
all the years it takes to get there or the difficulties in the years that come after.
What’s most compelling and attractive about this story for some—and maybe
irritatingly simplistic for others—isn’t Joseph’s perseverance or Judah’s change
of heart. It’s that there is a larger plan at play. A plan that belongs to God, an
author with truly kind intentions whose pen determines the course of real
people’s lives.
For many of us, it’ll take a lifetime to fully believe we’re part of a bigger story,
surrender in love to its author, and accept the years of pain he may write into
our pages. Our reward comes when the last page is written and we, with fresh
assurance, see that we were right to believe—that the author saw us not as
mere characters, but as his own kids. And that he never had favorites.
Each of our stories is marked by deeply emotional experiences: suffering and
grief, joy and celebration, and everything in between. Who we become as a
result of these experiences makes all the difference.
When we lean on the Lord—in suffering, in injustice, in grief, in confession and
repentance, in forgiveness, in faithful stewardship of our gifts, in every
opportunity to do good—our hearts will be strengthened for the road ahead,
and we will one day look back on our stories to see the goodness of God
woven into every twist, turn, and beautiful ending.
DAY SEVEN. WRITE YOUR RESPONSE

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

Where in your own unfinished story do you see the goodness of God
right now? How can you lean on the Lord to care for the health of
your heart and mind through the ups and downs of life?
 Friend,

Thank you for completing 7 days meditating on the story of Joseph. We hope that
you have found them spiritually enriching.
THANK YOU

May God Bless You,

Mattanah DeWitt

About Passages
Passages is a Christian non-profit organization dedicated to bringing Christian students on life-changing trips to
the Holy land. We believe that a trip to Israel should be a rite of passage for every Christian. There is no substitute
for walking the land where Jesus walked and traversing the paths of the patriarchs, kings, prophets, and the first

disciples. The origins of both ancient Biblical faith and of a present-day nation, rich with culture, diversity, beauty,
and challenges, are in Israel. The land and the people of Israel have a story to tell. By coming to Israel, you make
Israel’s story part of your own. Learn more by visiting www.passagesisrael.com.