📖 Bible Characters — Unit 5: Joseph — From the Pit to the Palace, the Man Who Forgave

Few lives in Scripture show the hand of God more clearly than Joseph's. Sold by his own brothers, carried as a slave into a foreign land, falsely accused and locked in prison, he rose at last to stand second only to Pharaoh — and there, with the power to destroy the men who had wronged him, he forgave. Joseph's story is Romans 8:28 written as a life: "all things work together for good to those who love God." It is the story of a providence that no pit can stop and a forgiveness that flows from trusting that providence.

Subject: Joseph — from the pit to the palace, the man who forgave.

Proposition: What men intend for evil, God intends for good; His providence rules every step.

We will trace five movements in the life of Joseph.

I. The Dreamer

Joseph was the favored son of his father Jacob, and that favoritism bred trouble. Jacob gave him an ornate robe — traditionally rendered "a coat of many colors," though the rare Hebrew phrase may equally describe a long, sleeved garment reaching to the hands and feet — a mark of honor his brothers could not miss, and they hated him for it. Then came the dreams. In the first, the brothers' sheaves of grain bowed down to Joseph's sheaf; in the second, the sun, moon, and eleven stars bowed before him. The dreams were true, but they were not welcome.

Envy turned to hatred, and hatred to a plot. When Joseph came to them in the field, they stripped him of his coat and threw him into a pit. Reuben hoped to rescue him later, but while he was away the others sold Joseph to a passing caravan of traders bound for Egypt, for twenty pieces of silver. Then they dipped his coat in goat's blood and carried it to their father, who tore his clothes and mourned, refusing to be comforted. The dreamer was on his way down before he would ever go up, and his father believed him dead.

II. The Slave

Carried into Egypt and sold into the house of Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, Joseph might have seemed utterly forsaken. But Scripture says:

Here is the heart of Joseph's story in a single line: God knew his address. There is no pit so deep, no country so far, no circumstance so low that it lies outside the reach of God. Joseph served faithfully where God had placed him, and the Lord prospered everything in his hand, so that Potiphar set him over his entire household and entrusted everything to him. Joseph did not waste his years as a slave in self-pity; he worked, and God blessed his work.

III. The Prisoner

Joseph's integrity cost him. Day after day Potiphar's wife tried to seduce him, and day after day he refused. His answer reveals the root of his character: "How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" He saw that sin against his master would be, above all, sin against the Lord. At last she seized his garment; he fled and left it in her hand, and she used it to accuse him falsely. For his faithfulness Joseph was thrown into prison — punished for doing right.

Yet even there the same refrain follows him:

The keeper of the prison came to trust him and put everything under his care. In time Pharaoh's cupbearer and baker were thrown into the same prison, and each had a troubling dream on the same night. Joseph interpreted them: the cupbearer would be restored, the baker would be executed — and so it came to pass. Joseph asked only that the cupbearer remember him when he was free. But the cupbearer forgot him, and Joseph waited two more years. He was forgotten by men, but not by God. Joseph joins a long line of the falsely condemned who were yet held firmly in God's hand — Daniel in the lions' den, Jeremiah in the pit, Paul in his chains, and above all the Lord Jesus, condemned by men and vindicated by God.

Joseph's example confronts the lie that doing right always pays at once. He chose a clear conscience over a comfortable sin, and it cost him his freedom. Yet the LORD was with him even there, and the very prison became the place from which God would raise him up. Faithfulness is never wasted, even when its reward is long delayed.

IV. The Ruler

At last Pharaoh dreamed dreams that troubled him: seven fat cows swallowed by seven gaunt ones, seven full heads of grain swallowed by seven thin ones. None of the wise men of Egypt could interpret them. Then the cupbearer remembered the young Hebrew in the prison. In a single day Joseph was brought from the dungeon to the palace. When Pharaoh said he had heard that Joseph could interpret dreams, Joseph deflected the praise: "It is not in me; God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace." He read in Pharaoh's dreams seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine, and he counseled Pharaoh to store grain through the years of plenty so the land could survive.

Pharaoh saw the Spirit of God in him and made him second only to Pharaoh over all Egypt, setting his own ring on Joseph's hand and clothing him in fine linen. Through the seven years of plenty Joseph gathered grain in such quantities that it could not be measured. When the famine came, there was bread in Egypt, and from many nations people came to buy. The wisdom God had given to one despised young Hebrew now kept whole nations alive. The forgotten prisoner had become the savior of his world — exactly as the dreams had said.

V. The Forgiver

Then the famine reached Canaan, and it drove Joseph's brothers to Egypt to buy grain. They bowed before the governor of the land, not knowing he was the brother they had sold — and the dreams of long ago came true before their eyes. Joseph recognized them but tested them, holding back his identity, watching to see whether their hearts had changed. He kept Simeon as a pledge and required them to bring Benjamin, his only full brother. Then he hid his own silver cup in Benjamin's sack, and when the cup was found and Benjamin was threatened with slavery, Judah — the very brother who had first proposed selling Joseph — stepped forward and offered himself in Benjamin's place. The brothers had indeed changed. At last Joseph could hold back no longer. Weeping so loudly that the Egyptians heard him, he said, "I am Joseph." His brothers were terrified, certain that the day of revenge had come. But he did not take revenge. He had learned to see God's hand even in their sin:

Joseph brought his whole family to Egypt, was reunited with his aged father Jacob, and provided for them through the famine. But the deepest test of his forgiveness came later. When Jacob died, the brothers feared that Joseph had only restrained himself for their father's sake and would now repay them. They came trembling, and Joseph wept again and spoke the great word that crowns his life:

This is the secret of Joseph's forgiveness: he saw a God who rules over evil and bends it to good. He did not pretend the wrong was not wrong; his brothers had truly meant evil. But he saw a greater hand at work behind theirs. The same truth is ours in one verse:

Joseph could forgive because he believed that God had been at work the whole time — in the pit, in Potiphar's house, in the prison, and on the throne. None of it was wasted; none of it was outside God's plan. Joseph's life teaches us not to judge God's purposes only by what we can see in the moment; the pit and the prison looked like ruin, but they were the very road to a throne and to the saving of a nation. When we see that hand, we too can release the wrong others have done to us, leaving it in the keeping of a God who can bring good even out of evil. What men intend for evil, God intends for good.