Hope in a Hard PlaceSample

Joseph In a Hard Place

The story of Joseph is one that shows how someone can go through hard places—one really horrible situation after another—and come out on top. It’s one of my favorite Bible stories.

Joseph’s father Israel (aka Jacob) was a descendant of Abraham and an heir of God’s covenant. He had twelve sons and they became the twelve tribes of Israel. Joseph was the second youngest son and his father loved him more than all the others. 

You can imagine how Joseph’s other brothers felt about that. Genesis 37:4 says, “they hated him and couldn’t speak peaceably to him.” There was some major sibling rivalry going on in this household.

One night Joseph dreamed that he and his brothers were all sheaves (stalks of wheat bound up into bundles) in a field, and the sheaf representing Joseph stood upright, while all the other sheaves (his brothers) bowed down to him! You can imagine how well that went over. Joseph’s brothers hated him even more. 

If that wasn’t enough, Joseph had another dream, and this time the sun, the moon, and eleven stars all bowed down to him. Even his father disliked that dream, and rebuked him for it. 

One day when Israel sent Joseph to check on his brothers in the field, the brothers hatched a plan. They stripped off Joseph’s coat, threw him in a pit, and sold him to some traders from a neighboring country who were traveling by. The brothers then smeared goat’s blood on the coat, took it home, and let their father think that Joseph had been killed by a wild beast. Joseph, meanwhile, was taken to Egypt and sold into slavery.

I can’t imagine what Joseph felt; betrayed by his brothers, bound hand and foot, and taken to a country far from home where he didn’t even speak the language. He had no rights, no privileges, no one to stand up for him or even care about him. And there was no chance of ever going free. He must have been terrified. Joseph was in a hard place, for sure.