slavery to sin, calling for us to bow down to God's commands. I entrust little truth to my wisdom since awakening to its frailty.
Jacob: I can forgive you if you can justify the afflictions borne of his circumstances, describing any responsible for great suffering.
Judah: Joseph encountered many instances to make him suffer, but God was with him always, telling him to endure suffering, to trust Him, and wait for him to understand all would never be for evil but for good, so I will tell you, during our journey to Egypt, all the events shaping him to become a ruler under Pharaoh.
Jacob: Your confessions, giving me new life, renewing hope with good news, convincing me of the Lord's goodness, promise me to trust all you say, as I digest your remarkable reports convicting me to believe. Because of your good tidings, reviving a life forgotten, bringing back Joseph, restoring my joy, you bring me great joy, resurrecting your offense into a blessing, changing my quiet suffering, long-dead but simmering, awakening periodically to taunt me, spelling me with anxiety, waiting for its affliction to abate, never rewarding my patience until now, seeing God restores hope, bringing forgotten despair to be revised with fresh buds of joy, bursting in anticipation, for on hearing your words, all is forgiven. I too regret what I surmised, saying once to Joseph: Do you mean to say I and your brothers with their mothers will come bowing to the ground before you? I regret having dampened the Spirit, but now with the fanning of your words it begins to glow again. Let's hastily prepare to depart, and leave with no time to spare, returning to my time of joy, never believing it could come to pass, to happen before my passing.
Bystander: With the Holy Spirit indwelling, Jacob followed the Lord's leading, carrying on as his forefathers before, obeying the commission to sanctify a journey, stopping to offer God a sacrifice, praising Him for leading his company, trusting He renders it promised. God, speaking to Jacob in visions of the night, told him, Here am I, your God and the God of your father; do not be afraid to go down to Egypt; for I will make of you a great nation. I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again, after Joseph's hand closes your eyes.
Jacob: This day I will join my son in paradise, spending my last days, returning moments stolen from my joy, rejoicing in my Lord's mercy, bringing me to the land where He will make us a great nation, fulfilling His promise. Joseph will soon close my eyes, purifying me from this world, knowing God will restore my sight, giving me clear visions by His spiritual hands, awakening me to His understandings for the law, to see not those things which are seen but the things which are now unseen. He has been stingy, revealing few secrets kept in hiding for most but not me, making me struggle with Him, consenting to fight with me, wrestling for wisdom of His truths. I welcome God taking away blindness of my mortal visions so I will then see, taking away the life in my body so I can begin to see my Lord face-to-face. In this and all my journeys, I know God is with me.
Judah: We have had few ways to know God, having no visions such as yours, depending solely on your teaching for us to understand His covenant, His promises to make us a mighty nation. When father dies how will God lead us?
Reuben: We will have nothing to lead us except our customs and traditions, and we must wait upon the Lord for His timing to send us visions for directing our ways, never knowing if they will be enacted by miracles, prophets, or laws inscribed in tablets of stone. Will we flounder until His timing arrives?
Judah: We can never know the time or place, known only by God, sending us revelations at His pleasure, exacting patience we can never understand, being unlike any human's waiting. Meanwhile we must obey His command to make us a mighty nation, numbered with uncountable people, masses blessed to be a blessing.
Bystander: Who is there to lead God's promised ones? Depending on those who receive His visions, Jacob can be of some help, but his dreams came long ago, giving none since then. Joseph is the only one still in touch with God, hearing God to interpret dreams, helping His chosen people, assuring they will not forget His plans for them, remaining steadfast in His covenant, His bargain blessing them to be a blessing. Did partial blindness befall His chosen ones, veiling their purpose, waiting seemingly forever, never anticipating the full number of Gentiles could enter His fold, thereby saving all Israel as well as all humankind. What better group of Gentiles could be found than in Egypt, starting with them to be blessed, blessed by our missionary efforts, witnessing to peoples not knowing God, pagans having been forced to create their gods? Was Jacob's family blessed to be a blessing, reaching out to heathens in Egypt, approaching them with love, blessing them to become a blessing? Or would they fervently isolate their favored One, their God, protecting their blamelessness, vainly trying to follow His laws, never mixing their uprightness with any pagan virtues, never arguing for their one God to replace heathen idols, never admitting recognition of their own personal household gods, hiding their idols from all but God, while never trusting idol-gods of other people?
Jacob: I still discern God's ways, promising to gather my family together, telling them what must bless their efforts. We are commissioned to tell Pharaoh's people about our God, convincing them of His powers, proven by the wisdom He has given Joseph, teaching them to accept Him as their supreme ruler, and never shirk His commands, spoken for all to know, so we would never be enslaved by their powerless gods, urging pagans to silence us if we complain, to deafen our lamentations, when exiled from our promised land, stilling our voices with forced labor, building monuments to gods blind and deaf, unable to interact, never responding, seeing only occasional drops of sand from their faces of stone.
Judah: Does God still wish us to never pollute our relationship with Him, preserving our purity, never allowing us to marry foreigners and adopt worship of their gods? We could marry pagans and heathens with the goal of convincing them to accept and worship our God.
Reuben: That is unlikely. Despite our customs, traditions, and laws, we marry heathen unbelievers and begin to worship in ways they follow. We have already polluted our family, no different from the customs of our fathers, tarnishing their hopes of ever committing their lives to the Lord, defiling ourselves with the very gifts He gives us.
Jacob: Do we pollute our ways by loving pagans or by killing them, exacting retribution for being unlike us, blemished beyond hope, warranting us to exterminate uncounted scores, decimating countless numbers, claiming petty injuries to justify vengeance, proclaiming victory in restoring our family's honor, doing all to justify thievery, stealing other's lives and seizing their properties?
Reuben: We were never created and blessed to be the creatures you portray.
Jacob: Do you forget so soon the dishonoring deeds of Simeon and Levi? They failed to see God's plan, hoping all humans would love one another, but some were inflamed with passion to never love foreign others, none of their tribe's belonging, never choosing a commitment to serve another, ones tainted with different beliefs, worshipping gods
crafted by human hands, designed by people’s meager wisdom. Thus Dinah was fated to be possessed by another's desire, promised to be faithfully served as the wife of a pagan, but when violated by nature's innate forces, my two sons were driven to deceive this pagan's tribe into adopting God's command, compelling them to be circumcised, and after complying they killed them all. Can we turn a decree sealing our covenant, promising us to be the Lord's chosen ones, into a wisdom telling us to kill others not worshipping our God? Can this teach us to love one another, this kind of witness to our God? I know what the passion could have been by the pagan for Dinah. I was smitten by Rachel, but was deceived by a relative--Laban--supposedly following God, making me wait seven years for her to become my wife, although I didn't wait for her to bear my child. Driven by greed, justifying retribution by anything he could fancy, Laban chased me down, looking for ways to punish me, provoking me to declare an oath, promising me to kill the one stealing idols representing his household gods. Could one blame him more for dishonoring our God by coveting idol-gods tha
n for the tribe consenting to honor our God by circumcision? God gives us opportunities, this one being possible to tell Egyptians about our God, showing how He is the only one true divinity, proven now to Pharaoh by visions in his dreams, shown by Joseph to be from God and verified by events in ensuing years. Now as ones truly blessed, God presents circumstances, inviting us to exercise our blessings, challenging us to witness who we are, chosen ones, placed here to do His will.
Bystander: Has the Lord completed Jacob's punishing circumstances, revenge for his deceitful ways, pay back for all his unworthy deeds, such as in the womb, struggling with his brother, continuing to his maturity when he fought with God, wrestling with the angel, winning the match with weeping, pleading for a blessing. Boasting only by the treasures of his toils, I am rich, I've made a fortune, toiling many years, all from myself's efforts, testifying no one has caught me cheating, I make my record spotless. God now calls, Return, O Israel to the Lord your God, acknowledging your sins have