Joseph’s Silver Cup For “Divination”
5 Is not this the one from which my Lord drinks, and with which he indeed practices divination? You have done evil in so doing.’ ”
15 And Joseph said to them, “What deed is this you have done? Did you not know that such a man as I can certainly practice divination?”
Genesis 44:5, 15 NKJV
https://bible.com/bible/114/gen.44.5-15.NKJV
Do you ever read things in the bible that make you scratch your head and say humm?
Joseph is in many ways a type of Jesus. He is betrayed by his own brethren. He is sold for 20 pieces of silver, Jesus for 30, the price ultimately for the preservation and atonement of many. At 30 years old both begins thier ministry. Here is a site that lists 75 similarities,
http://www.bible.ca/d-bible-archeology-maps-timeline-chronology-Joseph-types-Christ-Shadows-Antitypes-similarities-comparisons-2166-1876BC.htm
But how can Joseph being a type of Christ and practise “divination” when it is condemned as sin in the bible being associated with the occult and involves fortune-telling or soothsaying.
(Deut.18:10-12 & 1Samuel 15:23)
https://bible.com/bible/114/deu.18.10-12.NKJV
https://bible.com/bible/114/1sa.15.23.NKJV
Israel (Jacob) loved Joseph more than his other children and sends him to check up on them. When they see him coming they plot to kill him but Ruben says, “lets just throw him in a pit and not shed innocent blood”, planing to save Joseph later.
They strip Joseph of his coat of many colors, throw him in a pit and sit down to eat. Just another day watching the sheep. Then the Holy Spirit gets involved and speaks through Judah,
Genesis 37:26-28 KJVS
26 And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit is it if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood? 27 Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmeelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother and our flesh. And his brethren were content.
28 Then there passed by Midianites merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmeelites for twenty pieces of silver: and they brought Joseph into Egypt.
We know that Joseph is obedient to the ways of God and finds His favor everywhere he finds himself, in slavery, prison or the palace. God gives him the ability to discern the dreams of the baker, cupbearer and Pharaoh. It gets Joseph to be 2nd under the Pharaoh with almost as much power as him in Egypt. But it NEVER says Joseph used a silver cup or divination. Joseph gives God the credit for understanding the dreams meanings.
25 Then Joseph said to Pharaoh, “The dreams of Pharaoh are one; God has shown Pharaoh what He is about to do:
28 This is the thing which I have spoken to Pharaoh. God has shown Pharaoh what He is about to do.
32 And the dream was repeated to Pharaoh twice because the thing is established by God, and God will shortly bring it to pass.
Genesis 41:25, 28, 32 NKJV
Joseph has his servants plant the silver cup in Benjamin’s sack of corn in a plot to accuse them of stealing it.
And he commanded the steward of his house, saying, “Fill the men’s sacks with food, as much as they can carry, and put each man’s money in the mouth of his sack. Also put my cup, the silver cup, in the mouth of the sack of the youngest, and his grain money.” So he did according to the word that Joseph had spoken.
Genesis 44:1-2 NKJV
The brothers are so sure they would not have stolen it that they even say,
With whomever of your servants it is found, let him die, and we also will be my Lord’s slaves.”
Genesis 44:9 NKJV
Now Joseph has them right where he wanted them. Will they turn on Benjamin like they turned on him years ago?
The Holy Spirit has set this whole event up, speaking through Judah. God had told Abraham when they “Cut Covenant” and put him in a deep sleep his descendants would go to exile for 400 years. God is responsible to fulfill this covenant, Abraham is sleeping when God ALONE passes through the pieces of animals cut in two.
The Holy Spirit has also spoken through Joseph with the placing of the “silver cup of divination”, setting this test up too.
The brothers hatred and selfish ambitions of their youth is tested again. They have learned some lessons by the mistakes they made. Judah, who thought of selling Joseph earlier is now offering to give up his life to save the life of Benjamin and Jacob who would die of grief. Judah tells Joseph,
“Now therefore, when I come to your servant my father, and the lad is not with us, since his life is bound up in the lad’s life, it will happen, when he sees that the lad is not with us, that he will die. So your servants will bring down the gray hair of your servant our father with sorrow to the grave. For your servant became surety for the lad to my father, saying, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, then I shall bear the blame before my father forever.’ Now therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the lad as a slave to my Lord, and let the lad go up with his brothers. For how shall I go up to my father if the lad is not with me, lest perhaps I see the evil that would come upon my father?”
Genesis 44:30-34 NKJV
Joseph being sold into slavery to rise to a powerful leader saves the 12 tribes in a famine, God ordained. It served many purposes of God.
The filling the measure of sins the Amorites needed so judgment could come on them.
But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
Genesis 15:16
Judah has messed up a few times besides the selling of Joseph.He married a Cannanite, a no no.
Genesis 38:2 NKJV
And Judah saw there a daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua, and he married her and went in to her.
He withheld his youngest son Shelah, to father a child through Tamar after Er, her husband and Onan his brother died. That lead to Tamar tricking Judah into getting her pregnant making him admit,
Genesis 38:26 KJVS
…. She hath been more righteous than I; because that I gave her not to Shelah my son. And he knew her again no more.
The Holy Spirit’s sanctifying work, seen in its beginning stages when Tamar convicted Judah of his selfishness and lack of righteousness. After years of seeing what Joseph’s absence did to Jacob, Judah underwent more change of heart.
Matthew Henry writes, Judah surpasses all his brothers “in boldness, wisdom, eloquence, and especially tenderness for their father and family.”
Judah is now willing to forfeit his future and life, though he didn’t have too, he offered it. A principle of God is seen here.
He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. John 12:25 NKJV
The love and self sacrifice of Judah does not go unnoticed by God or Jacob. Judah is the 4th born but will get a great blessing from Jacob before he dies in Egypt.
“Judah, you are he whom your brothers shall praise; Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; Your father’s children shall bow down before you. Judah is a lion’s whelp; From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He bows down, he lies down as a lion; And as a lion, who shall rouse him? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, Nor a lawgiver from between his feet, Until Shiloh comes; And to Him shall be the obedience of the people. Binding his donkey to the vine, And his donkey’s colt to the choice vine, He washed his garments in wine, And his clothes in the blood of grapes. His eyes are darker than wine, And his teeth whiter than milk. Genesis 49:8-12 NKJV
Nowhere in scripture is “divination” in a favorable thing or is it shown that Joseph practised it. Joseph DID Set Up a Test for his brothers to go through.
Throughout all our lives, God allows “tests” of our character and Faith in Him. Faith that has not been tested can not be trusted. It’s a part of getting off the “milk and onto the meat” of God’s Word.
God will not let us stay in crappy diapers and a bottle all our life. When we say a heartfelt prayer of salvation we are “saved” but “are being saved” at the same time. It’s God working His Sanctification of our soul.
Paul says it this way,
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, FORGETTING THOSE THINGS Which Are Behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:12-14 NKJV
Judah had to let go of his sins of the pass and move onward and upward as Paul says too. That is exactly what we must do too!
Bishop Drew preached a good message about that Sunday December 9, 2018 called “Personal House Cleaning” Romans 14:12
The sermon starts at 4;50 minutes into the video. You can watch it here
In The Word 