Broad meadows

In the last installment, we examined the dream of Joseph in Genesis 37. In it, we see the sun, moon and stars bowing to Joseph. One thing that this does, is place Joseph as a type for Jesus who is part of the Godhead. The second thing this does is to show that the character symbolized by the sun is not part of the Godhead. But it’s here that things begin to appear to deviate from some of the traditional Christian understandings of God’s plan of redemption. It’s been there the whole time, in the fact that those symbols all appear in the symbolic telling of that plan in Genesis 15. But now we are beginning to see some of those details in accounts like this.

In todays installment, I will examine Genesis 37:29-36, where the goat reappears. Prior to this, Joseph’s brothers conspire to kill Joseph, but are talked out of it by Reuben who plans to rescue him from the well that he is lowered into. Ultimately, his brothers decide to sell him to the Midianite and this is where we pick up the story.

”When Reuben returned to the cistern and saw that Joseph was not there, he tore his clothes. He went back to his brothers and said, “The boy isn’t there! Where can I turn now?”
Then they got Joseph’s robe, slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in the blood. They took the ornate robe back to their father and said, “We found this. Examine it to see whether it is your son’s robe.”
He recognized it and said, “It is my son’s robe! Some ferocious animal has devoured him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces.”
Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and mourned for his son many days. All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. “No,” he said, “I will continue to mourn until I join my son in the grave. ” So his father wept for him.
Meanwhile, the Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard.”

One of the things to notice in this passage is the emphasis on clothing. Reuben tears his clothing as does Jacob. The tearing of one’s clothes in the Bible is generally seen as an action of grief, sorrow and repentance. All of these are necessary for salvation. Grief over one’s sins, sorrow over the effect it has on your relationship to God and changing one’s attitude and actions to comport with His desire for your life.

Another thing to notice is the “ornate robe” that Joseph wore. Other translations render it as “a robe of many colors.” It would be reasonable to assume that for a robe of that time to be ornate it would necessarily have multiple colors. How important are colors symbolically? The offerings for the tabernacle in Exodus 25 included “blue, purple and scarlet yarn and fine linen; goat hair; ram skins dyed red and hides of sea cows; acacia wood;”. The covering for each of the utensils used in the service of the temple had to be covered with a specific color of cloth. The various clothing that the priests had to wear when performing their priestly duties was made of blue, purple and scarlet. The robe itself made of blue cloth. To examine each here would be prohibitively long for today’s writing, but another thing that I would point to is the goat hair as we have been following the goat (and the sun) through the Bible.

As the text above says, the ornate robe is dipped in goats blood. Now given that Jesus is never referred to as a goat and in the parables of the sheep and the goats and the parable of the prodigal son he would appear to be at odds with the goats, this sounds strange to the Christian ear. But as someone else who is the adopted son of a carpenter, the work is far from over once the foundation is laid. The foundation is the most important part of the building because entire building rests on it, and that foundation is Jesus Christ. Without his work on the cross atoning for the sin of the world, nothing else in God’s plan could take place.

Perhaps another way to help us see, in a sense, where we are in God’s plan is the biblical view that Christ is our Passover lamb as is said in 1 Corinthians 5:7, “Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.” if we think of his sacrifice as the Passover lamb in the course of time, that leaves things like the Exodus yet to come and the building of the tabernacle. I view the Bible with a much longer time frame than I think most commentators realize or teach. Jesus said, “My word will never pass away.” That is, that it is an eternal document, speaking of eternal things and that we are much closer to the beginning of things than the end.

And this brings me to my last point today. Upon learning of his son’s demise, expresses his grief and sorrow by tearing his clothes and then putting on sackcloth. If you have been reading along, you know that the first time a symbol is introduced in the Bible something very important is being introduced and the last time it appears in the Bible is its fulfillment.
This is the first time that sackcloth appears in the Bible and is added to the other symbols that we have accumulated along the way, such as sun, goat, pillar, etc. Sackcloth is typically made of either goat or camel hair and as we saw in the building of the tabernacle, goat hair is part of the covering. I think that this is why it is mentioned that John the Baptists clothes were made of camel hair in Matthew 3:4, so that he would not be confused with the one to come symbolized by the goat.

The last places that sackcloth appears in the book of Revelation is in Revelation 6:12 and 11:3. Revelation 6:12 says, “I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, . . .” Here we see all of those symbols appearing together, sun, goat, hair and sackcloth in the sixth seal. It turns black perhaps indicating his death and we also see the moon turning red (recall ram skins dyed red as being part of the tabernacle), perhaps being wounded. The last place sackcloth occurs is Revelation 11:3, “And I will appoint my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.” This would mark the goat (and the sun) as one of the two witnesses. This also helps us to understand that the other witness has symbols as well, the ram and the moon as their primary symbols.