In the final lesson of the week, we were teaching our tenth graders to move back and forth between the laws of the Pentateuch and the narratives within which the laws are set. The goal was to show them how the narratives help fill out the conceptual world of the laws and vice versa. Today, I’m struck by the vice versa—the way the laws can help fill out the narratives.

When you read Deuteronomy 24:7, one particular backstory leaps into your mind. Here’s the law:

If a person if found kidnapping someone from among his brothers—from among the sons of Israel—in order to ruthlessly sell him into slavery, that thief shall die …

For the tenth graders, the law immediately called to mind the story of Joseph. It is helpful to ponder the wisdom of this law in light of Joseph’s story, but it’s also helpful to ponder the wisdom of the Joseph story in light of this law.

The story …

At the beginning of the Joseph story, Joseph and his brothers look a lot like Cain and Abel (Gen 4)—so much hostility that they cannot even speak peaceably with Joseph (Gen 37:4). At the end, the brothers weep together, embrace one another, and talk peaceably (Gen 45:15). When we teach this story to ninth graders, we emphasize how Joseph’s story provides readers with a long meditation on what it will look like for the seed of Eve (Gen 3:15) and Abraham (Gen 12, 15, 17) and Judah (Gen 49:8–12) to come and rule in such a way that all creation will be led into greater flourishing, as originally intended (Gen 1–2). Joseph’s story provides a long meditation on what it will look like for a descendant of Judah to come and inaugurate a good, eternal kingdom (à la Sailhamer, Meaning of the Pentateuch).

… in light of the law

The law in Deuteronomy 24:7 makes one aspect of Joseph’s portrait shine even brighter: According to the law, Joseph had the right to kill his brothers for what they did to him. Joseph had the power and the right to kill them. Joseph’s unjust suffering led, ironically, to his exaltation, which gave him the power to exercise judgment upon his brothers. If you then move from Deuteronomy 24 and intentionally reflect back on the story of Joseph, you see that the Torah gives Joseph the right to bring justice.

Joseph, however, chose a different path. The whole saga—unjust suffering, descent into the depths, exaltation—also gives Joseph the position to do something more beautiful: to show mercy rather than justice. He had the power and the right to kill, and that’s what makes his whole-hearted forgiveness shine even brighter.

Pointing backward and forward

The reconciliation of Joseph and his brothers is not incidental. It points backwards and forwards across Scripture. This aspect of Joseph’s story points backward by connecting to chapter 4 (Cain and Abel) and creating contrasting bookends to Genesis: power-grabbing violence between brothers on one side (Gen 4); power-releasing peace, reconciliation, and forgiveness on the other side (Gen 45).

Joseph’s mercy is also an important part of how the story points forward. According to Genesis 49:8, Joseph’s story will get replayed in a descendant of Judah.

Judah, your brothers will praise you!

Your hand will be on the neck of your enemies.

Your brothers will bow to you! (Gen 49:8)

Joseph’s brothers bowed to him and praised him, and this is what Genesis 49:8 tells readers to expect for a descendant of Judah.

The New Testament authors show us that Jesus is the long expected descendant Judah (Matt 1). He was betrayed by his brothers and his garments blood-splattered (Matt 27), like Joseph’s (Gen 37:31). He descended into the depths but was ultimately exalted (Acts 2). He had the power and right to execute judgment and justice (Acts 2:33–41), but instead he embraced his estranged brothers, wept with them, forgave them, ate with them, and spoke peaceably with them (John 20–21).

Light refracted

In light of how Deuteronomy 24:7 makes Joseph’s mercy shine, I can’t help but look back at Genesis 49:8 and see a little more. This time the law illumines poetry. Notice how the second poetic line is set within clear pictures of the Joseph story:

Judah, your brothers will praise you!

Your hand will be on the neck of your enemies.

Your brothers will bow to you! (Gen 49:8)

Joseph’s hand was on the neck of his enemies, but not for judgment. In the end, Joseph’s hand pulled the neck of his enemies close to hug, kiss, and forgive them (Gen 45:15). It is easy to read that second line as a statement of how Judah’s descendant will bring judgment and rest from surrounding enemies, but reconsidering it in light of the surrounding poetic lines and the Joseph story, transforms the “hand on the neck” from an image of judgment to an image of mercy. It calls to mind both Joseph’s and Jesus’s whole-hearted mercy.

Law and narrative (and poetry) work together in Scripture to inspire our moral imagination and point us forward to the hope of a person like Joseph who came and is to come, “in the last days” (באחרית הימים, Gen 49:1).

Postscriptum

Sailhamer is so helpful on how the Pentateuch points forward with messianic hope: The Meaning of the Pentateuch: Revelation, Composition, and Interpretation (IVP Academic, 209).

For a monograph length study of how the Joseph story points backward and forward, see Sam Emadi’s From Prisoner to Prince: The Joseph Story in Biblical Theology, New Studies in Biblical Theology, vol. 59 (IVP Academic, 2022).

For more on analogy and its roll in how Scripture communicates: Meir Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Indiana University Press, 1987).

For a more accessible starting point on narrative analogy, see this presentation by Tim Mackie: “Chosen One or Traitor? Jonah, Achan, and Narrative Analogy in the Hebrew Bible”