Joseph in Jail
The Joseph saga encompasses Gen. 37-50 and provides a fitting and fascinating finale to the book of Genesis. It is very different from what precedes it, not least because it appears to be a narrative composed by one very skilled writer of Hebrew, rather than being a compilation of a variety of oral traditions about the patriarchs like what precedes it beginning with the Abraham narrative. Unlike what precedes it, Gen. 37-50, God plays a different role in this sage than in the previous texts.
As Bill Arnold points out, We have 1) no theophanic appearances; 2) no revelations; 3) no speeches by God; and 4) no divine intervention to drive the story in a particular direction. Instead, we have dialogues that present characters and conflicts that teach crucial lessons: 1) God sent Joseph to Egypt to save and deliver (45.5-8); 2) God always accomplishes what is good, in this case, lives are saved (50.19-21).
But there is more to it than this. We learn not merely how God behind the scenes directs things, and works all things together for good for those who love Him (as Paul was later to say in Rom. 8). In other words, Gen. 37-50 is a story about the providence of God, but also it provides hermeneutical clues for interpreting all sorts of opaque or enigmatic speech in the Bible, as Joseph asks in Gen. 40.8–‘do not interpretations belong to God’?
This important principle about interpretation is a key not only to interpreting symbolic dreams but also prophecies and parables, and other forms of wisdom speech such as riddles, and even glossolalia
What this means is these sorts of indirect speech do not have a meaning that is self-evident or plain in all cases or to all persons, not even to the persons who have the symbolic dreams, prophecies, ecstatic speech, parables. (Jesus however is a person who not only speaks in parables, but knows their meaning).
To the contrary, these sorts of indirect or opaque speech require skilled interpreters like Joseph, or as Paul would say much later, some have the gift of interpretation (in this case of inspired speech– prophecy or glossolalia).
◦Apocalyptic prophecy is a classic example of ‘dark’ speech which requires a skilled or even inspired interpreter.
What this means is that like the eunuch in Acts 8 reading Isaiah, we will often need help to understand the inspired text. The meaning will not be plain to all and sundry. This is one of the reasons assuming that one can just open the Bible and the meaning will be self-evident and just jump off the page in all cases in all texts is a false assumption! It is not that the text is not perspicuous or clear, it is that we as post-modern persons are mostly not equipped or trained to understand ancient literature in general much less symbolic or metaphorical speech, which encompasses a great deal of the Bible. Sadly it is us who do not see the text with 20-20 vision, which is why we sometimes need visionaries like Joseph to explain its meaning.
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