Brothers Keeping: Joseph and Job Read online

providing all our needs without interfering in our ways, without coming to intercede at any moment's notice, trusting only in the clock He wound, assuring it keeps ticking.

  Joseph: Naming a human being "seeing God" guarantees his seed will carry potential for any righteous progeny to meet God in visions and dreams, knowing scorn will be heaped on ones falsely broadcasting His revelations, limping along without righteousness to ease their suffering.

  Job: No one has ever wrestled God to a draw, known by everyone to be omnipotent. Accept Him as we all do and do nothing to bring down His wrath. I wouldn't even attempt to battle Him with words. What battle has there ever been where Scripture doesn't tells us the battle is His?

  Joseph: I will be obedient and comply with the visions and dreams he reveals. My father like all men has had fears, anxieties having potential to paralyze him, but he trusted in God, praying for His intercession, acknowledging the battle is His.

  Job: In addition to claiming battles are His, He claims vengeance is mine, His, dissuading us from avenging wrongs, forcing us to wait patiently for His justice to prevail, sometimes embittering us, seeing unjust outcomes, beyond our reason's understanding.

  Joseph: My brothers defied Him recently in retributions against a man who raped our sister, deceiving the man's father, convincing him to vow commitments for his people, godly obligations transformed to be ungodly, altering God's decrees so they could maim and slaughter an entire clan, plundering it's wealth, using tenets of God's covenant to lure its victims into submission, suggesting circumcision be done for intentions it was never meant to serve.

  Job: We have never had such a problem disgracing our family, tarnishing our blamelessness and uprightness. How could your kin be afflicted with such evil?

  Joseph: What tribe can claim unstained purity? Fate may yet visit you with evil's inevitable coming, choosing a time to be determined, selecting some designated priestly ones for doing its deeds.

  Job: My fathers were clean, never destined to have sins for passing down to the fourth generation, committing their lives to be blameless, announcing to others they are upright, preparing the way for their progeny to expand their abundance and celebrate unimagined happiness.

  Bystander: Sorrow awaits ones lounging in luxurious abundance, secure in their comfort, satisfied in their fame and popularity, attracting many coming for advice, seeking them out, oracles for developing blamelessness, waiting until their time runs out, destroying all they once had, giving each whatever they deserve.

  Joseph: My father was driven to confess the sins of his family, returning to where he once met God, repenting for his actions, admitting he could never be blameless for his deeds, building an altar to renew his worship of God, hearing Him reaffirm His covenant, sealed by my father's vision of God.

  Job: We never had an altar to worship God, trusting our prayers were enough, seeing them bless us in every possible way, bestowing abundant health and wealth. Words spoken to God cannot be matched by sprinkling water on a nest of stones.

  Joseph: We became worthy by discarding our garments, washing away our dishonor, trusting God to restore our virtue and renew His claim on us, Bethel becoming the site to revisit with God, knowing He will be there for us. Water cleanses our souls of stone, but needing more for our relationship with God, faith pours out oil to heal our soul.

  Job: I hope your life becomes more meaningful and rewards your family with more visions from God. It must be difficult to live in your kin's dysfunctional ways, meandering from one surprise to another, disrupting a blameless one trying to follow virtuous principles. I will return to see you my friend, coming on your calling, ready to assist you with words of wisdom, collected for safekeeping by years of devotion to reason and common sense.

  Joseph: Are we different from others in our ways? Father tells us we are merely a remnant, blessed to be a blessing, called to build God's kingdom, each one having a purpose, and I must seek to be like the Lord, following Him on His path to be righteous, no matter what may confront me beyond the next hill, even if I encounter unexpected suffering. I am destined to follow Him, no matter what. From a remnant's threads can be woven many garments to wear for praising the Lord. I hear your suggestions and will consider your help, but I don't know if they conflict with His.

  Job: I am your neighbor, ready to show young people how to thrive, to enlarge their territory, by growing their flocks, amassing wealth as promised for those worthy, teaching others to reason their ways for becoming blameless, using common sense to dignify themselves, verifying they are upright, in short how to be honored by all, designated to be proclaimed spokesmen, convincing listeners of their wisdom, showing others how to develop their virtues. How could I ever trust any voice or invisible vision to tell me anything different?

  Joseph: I have a hard time finding anyone to associate me with virtues, seeing I have no credentials to hang out for others to see, nothing to prove I am blameless and upright, hearing no one willing to proclaim me so.

  Job: Create your own credentials for being blameless, molding your uprightness from people's ideal models, fabricated by their reason and common sense, collecting riches as their reward. If necessary find someone to define your integrity, carefully choosing one to agree with, allowing you to set your own standards, to maintain rules you can live by and be worshipped as blameless, better than trying to determine rules for righteousness, knowing so many will paint you with hues of intolerance.

  Bystander: Blameless rich ones among you, collecting treasures to become wealthy, growing some through extortion and violence, eventually reap their due, abounding contemptuous treatment, mocking ridicule, disdain by all they encounter, scorn by other upright ones, influencing fate to seize their wants, scheming to twist justice, never realizing their judgment day swiftly approaches, time for judgment nearly here. Wealth, like idols, must be subject to rules of the world, as its guardians warn all, Don't handle, don't taste, don't touch, human teachings about idols destined to deteriorate, requiring wealth to be piously treated, thwarting human's evil desires.

  Joseph’s Ordeal Begins

  Bystander: Joseph struggles with advice from a patriarch of the world's ways, imbedded in Job by years of tradition, accepted as people's signature of success, promoted as their wisdom, leading them in their drive to improve civilization, trusting human ways can make people better and better, as he encounters sadness, sufferings, and afflictions to mold him, but never knowing yet what they will do to or for him.

  Joseph: My returning journey from Bethel met with bittersweet grief, saddening me with my mother's death, ending her life during the birth of my brother, one anticipated to become my closest friend, promising greater love than any of my other siblings. Mother's dying left me with only my father's caring indulgence, doting on me, alternating with profound grief expressed for his most favored wife, the love of his life who had cost him dearly. Always one to labor beyond anyone's contemplation, springing surprises, he fashioned me a coat to be envied by my brothers, proclaiming to all a perception I was his favored son, most trusted to love, knowing his first-born, his might, the first sign of his strength, excelling in honor and power, deserving to inherit his greatest love, bedded down with his concubine, deserving condemnation, turbulent as the waters, trusted to no longer excel.

  Bystander: Little does Joseph know, about to be overwhelmed with joy in the Lord his God, dressing him with a cloak of salvation, draping him in a robe of righteousness, to be his garment of wisdom, preparing him for circumstances yet to be seen, orchestrated by God, needing movers to begin His plot, selecting brothers needing no temptation to victimize their despised sibling Joseph, God's circumstances directed Joseph to have no one as a keeper, allowing him to be isolated in a pit of darkness, leaves unclear why God directed Jacob to fashion Joseph's coat ornamented so richly, maybe to prepare a template for later use, identifying ones He blesses to be a blessing, establishing a precedent to credential ones as special, signifying them to be of His choosing
, as a rainbow of promises revitalizing His covenant.

  Dan: As a brother unworthy of notice, contaminated with indifference, the seed of a maidservant, never having legitimacy to be honored with pride, I am neglected, treated as a lackey, sent out to be a shepherd, unwillingly demeaned as a lowly herder, so what does it matter if I hide myself in secret vices, boasting of them if I choose? Can I find any joy in my discontent, enjoined by other's judgements?

  Joseph: I know of my brother's wrong doings, acts defying obedience to God, arrogantly disrespecting our father's wishes, harming trust in our family's relationships. Should I hide them from everyone's knowing? They can't be hidden from God. Would He continue to believe in any virtue for me if I should remain silent to insure harmony, assuring peace as the world gives? Would my brothers begin to respect me if I defer to their wishes, thereby making me an accomplice, assenting to all their deeds, hiding all their secrets? Believing they all hate me now, contrived by envy, plotting to unfairly shame me, picturing me as a goody-goody, for