Hank Smith:                      00:00:00             Coming up in this episode on followHIM.

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      00:00:03             Even when people exercise their agency wickedly or unrighteously or evilly, that will not frustrate or thwart God’s power in his purposes that he has for his children.

Hank Smith:                      00:00:18             Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of followHIM. My name is Hank Smith. I’m your host. And doth my co-host yet live? John Bytheway.

John Bytheway:               00:00:30             Yeah. I’m still going.

Hank Smith:                      00:00:31             He has a pulse. John, do you know where that question comes from? It’s chapter 45 of Genesis when Joseph reunites with his brothers and he says, “Doth my father yet live?”

John Bytheway:               00:00:45             The more I think about this story, this is one of the greatest stories ever. Joseph’s life, the lowest of lows in prison, the highest of highs with Pharaoh, his family, they should make a Broadway play out of it or something. They should make a movie.

Hank Smith:                      00:01:00             John, we are privileged today to be joined by brother Stephen Smoot. A year from now, he will be Dr. Stephen Smoot, but right now we’re gonna just call him Brother Stephen Smoot, which is an awesome thing to be, a brother. Stephen, welcome to followHIM.

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      00:01:15             Well, thank you, Hank. Glad to be here. Thank you, John, for having me. I’ve been watching the podcast for a long time and now I’m in the hot seat myself. So I’ve stepped up my game hopefully, and this should be a lot of fun.

Hank Smith:                      00:01:25             John and I both know Stephen from the internet, basically. Stephen has been working online doing scriptures with the Interpreter Foundation. Now he’s with the Rappleyes, Jasmin and Neal. All things that we 100% support, and we can talk more about that. John, last week we were with Dr. Wilcox. We began this story, and now we’re going to finish the story of Joseph of Egypt.

John Bytheway:               00:01:50             The thing that I love is the emphasis on the Lord was with him. In the lowest of lows and the highest of highs, maybe people can feel … Is the Lord with me? Yes, he’s still with us like he was with Joseph. A good takeaway.

Hank Smith:                      00:02:07             Yeah. John, I feel the same way, that if someone is in deep distress, we can read ahead in Joseph’s story, and we know the goodness that’s coming. We could take that same thing into our lives that if you are in your own chapters 37, 38, 39, 40, there are chapters coming in your life. Stephen, what are you hoping to do today? What are you hoping our listeners walk away with?

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      00:02:31             Number one, I hope that in our conversation we can look at the really intricate literary structure of this story. The story of Joseph in Egypt, if nothing else, is phenomenal world literature. Reading it as a story, it’s powerful, it’s impactful. It is very tightly structured as a story. You’re going to see recurring motifs, you’re going to see moments of deep irony, much pathos we’re going to encounter with Joseph weeping when his brothers don’t recognize him and all that sort of stuff. Certainly we want to get personal meaning out of the story, but just appreciating it as a work of art, as a work of literary art. That’s one thing I hope to discuss and see what we can unpack there. I also hope that we can appreciate how the story ends. We sometimes think it just ends on this happy note of Joseph and the brothers are reconciled and reunited, and that’s certainly true, but it also ends with their father giving them a patriarchal blessing. Which I think especially for Latter-day Saint listeners is highly significant.

                                           00:03:31             We get two chapters of it. We get chapter 48 with Ephraim and Manasseh, and then chapter 49 is the rest of the sons. I see that as a culmination of this entire story. We walk away with the impression that the story is about how even in times of adversity, God can reach down in our afflictions and help us out of these problems. That’s certainly true. More than just that, it culminates with God pronouncing blessings through our covenant patriarch Jacob or Israel onto his children and by extension upon us. So if we see ourselves as part of the story as well, it culminates with that patriarchal blessing. That will be something to look at and hopefully take away from our conversation. The other thing that I hope to add to the conversation in my very modest way is maybe some cultural contextual notes on the story to help us understand why are they doing the things the way they do.

                                           00:04:23             Why does Joseph have a silver cup that he’s using to divine with, things like that. Why don’t they recognize Joseph, for example? You’d think you’d recognize your own brother, cultural and historical, and even some fun linguistic stuff I hope to introduce to our conversation. For example, Genesis chapter 49 is some of the oldest poetry of the Hebrew Bible. If you pop open your King James Bible in English, that may obscure the fact that Genesis 49 is really archaic and really beautiful Hebrew poetry. Jacob or Israel is blessing his children in a poetic register using poetic and literary devices. So that’ll be kind of fun to sort of note some of these things to sort of all culminate it and package it together to say, this story is a beautiful work of literary art. It is deeply meaningful for us, both from the doctrine we can take from it, but also from the themes, the human elements, and that it culminates with this idea of a patriarchal blessing. And by understanding the cultural and historical context in which this story was written in which it takes place, that can help us appreciate the story even more.

Hank Smith:                      00:05:26             This is fantastic. John, I love to be blessed both, hey, how can I live a better life? How can I be more faithful, be closer to God, and become more competent in my scripture study? Understand the Bible more. We’re gonna worship God with our heart and mind. If someone is online quite a bit, they already know who Stephen is, but there might be someone out there who’s like, who is Stephen Smoot? John, what do you know? Have you, did you hang out outside of his house for a while to get some information? Did you hide in the bushes? What did you find?

John Bytheway:               00:05:59             I actually had Lisa Spice email me some things, so that was helpful.

Hank Smith:                      00:06:03             Oh okay. Wow. All right. Yeah.

John Bytheway:               00:06:04             Okay. Stephen O. Smoot is a doctoral candidate in Semitic and Egyptian languages and literature at the Catholic University of America. He’s currently an adjunct instructor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University and a research associate with the Ancient America Foundation. Stephen has contributed to Latter-day Saint publications such as Interpreter, a Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship. I love the Interpreter Foundation website. The Religious Educator, Journal of Mormon History, Latter-day Saint Historical Studies, and non Latter-day Saint publications such as Catholic Biblical Quarterly, the Journal for the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities. How cool is that? He’s also editor of The Pearl Great Price, a study edition for Latter-day Saints, and a co-author of the volumes, Joseph Smith Jr’s Uncanonized Revelation, and a guide to the Book of Abraham. That’s a special edition of BYU Studies. I could read more, but like you said, hey, I’ve just seen Stephen’s face and heard his voice so many times online, teaching us and defending the faith. I’m just excited to have him here today.

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      00:07:14             Well, thank you. Like I said, it’s my pleasure to be here, the followHIM podcast. Now I feel like I’m in the A- League, the big leagues here on the followHIM podcast with you two fine gentlemen. It’s been great, my experience publishing and writing, doing research, teaching at BYU, going on various podcasts. Recently, the Rappleyes, Neal and Jasmin Rappleye and I, we started a podcast called Informed Saints. If I may, shamelessly plug our own podcast here. We seek to both address questions and concerns that people have about the church and various topics related to the church. And also, per the name of the podcast, we want to inform Latter-day Saints on the best scholarship that’s out there on various topics. We’ve addressed everything from plural marriage to the Book of Abraham to the first vision accounts to DNA in the Book of Mormon. There’s no shortage of interesting topics.

Hank Smith:                      00:08:02             I don’t think personally I tell the Rappleyes, especially Jasmin, how much I appreciate what she does. Jasmin is in the front lines of Latter-day Saint online work, and we love her. Neal, we love you too, but Jasmin, you have our heart. Now, Stephen, I don’t think John could love what you do more unless you flew airplanes. John has a thing for Egyptology that you just see him kind of light up. So what’s it been like? That’s something that we grew up with watching Indiana Jones. What’s it like in real life?

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      00:08:38             Let me put it this way, perhaps. Whenever undergrad students or others come to me and they express their interest in Egyptology or Near Eastern studies and they say, I wanna go into this subject like you did, I always tell them, you have so much to live for. You have such a bright future. Why would you throw it away going into Egyptology? It’s a very niche subject, right? Like, there aren’t many out there in the world that study this stuff compared to doctors and engineers. It’s been a very gratifying experience for me, both as sort of a career choice, also just in my own personal interest. I see Egyptology and biblical studies emerging in many important ways, and to understand these ancient texts that we have, both our Bible, but also texts in our Pearl of Great Price, even the Book of Mormon, of course. Having that foundation for me, at least, has been worthwhile to help me understand the scriptural texts.

                                           00:09:31             Besides that, it’s also been helpful to help me address questions that people have about the Pearl of Great Price or about the Bible or the Book of Mormon. I really believe strongly in what the Doctrine and Covenants says about seeking learning by study and also by faith. I’ve tried to have that be one of my cardinal guides in my life, both in my academic career and in my personal devotion and my personal religious profession. I’ve tried to keep that balance of both academic rigor and groundedness, but also faith and spirituality and acknowledging that these texts that we’re studying, that they’re more than just dusty old scrolls. They’re deeply meaningful and important for us today as scripture. Frankly, it’s really great to be able to go to Egypt and do digs and go work on ancient texts and do tours. I’ve led families over to Egypt, been myself many times.

                                           00:10:17             It’s just really connecting with that world that these texts emerged out of, both the Holy Land and Israel, but also in Egypt and other parts of the ancient Near East. It really brings the scriptures alive. You had Kerry Muhlestein, our friend on a little while ago, the scriptures are real is kind of his big push. And one way to learn how the scriptures are real is through these academic disciplines, and that’s at least been my experience.

Hank Smith:                      00:10:39             Oh, that’s fantastic. I have a good friend, Andy McFarland. He had a really difficult experience in Egypt once I’ll have to tell you both about. John, aren’t you excited? I can tell. I can tell that you’re excited. We’re gonna talk Egypt today.

John Bytheway:               00:10:53             Yeah. And one of the things that I love is that so many of us love to claim our connection to Joseph, but his wife was an Egyptian. I just think that’s cool. If we’re part Joseph, we’re part Egypt too.

Hank Smith:                      00:11:07             Yeah. John, was it you who told me you can get off the plane in Cairo and say, “Don’t you know who I am?” I am royalty here. I’m a descendant of the pharaoh.

John Bytheway:               00:11:15             No, that wasn’t me.

Hank Smith:                      00:11:18             Of Egypt.

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      00:11:19             I’m your long lost cousin.

John Bytheway:               00:11:21             Hello.

Hank Smith:                      00:11:22             That’s so fun.

John Bytheway:               00:11:23             Well, they didn’t recognize Joseph in the story, so I can see how that would happen, you know?

Hank Smith:                      00:11:28             Well, let’s jump in. God meant it unto good. That’s the title of the lesson this week. It had been 22 years since Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery. Joseph had suffered many trials, including false accusations and imprisonment. When he finally saw his brothers again, Joseph was the governor of all Egypt, second only to Pharaoh. He could easily have taken revenge on his brothers and considering what they had done to Joseph, that might seem understandable, and yet Joseph forgave them. Not only that, but he helped them see divine purpose in his suffering. God meant it unto good, he told them, because it put him in a position to save all his father’s household from famine. In many ways, Joseph was like Jesus Christ. Even though our sins caused Jesus’ great suffering, he offers forgiveness, delivering all of us from a fate far worse than famine. Whether we need to receive forgiveness or extend it, at some point, we all need to do both. Joseph’s example points us to the Savior, the true source of healing and reconciliation. That is beautiful. What a great way to start. Stephen, how should we begin this lesson? Do you wanna jump right in or do we need some background?

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      00:12:46             Let’s first take a look at the literary shape of these chapters so we can see the sort of discrete literary units that are happening here. Genesis 42, where we’re gonna start, 42 through 45. I like to call that the repentance trial, the repentance audit of Joseph’s brothers. We are going to find out once and for all whether these guys are sincere when they profess to feel sorry for what they did and if they are sincere for their care for the younger brother Benjamin. In other words, we’re going to see, to use a scriptural phrase, have they brought forth fruit meet for repentance? Is their repentance sincere? So that’s the first thing we’re gonna find in chapters 42 through 45. Chapters 46 and 47 is going to be the relocation of the tribes of Israel, the brothers and their families into Egypt and their preservation from the famine.

                                           00:13:31             Obviously, the famine is looming in the background this entire time in the story. Think of it like it’s the Death Star hovering over Alderaan about to blow them up. How is that gonna factor in here? We need to get them into Egypt and we need them to be safe and preserved. That’s gonna be those two chapters. As I mentioned earlier, at the outset, chapters 48 through 50 are going to be the covenant blessings that Jacob is going to give to his children and his grandchildren, as a matter of fact. We’re going to have the death, spoiler alert, of both Jacob and Joseph they’re gonna die in these chapters. And there’s an interesting note or detail about that that the text gives us. And then our closing theology, you had it there, God meant it for good. Joseph’s concluding statement. I’ll quiz you real quick.

                                           00:14:13             What do you know about Egypt and its status in the ancient world as the place where this is all happening in the story of Joseph, based on what you know about ancient Egypt. We don’t know the full chronology of Joseph of Egypt, but we’ll put it roughly around maybe 15 or 1400 BC, give or take. What can you guys tell me if I were to quiz you in one of my classes? Why is Egypt so prominent in this story?

John Bytheway:               00:14:35             Obviously it was prosperous. I think the Nile was so important and how it flooded every year. I mean, it, it was so reliable that they could grow crops from it. If that happens, maybe that means there’s not famine as often. You’re not depending on rain because you’ve got the Nile.

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      00:14:53             One of the main features, as John just correctly said, Egypt has a big river running down it. That river predictably floods. Those floods bring with them black silt that you can use to grow your crops. If you’re stuck in Canaan, which is where the brothers are, which is where Israel is, you don’t have a big river. You have a little river called the Jordan, but you don’t have a big river called the Nile running down your land. You are dependent on seasonal rains to give water to your crops, which means when famine rolls around, you’re much more likely to survive in Egypt, the sort of the bread basket of the ancient world, the emergency pantry of the ancient Near East, if you wanna call it that. You’re much more likely to have a better time there than you would be somewhere in like Syria, Canaan, Anatolia.

                                           00:15:35             That’s one of the main reasons why it features so prominently. For much of its history, as quote a world empire, if we don’t call it that, at least by the measures of the ancient Near East, Egypt has had a very prominent presence in the ancient Levant in the ancient Near East during the time of Abraham, during the time of Joseph, later, New Kingdom Egypt, you think of Ramses, the great Egyptian empire of the New Kingdom. They’ve always had a cultural and political dominating presence in the region. That combined with the actual geography of Egypt is why we’re going to spend so much time in Egypt. Even after the Exodus, there’s still machinations happening with the Egyptians in the time of Solomon, then later the time of Jeremiah. Keep that in mind. That’s why we’re here to begin with. Joseph’s office, his position as the vizier.

                                           00:16:22             If you look at what his jobs are when he gets elevated by Pharaoh, he’s the chief administrator. In fact, I think it even says Pharaoh gives him his personal seal he can use. He’s the overseer of the storehouses and the agriculture. He’s a judicial authority. He’s also the gatekeeper for foreign dignitaries or foreign delegations coming into Egypt. If you want to imagine what Joseph’s responsibilities are, he’s the prime minister and he’s the treasurer, secretary, and he’s the chief justice of the Supreme Court, like all at the same time. So no pressure on you, Joseph. There’s been some interesting conversation and discussion and scholarship about how this picture of Joseph in the story maps onto what we know about ancient administrative government roles in ancient Egypt. We don’t need to go into that too much. I do also just want to point out that Joseph is thoroughly Egyptianized at this point.

                                           00:17:12             He has an Egyptian name. He’s married to an Egyptian woman. He’s wearing Egyptian clothes. He even uses an Egyptian interpreter to pretend that he doesn’t speak Canaanite or whatever the brothers are speaking at this time. It says how he is shaved. That’s a pretty well known facet of ancient Egyptian hygiene, especially for royals and officials and elites and priests. Shaving. Yeah, hair is kind of gross for the ancient Egyptians, at least for priests and for officials and royalties. Typically, they’ll shave and they’ll wear like fake beards, as opposed to Semitic men, which are commonly wearing beards. There’s two things happening here. This is all in service of the story just to explain what’s happening, but it also is grounding our story in the world of the ancient Near East. It has, we would call it local flavor, local color. Ancient listeners of this story who are more familiar with this world than we are, they would have picked up on these cues, which both adds to the literary art and, like I said, ratcheting up the drama and the tension of the story, but also gives it a flavor of authenticity.

                                           00:18:14             And it makes it relatable to these ancient peoples who would have had the story available to them. The last thing I’ll just mention, and then I’ll stop filibustering here. Goshen, the land of Goshen. Where is that exactly? When people say the brothers go down into Egypt, they may assume, oh, are they going to Memphis? Are they going to Thebes? Are they going to these major metropolitan centers? No, it says mostly they’re in the land of Goshen, which is, as far as we can tell, the Eastern Nile Delta, basically right by the Sinai Peninsula, right, as you’re getting into Sinai. There’s a couple reasons why we’re going to locate in Goshen. First of all, it’s pasture friendly. It’s the best place to, like, have your flocks. It’s going to be near trade route. Makes sense that you want to have a good highway to get out of town if you need to pretty quickly.

                                           00:18:57             So you’re gonna stick next to the trade routes. You don’t wanna go too deep into Egyptian territory because then you might get lost. Also, it’s keeping us separated from Egypt’s cultural heartland, again, Thebes or Memphis or some of these big cities. You wanna stay in the hinterlands. You don’t wanna go so deep into Egypt that you get sucked in and absorbed by Egypt if you wanna think about it in that way. By staying in the Goshen and the Nile Delta, we’re creating a buffer zone between the land of promise for Abraham and his family and the land of Egypt, which can be a scary, dark, bad place if you’re not careful. Hopefully that will situate us a little bit as we jump into the story.

Hank Smith:                      00:19:31             Yeah, that’s exciting.

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      00:19:33             We can start at chapter 42. For listeners, I’m going to be using a modern English translation and I may use the King James occasionally, but I’m going to be using the new revised standard version, specifically the updated edition that came out a few years ago, but the NRSV. Recently, there were some changes made to the church’s handbook where they, I don’t wanna say allowed, because you’re always allowed to use other Bible translations, but they gave suggestions and recommendations for other English Bible translations that could be useful in your personal study. The NRSV is one of them. I’ve always been using it. I think it’s a great modern English translation. If you’re listening along and you are disturbed by the lack of thee and thy and saith pronouns and things like that and verb endings, that’s okay. It’s just because I’m using a modern English translation.

                                           00:20:21             Maybe we can jump right in there then to chapter 42. We don’t have to go verse by verse by any means, but maybe it’s worth picking up the major plot beats and seeing what we can learn. So the brothers are going to go down into Egypt. They’re going to go there to buy food. The reason why we’ve discussed it’s the emergency pantry of the ancient world, especially in times of famine. Of course, they’re going to leave behind Benjamin. We know why. Jacob, he’s already lost one son as far as he knows. He’s not going to lose his other beloved youngest son. Benjamin’s gonna stay behind. That’s setting it up for later. We get there and the first little literary or narrative nod we get earlier in the story is when they come to Joseph who is disguised. He’s the vizier. They don’t know it’s him.

                                           00:21:06             Verse six, “Now, when Joseph was governor over the land, it was he who sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph’s brothers came and bowed themselves before him with their faces to the ground.” There you go. You get the payoff from the dream that Joseph earlier had with the seven stars and the seven sheaves of grain bowing down to him. They say, why are you here? We’re here to buy food. Verse eight is really sort of our linchpin. Although Joseph had recognized his brothers, they did not recognize him. That’s what’s going to set up the tension leading throughout the rest of the story. The fact that they don’t recognize who Joseph is, why not? Why can’t they recognize his brother? Because at this point, he’s thoroughly Egyptianized. We don’t have to necessarily summarize the rest of it. We all know the story.

                                           00:21:49             He accuses them of being spies. That’s always a perennial problem in the ancient world, foreign people coming into your country, especially Egypt. They’re knee-jerk, distressful and suspicious of foreigners coming into the country. Why are you actually here? He’s going to accuse them of being spies. We get the setup that Simeon is going to be left behind. They’re going to have to go back and get Benjamin to prove that they have a younger brother, because they keep saying, oh, no, we’re not spies. We’re just here to get food. We have a younger brother. Test one of their sincerity, like I was saying earlier, is are they going to leave Simeon out to dry or are they going to actually follow through and save him? ‘Cause at any point, they could leave him in prison. They’ve already done it once before, gentlemen, what do we care if we lose another brother?

                                           00:22:32             We’re already at that point where we’ve done that once before. Test number one, if they are serious about their repentance and their change of heart, are they going to do to Simeon what they already did to Joseph? Are they going to leave him behind? We see sort of a mirror reflection there or a literary repetition. The other thing we’ll just kind of mention as we’re going through here is we get another mirror scene with the grain that they bring back. A grain with some money, it turns out, in the sacks of grain. Earlier in the story, they bring back the coat, Joseph’s torn coat to their father as a token that Joseph is dead, they slaughtered a goat and put blood on it, all that stuff. They’re gonna do this again, but now they’re bringing back grain, the grain and the sacks of money that comes with it.

                                           00:23:15             Both times, it serves as a token for something happening in the story. For the coat, it’s Joseph presumably being slaughtered. Jacob believes here with the grain and then with the money, they kind of freak out so they think, why is there money? We went down there to get the food and pay it, now it’s coming back here. It kind of freaks them out. So they don’t know what’s going to happen here. This is gonna set up for we have to go back down into Egypt eventually. So we see, again, the sort of literary repetition, these motifs recurring back here in new and interesting ways. That’s what I see sort of predominantly happening in chapter 42, at least on the narrative level. What the brothers are doing is exactly what you would expect in a famine economy. This will be picked up later in chapter 46 and 47.

                                           00:23:54             When there are threats of famine, that’s when the state is going to step in and we’re going to have a strong centralized administration. Foreign delegations coming in and wanting food, they’re going to have to go through the government, basically. Some people might wonder, why didn’t the brothers just go talk to the local farmer or something like that? Could he get them their food? Well, no. In situations like this, you have to go through the administration, you have to go through the government.

John Bytheway:               00:24:18             One of the things I love that you’re just pointing out is that there’s more than just the storyline. There’s so many things that are hidden in plain sight. As far as you’re talking about the literary things, it’s to imagine that in our time, we’ve started to see in the Book of Mormon, in a translated document, there are also literary devices. I love how much scholarship recently has pointed out things like parallelisms and chiasmus. While we’re reading this storyline, it’s fun for you to say, yeah, there’s a whole lot more in the way it’s presented and the structure in which it’s presented that makes you think this is ancient stuff.

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      00:25:00             It’s ancient art. I hope that we appreciate that our scriptures are works of literary art. A lot of intentionality went into these stories to tell them the way that they are. I don’t think that they’re just being made up like fiction, right? They’re not just making everything up here. There has been a certain level of deliberate craft to go into how the story is being told, why certain things are emphasized, why certain brothers or characters are quoted the way they are quoted, the dialogue, things like that.

Hank Smith:                      00:25:27             You see the same thing in the Book of Mormon when Mormon is an artist as he crafts together the book of Mosiah and Alma and Helaman. I wanna focus for a second on one verse, if you two don’t mind. You might have a tendency to think that Joseph is the only one who has suffered because of this decision that they made years and years ago, and we think maybe, oh, they got away with it. In verse 21, they’re talking with each other and Joseph is testing them, and they said to one another, “We are very guilty concerning our brother.” This is Joseph they’re talking about, “in that we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us and we wouldst not hear. Therefore is this distress come upon us.” Meaning we’re still being punished for this. It sounds like this has haunted them for two decades.

                                           00:26:20             They remember his cries to them. He must have been yelling out for them, don’t do this to me. You’re my family. Come help me. I know that’s not more suffering. I don’t want to say, well, they’ve suffered more than Joseph, but there has been some deep suffering by these brothers for a decision they made 20-something years ago.

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      00:26:42             I’m glad you pointed that out, Hank, because I think in verse 21, we see sincere guilt can be an act of transformative grace if it drives the repentance process. This seems to be one of our important verses where we see, again, I called it the repentance audit, the trial of the brothers. Is their repentance sincere? This is one of our first indications to say that, yes, it is sincere because it’s going to impel them or drive them towards, we’ll get to the story right, saving Benjamin here. They had two opportunities to leave brothers out to dry, both Simeon and then Benjamin, and both times they step in to do the right thing. A very important verse 21 in chapter 42.

Hank Smith:                      00:27:20             Wow. I love what you just said there, Stephen. Transformative guilt, because I’ll be honest, there are things in my 47 years on this planet that I regret deeply. Let that guilt work in you, move you to a better way of living. It doesn’t have to be just pointless guilt. It can be transformative. I’ve never thought about that. Thank you.

John Bytheway:               00:27:45             And thank you for saying that, Hank, because I feel the same way. I hear people say, I can go to the next life with no regrets. No, I’ve got some. I do. I wish I could say that, but use it to move you to be better now. Verse 22. Just Reuben says, “Did I not tell you not to wrong the boy, but you would not listen?” And I just thought, here’s Joseph learning something about Reuben right there. He has been thinking about this for 20 plus years.

Hank Smith:                      00:28:17             Yeah, he’s listening to them discuss him.

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      00:28:21             And they don’t know he can hear the whole thing.

Hank Smith:                      00:28:22             They don’t know. Oh, man.

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      00:28:23             The irony is very rich. We as the readers know that, but the brothers, the characters in the story don’t know that yet.

Hank Smith:                      00:28:30             Oh, yeah. And he found out about them. The repentance audit, he found out that they truly have been haunted.

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      00:28:40             Yeah.

Hank Smith:                      00:28:40             By this decision. Reuben, I told you so. I told you so. I wonder how many times he said that.

John Bytheway:               00:28:45             Did I not tell you not to wrong the boy?

Hank Smith:                      00:28:49             I told you you’d regret this. Let’s keep going, Stephen.

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      00:28:52             Great. It may be worth pointing out at the very end, chapter 38 Jacob says, “My son Benjamin shall not go down with you for his brother is dead and he alone is left. If harm should come to him on the journey that you are to make, you would bring my gray hairs with sorrow down to”, and in the King James Bible it’s “the grave.” That’s the translation. In the NRSV, they decided to transliterate the Hebrew, sheol, which could be the grave in the sense of where you go to die. It could also mean like the underworld. We would maybe call it the spirit world. You get little notes here of ancient Israelite cosmology and their beliefs about the afterlife. Little details like that are fun. This is why I recommend you consult other modern translations is because you might miss those little nuances. If Benjamin dies, my gray hairs will go with sorrow down to sheol, down to the pits of the underworld.

                                           00:29:44             It may be a little bit more dramatic there to think of it in that sense. But any case, we know what Jacob’s concern is, why he doesn’t want Benjamin to go with the brother. Let’s jump into 43. We’re gonna continue the story. Verse one, the famine is severe in the land. We need to go back down. We need to get more grain. Judah is going to step in. He’s going to persuade Jacob to let them bring Benjamin down. He’s going to act as his surety. Verse nine, “I myself will be surety for him.” This is Judah speaking to Jacob about Benjamin. You can hold me accountable for him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, then let me bear the blame forever. Judah’s stepping up. This is his moment to prove that his repentance is sincere. Hopefully as the readers, we think this is both very moving, but also deeply kind of ironic because remember, who was the brother that wanted to sell him into slavery, Joseph into slavery?

                                           00:30:37             It’s Judah. He’s one of the guys that steps in, gets the bright idea, let’s sell him into slavery. It’s better that we make a profit off of our brother rather than let him die. Once again, we see the motif of the younger favored brother is in this precarious situation. The older brother steps in. Initially, Judah’s the bad guy. Now Judah’s gonna be the good guy. We’re seeing the transformation happening in Judah there. They load up all their good stuff. They’re gonna take double the money with them, it says in verse 12, because they’re so spooked by the fact that money was brought back with them unbeknownst to them. Joseph sneaks it in there. They’re going over, above and beyond, bring back all this nice stuff to give to the Egyptians to rescue Simeon. They go back in there. Let’s start in verse 16. When Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the steward of his house, bring the men into the house and slaughter an animal and make ready, for the men are to dine with me at noon.

                                           00:31:31             Notice why he does this. It’s for Benjamin. He’s happy that he sees younger brother. We’re gonna give him a big feast, a big banquet, younger brother. The man did, as Joseph said, and brought the man to Joseph’s house. Verse 18, it says that they were afraid because they were brought into Joseph’s house. You can imagine how nerve-racking it would be to have dinner with your boss at their house, with the president of the university or something, right, with the dean. We’re bringing them into the house. We can tell why they’re scared about this. Maybe we can talk a minute here about this idea of this banquet, why Joseph is slaughtering this animal for them, why they’re gonna have this big fancy party with him and this feast. This idea of hospitality, in the West, it’s like, okay, you wanna be nice to somebody, give him a glass of water, make sure he’s doing okay.

                                           00:32:15             You go to the Middle East, people will go out of their way to make sure that your needs are taken care of and that you feel you are a respected guest under their house. Last time I was in Egypt, my wife and I went into a little bookstore that was by our hotel. We walk in there and the shopkeeper speaks very good English. He’s very nice, very personable. He offers us some refreshment. Can I get you anything? I politely declined his offer of refreshment, both because I really didn’t need it. And he got at me, says, no, no, no. I, I need to get you something. You are a guest in my store. I need to make sure that you’re taken care of. So what can I get you? I’m like, well, I guess a glass of water would be fine. He said, no, no, no, no, no.

                                           00:32:58             Water is for the horses. I need to get you some kind of a drink. He ran outside and got me whatever, some yogurt drink or whatever. I had, like, almost offended him by refusing his offer of hospitality. There is a deeply ingrained, almost religious obligation to take care of strangers and foreigners who may come under your roof. There’s two dynamics at play here for why he’s going to bust out the nice fatted calf. It’s also in service of the bigger story of setting the brothers up here. Joseph’s being a little sly in how he’s setting this up, but there’s also very much a sincere element there of taking care of his family. Let’s look at this moment. It should be one of the most touching moments of scripture. It certainly is one of the most touching moments in this story. In chapter 43, verse 26, he brings them, the brothers into his house, and they again bow down to the ground before him, once again, fulfilling the dream. He inquired about their welfare and said, is your father well the old man of whom you spoke? Is he still alive?

Hank Smith:                      00:33:59             The old man.

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      00:34:00             You can imagine why that’s on Joseph’s mind.

John Bytheway:               00:34:03             So, you mentioned that old man. How’s he doing?

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      00:34:07             How’s he doing? Mm-hmm. They’re going to say in verse 28, Your servant, our father is well. He is alive. And they bowed their heads and did obeisance. Then he looked up and saw his brother Benjamin, his mother’s son, remember this is his biological brother here, right, not a half brother, and said, “Is this your youngest brother of whom you spoke to me? God be gracious to you, my son.” Again, he has to keep up the ruse. Oh, this is the guy, right? This is the brother you’re saying of course he knows it’s Benjamin.” Verse 30. “With that, Joseph hurried out because he was overcome with affection for his brother and he was about to weep. So he went into a private room and wept there.”

Hank Smith:                      00:34:50             He’s doing this often.

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      00:34:52             He’s a very emotional guy, Joseph is. And you know what? There’s nothing wrong with that because if I were in his situation, I’d probably feel the exact same way and do the exact same thing. Deep, deep pathos in this story with examples like this.

John Bytheway:               00:35:06             It’s so fun because the reader knows what’s going on. The reader knows who he’s talking about and the brothers don’t.

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      00:35:14             We’re in on it with Joseph. Hopefully we’re sympathizing with him. Hopefully even this gets us choked up too as we’re reading this here in the story. He comes out, he washes his face, and I love this, and controlling himself so he gets his composure back. He has to be Mr. Mean stern Egyptian vizier administrator again as he comes out. He says, serve the meal. This is interesting, this is funny. Verse 33, “When they were seated before him, the firstborn, according to his birthright, and the youngest, according to his youth, the men looked at one another in amazement. ” Why would that amaze them, gentlemen? Why do you suppose the brothers are freaking out that he has them seated according to their birth order?

Hank Smith:                      00:35:52             Is it that he would know?

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      00:35:54             Yes, exactly. How does this guy know who’s the oldest and who’s the youngest? Wow. Again, ratcheting up the tension here in the story. The brothers are though, they are in amazement. Who is this guy and how does he know who we are? The story’s ratcheting up, the drama and the tension is ratcheting up. I will point out, again, this banquet, we’ve talked about the hospitality aspect here and there’s the literary function of this banquet to mess with the brothers. We have to also understand, even like today, anciently, these sorts of formal state dinners or banquets, it signals relationship and rank. Seating by birth order, you’re establishing this social hierarchy in addition to the impossible moment knowledge, building up the tension. It’s not just dinner. There’s something more important happening here with this dinner, both in its literary context and its social context, and that should be ratcheting up the tension.

                                           00:36:45             I like in verse 34, “Portions were taken to them from Joseph’s table, but Benjamin’s portion was five times as much as any of theirs, so they drank and were merry.” I love that, right? That little detail. Joseph’s favoritism is coming out here for Benjamin. And again, the other brothers should probably be wondering like, why is Benjamin so special? Again, we’re repeating though the motif of the favored younger son. The other thing that’s happening here in this chapter is the family accountability moment is coming. Joseph is stepping in, and I don’t want to say he’s, like, messing with his brothers in a trivial way, but he is trying to sort of light a fire under their feet to make them accountable for what they’ve done, and he’s slowly hinting at them that there’s more going on here than they perhaps suspect by placing them in the birth order. He’s giving Benjamin more food, things like that. If you’re one of the brothers, you should have alarm bells going off in your head, like, who is this guy?

Hank Smith:                      00:37:38             Like I said before, this is one of the best stories ever told. There’s all these little intricate details you’re going, oh, wow. Five times the food on Benjamin. Benjamin’s going, why does this guy like me so much? And the fact that he put them all in their order.

John Bytheway:               00:37:52             I love that.

Hank Smith:                      00:37:52             Yeah, that’s a pretty telling moment.

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      00:37:54             A couple things in chapter 44 to look at. Now we’re getting up to the decisive test for Judah, for the brothers to see if they’re really serious about their repentance. We know the story, so we don’t wanna summarize it again, but I do want to point out a few things, okay? The ruse that Joseph comes up with here, we all know famously he’s going to put the silver cup in Benjamin’s sack, and he’s going to use that as the ruse to then detain him to test the brothers. Let’s take a minute and look at verse five, because this is the detail that some people might miss or gloss over. Joseph tells his servant, this is what you’re supposed to go tell to the brothers when you find the cup. Verse four, “Go follow after the men and when you overtake them, say to them, why have you returned evil for good?” Why have you stolen my silver cup? “Is it not from this that my Lord drinks? Does he not indeed use it for divination? You have done wrong in doing this.” Gentlemen, when you hear the word divination, what comes to mind?

Hank Smith:                      00:38:55             I think of Oliver Cowdery automatically, he had the gift of the divining rod.

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      00:39:00             John, how about you?

John Bytheway:               00:39:02             Yeah, same thing. I was thinking of he uses it to discern things like water underground, but there must be something. What does an Egyptian use it for?

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      00:39:12             I’m glad you asked that, John, because I have some notes on it here that we can look at very briefly. Let’s point out there’s a little bit of ambiguity in this story whether Joseph is actually using the cup for divination. It’s part of the ploy to get the brothers in trouble. You could potentially read it as saying, Joseph is just using this as a pretense to get the brothers in trouble, so he’s not really using it for divination. He’s telling the servant, tell them I use it for divination to make the cup appear special. It’s possible to read it that way. I personally actually hope that he was using it for divination, precisely because Oliver Cowdery, he has a gift of a rod. The Doctrine and Covenants says, Joseph Smith is using seer stones. Other prophets, ancient and modern use these devices that we now consider quote sort of magic.

                                           00:39:57             We won’t get into that, that’s a whole other subject. It would be within continuity if Joseph is using a silver divining cup for some purpose. Let me read a few notes I have on the practice of divination in ancient Egypt. At its most basic, divination is, again, we call it quote unquote magic. I try to avoid that terminology for different reasons, but we’ll say it is an attempt to use to access divine knowledge through supernatural means. Maybe we can put it that way. Typically, you are going to use objects to penetrate the unseen spiritual realm and communicate with supernatural forces to give you knowledge or information. In the ancient world, there’s lots of forms of divination that you can do. My favorite form is extispicy, which is reading animal entrails. So you slaughter an animal and you read their entrails and you’re supposed to unlock secrets of the universe.

                                           00:40:48             We look at that in kind of our minds blow. The punchline is here, in the ancient world, the ancient mindset, if you believe that the gods control all aspects of the elements and the cosmos, then clearly if there’s something out of line in natural things around you, that must be a divine sign of something significant. So if you cut open an animal and you look at their entrails and there’s something weird going on with the entrails, that has to be some kind of a sign that a God has stepped into the natural world and influenced it that way for some purpose. That’s kind of the baseline assumption for how a lot of this works in antiquity. With that said, let me read a couple of notes here from our friend and colleague at BYU, John Gee, who’s a fantastic Egyptologist. He has a great article from the religious study center called Clothes and Cups: The Tangible World of Joseph.

                                           00:41:40             This was published in the book From Creation to Sinai, the Old Testament through the lens of the Restoration, and it’s for free on the Religious Study Center website. I recommend our listeners check that out. Quote, “From the Egyptian perspective, using a cup for divination is a known technique. The normal term for a drinking cup in the middle kingdom that’s Egypt around the time of 2200 to 1800 BC, middle kingdom is hnw, which in Joseph’s time can refer to a shallow bowl, but is normally used for a generic container. This, however, is precisely the term used in text describing divination cup, hnw. Egyptian texts describing divination through cups reveal a variety of procedures, and they date long after Joseph’s time. Most of these cups, though, are said to be copper or pottery, not silver, but that probably reflects the impoverished times in which these late accounts were written. These practices are thought to be much older than the text describing them.”

                                           00:42:40             Here we go. I’m gonna read the descriptions. In your mind’s eye, ladies and gentlemen, picturing maybe this is what Joseph is doing, either actually or he’s pretending to do for the brothers, “the individual is dressed in clean clothes, would have his face bent over the vessel, which was filled with oil, his lights closed while praying. Upon opening his eyes, he would see a light in which the gods would appear and answer questions. In the Egyptian divinatory use, the cup, often given as a young boy or to a young boy, is a means to open the eyes of the user to reveal things otherwise invisible to the eyes.” Does that sound familiar, gentlemen?

John Bytheway:               00:43:21             Yes.

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      00:43:21             The fact that in our tradition too, we called Joseph of Egypt a seer. That’s language from the Book of Mormon. This is why, again, I hope he’s using a cup for divination, but look at this. He closes his eyes, he says a prayer, he opens it, and he sees a light, and in that light, God is able to appear and answer questions. This should be ringing alarm bells for, like, Urim and Thummim, seer stone interpreters, Brother of Jared, shining rocks, things like that. Yeah, we’re kind of in that world, that world of divination of divine knowledge coming through physical means, cups, stones, sticks, things like that.

Hank Smith:                      00:43:56             Wow. It’s interesting to me, if you look at the history of the church, that here are people joining the church early on with Joseph Smith. They know the Bible. It’s not odd to them. It’s probably amazing to them that here we have a seer. If I read the Bible, I’m going, oh, this is familiar. Interesting how many critics today will look back at early history of the church and think, isn’t that crazy? While the people, the converts of that day were thinking, this is proof to me.

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      00:44:28             Yeah. If you’re going to get mad at Joseph Smith for using stones as seer stones, if you’re going to get mad at Oliver Cowdery for having a sprout or a rod that he’s using for divination, you have to get mad at Moses for having a magic stick that he uses to perform miracles. You have to get mad at the ancient Israelites for having a magic box called the Ark of the Covenant they use to split the river Jordan and perform miracles. You have to get mad at Jesus for spitting in dirt and using that as clay to anoint a man’s eyes to heal a blind man. You have to get mad at Elijah and Elisha for having a magic coat that they use to go around to perform miracles. Yeah, I’m being a little facetious here, but you get the punchline. If you take for granted the world of the miraculous and the world of the divine, then who am I to say that God can’t use stones or sticks or clothing or boxes of acacia wood in the case of the Doctrine and Covenants or spit in mud with Jesus to a blind man.

                                           00:45:22             It’s not my job to step in and say you are or not allowed to use certain physical objects or instruments to channel God’s power to perform the miraculous. Like you, Hank, I don’t take that criticism too seriously, at least from our friends of other faith traditions that may, oh yeah, I don’t have a problem. Magic rocks in the Bible, magic cups in the Bible, no problem. Magic rocks in 1829, well, I don’t know about that guy. Is that, that seems a little bit too much, right? Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Hank Smith:                      00:45:46             Especially from a resurrected Lord. Here we have someone who died, came back to life, is never gonna die and can leave the planet at will.

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      00:45:54             Walk through walls.

Hank Smith:                      00:45:55             Yeah. I’m pretty sure he knows stuff we don’t know.

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      00:45:58             We’ve had our little mini divination lesson here on the followHIM podcast. Let’s just jump down. Again, we know the story. They find the silver cup in Benjamin’s sack and they’re going to take him back, going to arrest him. This is exactly what Judah did not want to have happen. Let’s look at Judah’s response to this, because there’s a lot that reveals about Judah in his plea for Benjamin’s release. Judah steps in. He says to Joseph, “Oh my Lord, let your servant speak a word in my Lord’s ear, and do not be angry with your servant, for you are like Pharaoh himself.” Then he goes and he hashes everything about the dad and we have to go bring the brother back and so forth. Let’s go to verse 30. “Now therefore, when I come to your servant, my father and the boy is not with us, then as his life is bound up in the boy’s life, when he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die. And your servants will bring down the gray hairs of your servant and our father with sorrow to sheol to the underworld. For your servant became surety for the boy to my father, saying, if I do not bring him back to you, then I will bear the blame in the sight of my father all my life.” Verse 33, “Now therefore, please let your servant remain as a slave to my Lord in place of the boy and let the boy go back with his brothers. For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear to see the suffering that would come upon my father.” That is a powerful speech from Judah and it is a beautiful encapsulation of the ministry that Christ performed for us stepping in as our intercessor in times of certain doom. Like Judah, he stepped in to rescue and save us.

                                           00:47:49             I love this, and we see the full character transformation of Judah. He went from the guy who was willing to sell his younger brother into slavery because he hated him because he was a jerk, to now he’s going to save his other younger brother after a certain doom was going to befall him. And he even says, “I am a surety for the boy, so let the boy go back with his brothers and I will be a slave to my Lord in the place of the boy.” This is great. On the narrative level, it’s beautiful. On the theological level, it’s beautiful. Hopefully, again, as Christians and Latter-day Saints, we can see the ultimate Christ-like expression that Judah is now stepping into and inhabiting by acting this way. There’s a great Christological reading of this that we can take from that.

Hank Smith:                      00:48:34             Christ is from the House of Judah.

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      00:48:38             Indeed. There’s another nice little element there to that, right?

Hank Smith:                      00:48:42             How can I go up to my Father? And you can put your name in there. How can I go up to the Father and John not be with me? How can I go to the Father and Stephen not be with me? I can’t. Take me instead so they can go to the Father. It’s beautiful. Take me instead.

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      00:49:01             Well, maybe we should get to the big climax of the story, which is chapter 45. We’ve talked about Judah stepping in as this Christlike figure to be an intercessory figure for Benjamin. I love how chapter 45 verse one begins. “Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all those who stood before him.” I mean, come on, give the guy a break. He has a lot going on there. He’s already had to once before go to the other room to have a good cry to come back. He can no longer control it. And I love the fact that it’s in response to Judah stepping up and proving his repentance. Remember, this is the guy that sold Joseph into slavery, that led that. Now he’s stepping up and saying I will look after my younger brother. He sends everybody else away. Verse two, he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it and the household of Pharaoh heard it, so this is a right proper cry.

                                           00:49:50             It’s been bottled up for, what, 20-something years now at this point? Verse four. Joseph came to his brothers, he said, come closer to me. And they came closer and he said, I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. Do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. Let’s take a minute there and unpack that. There’s two things happening here at once. Number one, Joseph identifies that what the brothers did was evil. He calls them out for their evil actions. We don’t wanna overlook that. This is not just all’s well that ends well and we sort of gloss over this horrible thing that the brothers did.

Hank Smith:                      00:50:33             Who hasn’t sold a sibling? Come on. Like, no, this is a big deal.

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      00:50:38             It’s a big deal. You sold your brother Joseph into Egypt, but… So he acknowledges the evil there, right? But do not be distressed or angry because God has sent me to preserve life. So in other words, even in this moment of evil, this evil action that the brothers did, God stepped in and fulfilled it in a sort of redemptive role. My favorite way to describe this is what Lehi tells his son Jacob in 2 Nephi 2. God will consecrate thine afflictions for thy gain. This doesn’t negate the evil, the affliction. Rather, the point of the story here, the big moral message is that even in that evil, God is always two or three steps ahead and he will, I like to say he will alchemize it for our good if we have faith and if we have trust in him. It’s not just, oh, great. We’re all friends again. Oh, no problem, guys. Water under the bridge. No, we have to call out evil for what it is, but we can recognize that God will take the evil around us, the suffering around us, and he can consecrate it for us for a bigger, better noble cause.

John Bytheway:               00:51:43             And theologically, we can ask, did God predestine that to happen or did God allow them to use their agency badly? And I think it’s the latter, but he can always find a way to bring good out of it.

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      00:51:57             I like that too, John. I think that’s right. I think we as Latter-day Saints, we would shy away from any discussion of, like, predestination, the idea that the brothers, they had no agency, no choice in the matter. They just were little puppets, gods puppets on the strings doing all these things. We would understand and say that even when people exercise their agency wickedly or unrighteously or evilly, that will not frustrate or thwart God’s power in his purposes that he has for his children. Yes, absolutely. I love also what’s happening. So after he says this, okay, I’m your brother, you sold me Egypt. The next thing he asks from the brothers is to go and get dad. Verse nine, hurry up, go to my father and say to him, thus says your son Joseph. Wait, Joseph’s alive? So he wants him to go back and tell their dad that Joseph is alive.

                                           00:52:51             “God has made me Lord of all Egypt, come down to me, do not delay.” You can see Joseph’s very sincere concern for his family, both for his brothers, especially Benjamin and for his dad. Remember when they came back before? Oh, so yeah, this old man of yours back in Canaan, he’s still alive? And then the next thing, go and tell dad I am alive and you need to come down here into Egypt. Verse 10, “You shall settle the land of Goshen. You shall be near me, you and your children and your children’s children, as well as your flocks and your herds that you have.” Okay they’re gonna go do that. One more thing here to mention. Again, Joseph, he’s a little softy here. Verse 14, “He fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept while Benjamin wept upon his neck and he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them after that his brothers talked with him.” This is sincere, powerful healing and reconciliation. I don’t know if I have it in me to forgive my siblings if they sold me into slavery, right, if I’m being totally honest. Here, it absolutely is on display with Joseph. It’s another powerful, pathos-filled moment in the story. Notice the brothers are crying with him. This is real, true, sincere reconciliation of the family. I think it’s beautiful.

John Bytheway:               00:54:04             I think the stories that touch us the most are when they’re family stories like this. When the Book of Mormon begins with a family with all sorts of problems and there’s attempts at reconciliation and they’re always trying to do that. Here’s one that it turns out that they’re all weeping on each other and talking. Reconciliation’s a good word there, Hank, because it’s a theological word of what the Savior’s gonna do for all of us.

Hank Smith:                      00:54:30             Yeah. There’s an older talk that I remember from 2003. I’m sad that 2003 is an older talk. It was given by David Sorensen, who you might recognize that name John, he is one of our benefactors, he’s the father of Steve Sorensen, both of whom have passed away. He tells the story of Chet and Walt. It was over water, which is a pretty big deal in the farming community. Here’s what Elder Sorensen said. I grew up in a farming town where water was the lifeblood of the community. I remember the people of our society constantly watching, worrying and praying over the rain, irrigation rights, and water in general. Sometimes my children chide me. They say they never knew someone so preoccupied with rain. I tell them I suppose that’s true, because where I grew up, the rain was more than a preoccupation. It was a matter of survival.

                                           00:55:31             So he says, “In that type of environment, two men lived near our mountain pasture, whom I will call Chet and Walt. These two neighbors began to quarrel over water from the irrigation ditch they shared. It was innocent enough at first, but over the years, the two men allowed their disagreements to turn into resentment and then arguments, even to the point of threats. One July morning, both men felt they were once again short of water. Each went to the ditch to see what had happened. Each in his own mind reckoning the other had stolen his water. They arrived at the headgate at the same time. Angry words were exchanged, a scuffle ensued. Walt was a large man with great strength. Chet was small, wiry, and tenacious. In the heat of the scuffle, the shovels the men were carrying were used as weapons. Walt accidentally struck one of Chet’s eyes with the shovel, leaving him blind in that eye.

                                           00:56:25             Months and years passed, yet Chet could not forget nor forgive. The anger that he had felt over losing his eye boiled inside him and his hatred grew more intense. One day, Chet went to his barn, took down the gun from its rack, got on his horse and rode to the headgate of the ditch. He put a dam in the ditch and diverted the water away from Walt’s farm, knowing that Walt would soon come to see what had happened. Then Chet slipped into the brush and waited. When Walt appeared, Chet shot him dead. Then he got on his horse, went back to his home and called the sheriff to inform him that he had just shot Walt. My father was asked to be on the jury that tried Chet for murder. Father disqualified himself because he was a longtime friend of both men and their families.

                                           00:57:09             Chet was tried and convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. After many years, Chet’s wife came to my father and asked if he would sign a petition to the governor, asking for clemency for her husband whose health was now broken after serving so many years in the state penitentiary. Father signed the petition. A few nights later, two of Walt’s grown sons appeared at our door. They were very angry and upset. They said that because Father had signed the petition, many others had signed. They asked Father to have his name withdrawn from the petition. He said no. He felt that Chet was a broken and sick man. He had suffered these many years in prison for that terrible crime. He wanted to see Chet have a decent funeral and burial beside his family. Walt’s sons whirled in anger and said, if he is released from prison, we will see that harm comes to him and his family. Chet was eventually released and allowed to come home to die with his family.

                                           00:58:07             Fortunately, there was no further violence between the families. My father often lamented how tragic it was that Chet and Walt these two neighbors and boyhood friends had fallen captive to their anger and let it destroy their lives. He goes on to give this great talk. You can read the whole thing. It’s called Forgiveness Will Change Bitterness To Love and guess which scripture character he brings up in the rest of the talk? Joseph of Egypt. Joseph’s will to forgive changed bitterness to love. Towards the end of the talk, Elder Sorensen says, “This is not to say that forgiveness is easy. When someone has hurt us or those we care about, the pain can almost be overwhelming. It can feel as if the pain or the injustice is the most important thing in the world and that we have no choice but to seek vengeance. But Christ, the Prince of Peace teaches us a better way.

                                           00:59:01             It can be very difficult to forgive someone the harm they’ve done us, but when we do, we open ourselves up to a better future. No longer does someone else’s wrongdoing control our course. When we forgive others, it frees us to choose how we will live our own lives. Forgiveness means that problems of the past no longer dictate our destinies and we can focus on the future with God’s love in our hearts. Tragic story, but a beautiful message of how incredible Joseph’s decision is. And this is decades of pain that he suffered.

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      00:59:38             Yeah, and by all rights, Joseph is entitled to enact his revenge on his brothers. I don’t think anybody would necessarily fault him if he did everything he could to meet their evil with justice. Much like Judah being a Christ-like figure, standing in and giving intercession for Benjamin. Joseph is also a Christ-like figure here in how he meets evil with mercy and with reconciliation. Not to excuse that evil or to justify it, but rather to point out the point of the story which we’ve discussed is that even with that evil, even when people act wickedly, the Atonement could override that and can create that healing that we need to resolve that. That’s a beautiful illustration and story for the principle we’re trying to talk here, so thank you for that, Hank.

John Bytheway:               01:00:22             And I love how Joseph tested their hearts to see where they were at. Giving Judah the opportunity to come forth that way and off himself, I think that must have been healing for Joseph just to see that happen.

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      01:00:36             Yeah, I think so too, for sure.

Hank Smith:                      01:00:38             We looked at chapter 44, verse 34 as something the Savior might say, how can I go up to my Father and this person not be with me? I think it’s very similar. You can hear the Savior in verse four of chapter 45, “Come near to me. I pray you. Come unto me. Therefore, be not grieved nor angry with yourselves that you sinned, for God did send me to preserve your life.” Very much a shadow or a type of Christ in both of these brothers.

Bro. Stephen Smoot:      01:01:09             Absolutely.