The Lord was clearly with Yosef (Joseph) in Potiphar’s house, yet Yosef was framed for jilting an adulterous wife. And the Lord was with Yosef in the prison he was thrown into, interpreting two dreams about the future of the pharaoh’s jailed wine server and baker. The symbols of wine and bread there point to the future life of Yeshua the Messiah.
These seemingly randomly inserted passages do fit the previous theme of learning to see people how God sees them: Few rich people in heaven, a camel through the eye of a needle, a warning about the restoration of Yeshua three days after humiliation and suffering, healing of a blind man, repentance of Zakkai (Zaccheus) the tax collector, parable of 10 coins for servants of a king.
This isn’t a Bible passage one might want to read to young children, but it is recorded for a profound reason. It gives us another insight into the character of Yehudah (Judah), and the symbols point to King David and the Messiah.
The chiastic structure in 1st Kings 13 points to the words spoken by the prophet to the pagan altar of northern Israel. That prophecy finds fulfillment in chapter 14 and 300 years later under king Yoshiyah (Josiah).
This account of Yosef’s dreams and being sold by his brothers into slavery in Mitsraim (Egypt) is the foundation for the teaching through the rest of Genesis and even the Torah. The life of Yeshua the Messiah on Earth paralleled that of Yosef (Joseph).
We sometimes gloss over long lists in the Bible of hard-to-pronounce names and places. Yet the meanings of names in God’s word are part of the lessons He wants us to learn. The names in this chapter point to reasons why “Esau” and “Edom” are mentioned continually in the prophets as an adversary to Israel.
This chapter has some odd elements: a “man of God” who spoke condemnation to the false-worship altar of the now-separate northern kingdom of Israel, he got tripped up in his mission by another prophet, then his body is watched over by a donkey and a lion. Rather than oddities, these are messages from God about the coming exiles of Israel, the return from exile and the role of the Messiah.