Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #19 of Genesis 30, and we will read Genesis 30:22-24:

And God remembered Rachel, and God hearkened to her, and opened her womb. And she conceived, and bare a son; and said, God hath taken away my reproach: And she called his name Joseph; and said, JEHOVAH shall add to me another son.

Again, we know that this was the year 1916 B. C., and Jacob was 91 years old when Joseph was born in that year.  It is the 31^st year since Jacob had come to Haran, and it was also his 24^th year of marriage to Rachel.  We can know that because he worked the first seven years in Haran for her to become his bride, so he worked a complete seven years, and it was the eighth year when he married both Leah and Rachel, so Rachel was barren a full 23 years.  And now in the 24^th year, she has conceived and born a son, and she called his name Joseph.  So that is interesting.  It could be that God is looking at those 23 years as a time of famine.  And now the 23 years have passed, and the 24^th year had come, and the child is born.  Also, 24 years is “2 x 12,” and the number “2” has to do with the caretakes of the Word of God, the Bible, and the number “12” has to do with “fulness.”

As we looked at last time, after Rachel conceived and bore a son, she said, “God hath taken away my reproach.”  And we saw how that can identify with the Lord Jesus Christ, as the reproaches of them that reproached God fell upon Him, and He became a reproach in their place, taking away the reproach of His people.  So that is one thing we can learn from this.

But there is also a second thing we can see, if we turn to Ezekiel 36:29-30:

I will also save you from all your uncleannesses: and I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you. And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field, that ye shall receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen.

You will receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen.  That is curious.  Why would God call famine a reproach?  And we have seen that Rachel thought the period of time during which she was unable to bear a child was a reproach.  We also know from the Bible that children are likened to fruit, the fruit of the womb, and when fruit comes, there is no famine.  But when you do not have fruit, there is a famine because there had been no rain and the crops did not grow.  As a result, there was no fruit.  So, in a sense, Rachel giving birth is being fruitful, indicating there was no longer the reproach of famine that others could see.  That is interesting for us to look at, as she has given birth to Joseph, who is a type of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we know that God also likens Christ to fruit, the firstfruits.  It says in 1Corinthians 15:23:

But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.

Jesus is called “the firstfruits.”  And we also know from the book of Joel that God refers to three periods of rain.  There was the early righteous rain, followed by the former rain, and then the Latter Rain.  The former rain was the early rain that we identify with the rain that fell over the church age.  The Latter Rain is the rain that fell over the course of the second part of the Great Tribulation.  And the early righteous rain fell over the Old Testament period, producing the harvest or crop of Christ Himself. 

So Rachel bringing forth Joseph, a great type of Christ, has taken away her reproach, the reproach of famine.  It is as though the line of believers that had come into being over the thousands of years of the Old Testament era finally had their reproach taken away when Christ entered into the world, born of the Virgin Mary.  And God likens His birth as a Son being given to all the people of God.  Remember the language of Isaiah 9:6:

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given…

It is as if we collectively had the child Jesus.  The elect people of God bore Him.  Unto us a child was born, and unto us a son was given and brought in the world.  And that is the picture that God uses in Revelation 12 concerning the “woman” that comes into view in the first verse.  It says in Revelation 12:1:

And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:

She identifies with those God has saved, the elect.  She is clothed with the sun, and Christ is the Son, so she is “clothed” with Christ.  Then it says in Revelation 12:2:

And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.

Then it says in Revelation 12:5-6:

And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.

That period of time is three-and-one half years, and it is a number that identifies with the period of the two witnesses’ testimony and, therefore, it identifies with the church age.  So the “woman” is not referring to Mary, but it is referring to the company of the elect. 

And Rachel is a type and figure of the elect, and after a time of being barren, God finally blesses her with a son, and she brings him forth and her reproach is taken away.  She is fruitful.

We also know that Christ’s coming was tied with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit the first time.  Christ went to the cross, died, and resurrected, and then a few days later on the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was poured out and God began to evangelize the world.  It was the impact of Christ, the essence of the Jubilee, being born in 7 B. C., and then that “Jubilee” really stretched over the course of the entire New Testament church age, and this early rain continued until the year 1988.  Then God ended the church age, and the early rain ceased to fall when that Jubilee ended.  Then there was the famine of the 2,300 evening mornings, followed on September 7, 1994, by another Jubilee year, when God stretched forth His hand a second time to recover the remnant of His people.

I think that is what is in view in our verse because when we read Genesis 30:24 it does not seem to make sense as stated: “And she called his name Joseph; and said, JEHOVAH shall add to me another son.”  She had just gone through 24 years of marriage before she finally had a son, so we would think that she would give this son a name meaning, “God is faithful,” or a name that means, “Answer to prayer.”  (For example, the name of Ishmael means, “God has heard.”)  You would think it would be along the lines of God having hearkened to her or having had mercy on her, or something like that.  But the name “Joseph” is from a related word that translates as “add.”  The name “Joseph” is Strong’s #3130, and it is derived from this word, “Strong’s #3254, that is translated as “add.”  And the reason she called his name Joseph was, as she said, “JEHOVAH shall add to me another son.”  The name “Joseph” means “ to add.”  And that does not seem to make sense that she would immediately think of a second son.  It just seems very odd and strange from a woman that had been so desirous of children.  Remember, she said to Jacob, “Give me children, or else I die.”  And finally, God answered her prayer, and she went right into thinking about a second son. 

And God would bless her with a second son, Benjamin at some time in the future.  I think it was at the point that they left Haran, maybe in that 40^th year, and then Rachel would have a hard child-bearing experience, and she would die giving birth to Benjamin, the added son.  Again, that is very unusual and strange, and we wonder, “Why this focus?”  But all we can do is search out some of these words to see if there is help elsewhere in the Bible.

Let us start with the word “another,” as she said, ““JEHOVAH shall add to me another son.”  This word is #312 in the Hebrew concordance, and we find it used in an interesting way in Genesis 4:25:

And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.

The word “another” is the same word as in our verse in Genesis 30:24.  He was another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.  Although three sons (Cain, Abel, and Seth) are mentioned here, Seth is like a replacement son for Abel.  Abel had been murdered, and God gave another son to take the place of the son that Cain slew.  And what is interesting about this is that we do not know how old Adam was when he bore many other sons and daughters, as God did not tell us Adam’s age at the times he had other children, but He does tell us Adam’s age in relationship to when Seth was born.  It says in the next chapter in Genesis 5:3:

And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth:

And 130 years is a very significant age.  We have seen it before when Jacob entered into Egypt and Pharaoh asked him how old he was, and he was age 130.  It has come up in other places in the Bible, too.  What is so special about the age 130?  Why would God tell us that Adam was 130 when Seth was born as “another seed” instead of Abel?  Why let us know that?  It is because these two sons, Abel and Seth, were elect.  Abel was an elect, without any question, and from the language used concerning Seth, we would say he must also be an elect child of God.  So the one elect son lived for a period of time, and then Cain slew him, but God had a plan to bring forth another son or another seed, and he would also be elect, and he was born when Adam was 130.  The significance of the age 130 has the same significance as when Jacob told Pharaoh that he was 130.  It identifies with the 13,000^th year of earth’s history.  The number “13,000” is comprised of the number “13” and multiples of “10.”  And the number “130” is “13 x 10.”  The number “10” points to completeness, and the number “13” points to the end of the world.  In 1988, the 13,000^th year of earth’s history, was when the world entered into its end stage, as judgment began at the house of God.  God began his two-fold judgment program starting with the churches (in 1988) and transitioning to the world on May 21, 2011.  According to biblical evidence, judgment will be completed on some date in 2033.

Why the emphasis on “130” with the seed?  First, the seed that was killed, Abel, was killed by Cain, and we looked at that when we went through Genesis 4.  In the King James Bible, it said, “In the process of time,” and then it recalls the time when Cain slew Abel, but in the original Hebrew, it literally read, “In the end of days,” Cain rose up and slew Abel.  And Abel and Cain were like the “wheat” and the “tares” that were growing together within the churches and congregations up until the point that God distinguished the two.  Cain and Abel were brothers that seemingly got along until God required an offering, and then He accepted Abel’s offering and not Cain’s offering.  In accepting one but not the other, the Lord made it known that one offering was acceptable because it represented the offering of Christ on his behalf.  But the other offering was unacceptable because he did not have the offering of Christ performed for him.  And this caused the division that resulted in Cain slaying Abel, and that ties in with the end of the church age and God making it known who were the wheat and who were the tares through the mechanism of the command He opened and revealed (and caused to be proclaimed to all in the churches) that the church age was over.  It was time to come out and depart out of the midst and go to the mountains (God), and all the elect came out.  And all who were not (elect) remained, so this separated them.  God also speaks of the people of God being driven out of the congregations, and to be driven out of the synagogue is likened to being killed, as we read in John 16:1.  So in this way, spiritually, “Cain” slew “Abel.”  That is, the unsaved that merely identified as the people of God slew the saved people of God in a spiritual way by driving them out of the churches and congregations.  And that was the “seed” or the “fruit” that we can relate to the early rain that fell over the course of the church age, but then the church age was over and it was as though Abel had been slain, but God had a plan for “another seed,” the great multitude, the fruit that would come from the Latter Rain that fell outside the churches among the nations of the world.  God had a great multitude of people, and they would be “another seed,” as typified by Seth, and they would be far greater in number than the earlier fruit of elect people that God saved over the course of the church age.

We can also see this in Isaiah 49:20:

The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say again in thine ears, The place is too strait for me: give place to me that I may dwell.

The word “strait” means it is too narrow or too constricting – it is not big enough.  And these are the children that you will have after you have lost the other.  It is the other seed that Seth typified, that seed of all the elect that were saved out of Great Tribulation.  They are the children that would come forth after the first had been lost, meaning the church age ending, and the first group being driven out of the churches and congregations.

God also speaks of this second group in Isaiah 11:10:

And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people…

The Hebrew word translated as “again” is the same word translated as “add” in our verse in Genesis 30:24: “JEHOVAH shall add to me another son.”  So the Lord will set His hand again, as it says in Isaiah 11:11-12:

… the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

We have known for some time that Isaiah 11:11 is speaking of the second outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the salvation of the great multitude saved in the little season of Great Tribulation.  And now we see this word “again,” and it is the same word “add” that the name “Joseph” comes from.

Going back to Genesis 30, it says in Genesis 30:24:

And she called his name Joseph; and said, JEHOVAH shall add to me another son.

You see, it was through Christ and His coming that the reproach of famine was taken away, and another seed would come forth at the time of the end of the world after the 13,000^th year has come.  And in 1994, a Jubilee year, God stretched forth His hand a second time and added another son, the children we would have after we have lost the earlier children.  So when we look at this on a spiritual level, we can see God’s plan for these things as He uses types and figures to lay it out before us.