Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #22 in Genesis 37, and we will read Genesis 37:15-17:

And a certain man found him, and, behold, he was wandering in the field: and the man asked him, saying, What seekest thou? And he said, I seek my brethren: tell me, I pray thee, where they feed their flocks. And the man said, They are departed hence; for I heard them say, Let us go to Dothan. And Joseph went after his brethren, and found them in Dothan.

I will stop reading there.  We understand that Joseph is a type of Christ sent by his father Jacob (Israel), who would be a type of God the Father.  He was sent to his brethren, and Joseph came to Shechem.  That is where his father sent him, and Shechem is a place that identifies with the Gospel.  And that was where the brethren should have been, but they were not there, so Joseph was wandering in the field.

We looked at that word “wandering” last time, and it is a word that means “gone astray,” so Joseph had gone astray in the field, which represents the world.  That is the typical parabolic definition of the world, according to a parable Christ gave in the book of Matthew.  He defined the “field” as the “world.”

So we are not surprised that Joseph, who was sent by his father to Shechem, was in the field because God the Father sent His Son into the world, so that makes sense.  But why has he gone astray in the world?  Spiritually, it is a picture of the Lord Jesus entering into the human race and taking upon Himself the form of a man.  And where is mankind?  They are wandering about, and they have “gone astray” from God and His commandments.

If you remember, we saw a similar thing when we looked at the book of Jonah a few years ago, and we saw that Jonah was sent by God to Nineveh.  We read in Jonah 1:1-2:

Now the word of JEHOVAH came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.

God sent Jonah to Nineveh.  Nineveh also pictures the world.  Jonah’s name means “dove,” but he is really a picture of Christ, especially during the storm at sea.  It was such a ferocious storm that it was going to destroy the ship and the mariners, and they finally figured out that Jonah was the problem.  He was the reason why they were experiencing the storm.   He told them that very thing because he told them that he was fleeing from JEHOVAH in Jonah 1:10:

Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, Why hast thou done this? For the men knew that he fled from the presence of JEHOVAH, because he had told them.

That is exactly what happened in verse 3 when God commanded him to go.  We read in Jonah 1:3:

But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of JEHOVAH, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of JEHOVAH.

His fleeing from the presence of JEHOVAH is really emphasized in this chapter.  It says twice in verse 3 that he went “from the presence of JEHOVAH.”  It was repeated after he told them his occupation when it says in Jonah 1:10: “For the men knew that he fled from the presence of JEHOVAH, because he had told them.” So three times in this chapter we are told that Jonah fled from the presence of JEHOVAH.  As a type of Christ, he was thrown overboard, swallowed by the whale, and he spent three days and three nights in the whale’s belly.  In Matthew 12, Jesus confirms our understanding of Jonah being a great type of Christ by saying, “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

He likens Jonah’s experience in the whale’s belly to His own experience of suffering the wrath of God.  Therefore Jonah fleeing from the presence of JEHOVAH somehow relates to Christ.  Jonah fleeing from God’s presence ties in with Christ entering into the human race.  It was JEHOVAH who sent Jonah to Nineveh, a picture of the world, and yet he flees from His presence.

It is all very curious until we go back to the book of Genesis, and we read of Adam and Eve at the point they transgressed.  They had eaten of the fruit of the tree that they were forbidden to eat of, and they sinned.  Then we read in Genesis 3:7-8:

And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. And they heard the voice of JEHOVAH God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of JEHOVAH God amongst the trees of the garden.

They hid themselves as soon as they heard God’s voice.  They hid themselves from God because of their sin, and that has been the situation of mankind to this day.  Because of man’s sin, they run away from God, and they run away from the Word of God, the Bible, and the light that emanates from God’s Word.  It is something man flees from because it shines a light upon the darkness of his soul, and it shows him that he is under the wrath of God.  So Jonah, a type of Christ, is going with them.  Notice the last part of Jonah 1:3:

… so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of JEHOVAH.

That pictures Christ entering into the human race.  Where is the human race headed?  They are fleeing from JEHOVAH.  Therefore Jonah joined them, and he fled from the presence of JEHOVAH.  And when Christ became a man, He walked among men who were all fleeing from the presence of JEHOVAH.  So in the sense that He was in human form, He too was fleeing from the presence of JEHOVAH.

Again, this fits in with what we read here in Genesis 37:15:

And a certain man found him, and, behold, he was wandering in the field…

He was going astray in the world, and that is where mankind is located, and that is what mankind is actively doing as they go astray from God and His Word, or His commandments.  So we see Joseph wandering about for a period of time.

Now we have to ask another question: “Who is this man that found him?”  A certain man found Joseph wandering in the field, and it goes on to say in Genesis 37:15-16:

… and the man asked him, saying, What seekest thou? And he said, I seek my brethren...

We have discussed seeking the brethren, and we will discuss the part about “seeking” a little later in the study.  But again, it says in Genesis 37:16-17:

And he said, I seek my brethren: tell me, I pray thee, where they feed their flocks. And the man said, They are departed hence; for I heard them say, Let us go to Dothan. And Joseph went after his brethren, and found them in Dothan

This man is an unnamed man, but he is called a certain man, but the word “certain” is not in the text.  It just says, “ a man found him.”  Then the man questioned him.  “Who are you looking for?  What are you seeking?”  Then Joseph responded that he was seeking his brethren and where they feed the flocks.  Then the man had all the answers, did he not?  He knew exactly what had happened, what they had said, and where they went.  He said, “They are departed hence; for I heard them say, Let us go to Dothan.”  Then Joseph went after his brethren and found them in Dothan.  So this man knew a lot, and we suspect that he is a type and figure of God because God knows everything.  Nothing escapes God’s attention or His ears.  “…but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.”  We read that in Hebrews 4:13. 

So this man redirects Joseph who had been originally sent to Shechem.  He told them they were not there, but they had departed, and the word “departed” simply means “journeyed.”  It is the same word used many times of Israel in their wilderness sojourn as they journeyed from once place to another.  He even heard them say, “Let us go to Dothan.”  So this certain man gave him direction.

Now we do not just want to pull out of our minds that this certain man represents God without proving it from the Bible by showing similarities to what we find in a couple of places in the New Testament.  Let us turn to Matthew 21:28:

But what think ye? A certain man had two sons…

Notice that the word “certain” is in italics, and was not in the original text, just as the word “certain” in Genesis 37:15 was not in the text.  Again, it says in Matthew 21:28-32:

But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work to day in my vineyard. He answered and said, I will not: but afterward he repented, and went. And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and went not. Whether of them twain did the will of his father? They say unto him, The first. Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him.

Very clearly, a “certain man” that had two sons is picturing God Himself.  There is no other conclusion we can come to, so the reference to “a certain man” identifies with God.

In Mark 12, we have another reference in Mark 12:1:

And he began to speak unto them by parables. A certain man planted a vineyard, and set an hedge about it, and digged a place for the winefat, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country

Then it says in Mark 12:5-6:

And again he sent another; and him they killed, and many others; beating some, and killing some. Having yet therefore one son, his wellbeloved, he sent him also last unto them, saying, They will reverence my son.

I will stop there.  Of course they killed the son.  So “a certain man” that planted a vineyard, and then sent his servants, and then his beloved son can only be God the Father. 

So as we are looking for the spiritual picture in Genesis 37:15, we see it says, “And a certain man found him, and, behold, he was wandering in the field, or going astray in the world, and we know this “ certain man” is God.  It is likely representing the Spirit of God that directed the Lord Jesus Christ.  The Holy Spirit was completely involved in everything regarding Christ’s entry into the world through His birth of the Virgin Mary.  Remember that He was conceived by the Spirit, and the Spirit came to declare His birth, and so forth.  All throughout the ministry of Christ, the Spirit of God was directing His steps.  The whole Godhead was involved.  The Father sent the Son, and the Son was led of the Spirit, and so forth.

So the “certain man,” a type or figure of God, is the one who found Joseph, and he asked him at the end of Genesis 37:15: “What seekest thou?”  And Joseph said in Genesis 37:16: “I seek my brethren: tell me, I pray thee, where they feed their flocks.”

Lord willing, we will answer these questions regarding what they spiritually refer to when we get together in our next Bible study in Genesis 37.