Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #42 in Genesis 37.   We will read Genesis 37:28:

Then there passed by Midianites merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmeelites for twenty pieces of silver: and they brought Joseph into Egypt.

We have been taking a close look at this, especially the language having to do with the merchantmen, and the “buying and selling” of Joseph.  We have seen how this relates to Joseph as a type of Christ.  But more than that, what comes into focus is the body of Christ, all those who are saved, or who claim to be saved.  There is a “true body” of Christ.  Then we could say there is the “false body,” or those who profess to be Christians, but they are not truly saved. 

But this has to do with merchandising the Gospel.  We went to a few verses to see how God speaks of the Gospel as “merchandise.”  Remember the “virtuous woman” in Proverbs 31.  She is said to be “like the merchants’ ships,” and her merchandise was said to be good.  And that good merchandise is the true and faithful Gospel of the Bible.  But there is “false merchandise,” which is bad merchandise, and that would be false gospels.

Last time we saw how the sale took place as Joseph was sold to the Ishmeelites for twenty pieces of silver, and then it says in verse 28: “and they brought Joseph into Egypt.”  That is an indicator.  After the sale of Joseph, they brought him into Egypt.  And the Ishmeelites had a relationship to Egypt because they were descendants of Ishmael.  When we look at Ishmael, we find he was born to Abraham through one of Sarah’s handmaids.  It says in Genesis 16:1-2:

Now Sarai Abram's wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, JEHOVAH hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai.

Then it says in Genesis 16:15-16:

And Hagar bare Abram a son: and Abram called his son's name, which Hagar bare, Ishmael. And Abram was fourscore and six years old, when Hagar bare Ishmael to Abram.

Later when God commanded Abraham to circumcise his house, he also circumcised Ishmael, and Abraham was 99 at that time, so Ishmael was circumcised at age 13.  (We will not get into that, but that is an interesting fact.)  But Ishmael had as his mother an Egyptian, and Abraham as his father.  The Ishmeelites descended from Ishmael, so they had this natural relationship to the Egyptians, and in our passage they first came into view in Genesis 37:25:

And they sat down to eat bread: and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a company of Ishmeelites came from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt.

The name “Gilead” means “heap of witness,” or “heap of testimony,” and the Ishmeelites were coming with their camels bearing spicery, balm, and myrrh, and they were going to carry them down to Egypt.  This is significant, and it is going to take us to Galatians 4, but before we go there I want to go to another passage in the New Testament in 2Peter 2 where we can see that this is definitely the spiritual picture of what God has in view when it comes to “buying and selling,” and to “merchandise.”  It says in 2Peter 2:1-3:

But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.

Here it is said very clearly: “And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you.”  The term “feigned words” refers to lying words, or to false gospels, and false gospels makes “merchandise” of people.  During the church age, if they could fill a church with people, it was like a business.  The people would give, and the church could expand and grow.  But it is more the spiritual understanding that they are buying and selling “doves,” or the Holy Spirit, which was the point when Jesus overturned the tables of the moneychangers who were buying and selling literal doves, which pointed to the buying and selling of the Holy Spirit.

But God is the only true merchantman who can deal in the merchandise of the Holy Spirit.  He is the only one who can give it.  He does liken Himself to a merchantman, but He also says, “Come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”  He freely gives the Gospel.  That is the true merchant, who is God, as He deals in the faithful teachings of the Bible to His people. 

False merchants who deal in the buying and selling of the Holy Spirit are saying, “Come, here is the work you have to do to get saved.”  In particular, that is what we will see.  There is always an element of the works of man that pervert the pure Gospel of grace.

And that is why there is this relationship of these Ishmeelites to Egypt, and that is the reason God tells us what He does in Galatians 4.  We have looked at this many times in various studies because it is really an eye-opening passage.  It says in Galatians 4:22-26:

For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth (corresponds) to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

There were two sons born to two different women representing two covenants.  One covenant gendered to bondage, and was after the flesh, and it identifies with Hagar the Egyptian, and her son Ishmael.  The other covenant was represented by Sarah and her son Isaac, who was by promise, and that is the true covenant, or the true Gospel.  And the other is the false covenant, or false gospel, that brings into bondage.

Again, in regard to Joseph, just consider Joseph as a Christian, or the body of Christ, as we encounter other gospels as we do on a daily basis.  In this instance, these children of Israel were corrupt, and they were dealing with Ishmeelites, children of the flesh.  They are children of the covenant that identifies with mount Sinai where the Law was given, and they will bring a gospel that will place its hearers under the Law.  If you follow that kind of gospel, and you are deceived by their teaching, they will bring you under the Law.  When you come under the Law, where do you end up?  You end up in bondage, and that is why there is this reference to Egypt.  We read in Exodus 13:3:

And Moses said unto the people, Remember this day, in which ye came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand JEHOVAH brought you out from this place: there shall no leavened bread be eaten.

It also says in Exodus 13:14:

And it shall be when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What is this? that thou shalt say unto him, By strength of hand JEHOVAH brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage:

In Exodus 20 we read of the Ten Commandments, and this is how God opens this chapter in Exodus 20:1:

And God spake all these words, saying, I am JEHOVAH thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Egypt is described as the “house of bondage,” again, and again, in the Bible.  So it is no surprise that the Ishmeelites’ destination is Egypt, and yet they are doing business with the children of Israel, or with the churches.  That is what it points to spiritually.  They are buying Joseph, and the children of Israel are selling Joseph.  There is a verse that says, “Buy the truth, and sell it not…”  And the truth is Christ.  When you have Christ in your possession, you do not sell Him.  And here they are selling Christ, or the body of Christ, and they are selling them false gospels, and the Ishmeelites are buying them.

Then it says that they bought Joseph for twenty pieces of silver, and they brought him into Egypt.  I think this can be a spiritual picture of the end of the church age because at the end of the church age, the churches went apostate, and they abandoned the truth.  They “sold” the truth, and they became as “Egypt,” we are told in Revelation 11 when the two witnesses were “killed,”, and God says, “And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt…”  All within the churches were in that sense transported into “Egypt.”  At the time when God abandoned the corporate church and the Spirit of Christ came out of the churches, Satan’s spirit entered in, as typified by Pharaoh.  There was Satan ruling in the churches, and there were all the children of Israel – some were “true Jews,” and some were only Jews outwardly, or in the flesh.  Of course, we are speaking of true Christians and professing Christians.  And there, once again, we see a “return to Egypt,” just as God said in Deuteronomy 28 in that horrendous passage where God speaks of the curses due to disobedience that would come upon a rebellious people, and then He said in the very last verse in Deuteronomy 28:68:

And JEHOVAH shall bring thee into Egypt again with ships, by the way whereof I spake unto thee, Thou shalt see it no more again: and there ye shall be sold unto your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen, and no man shall buy you.

This concerns the corporate church with its tares.  No one would buy them within the congregations.  The “man” is Christ and “buying” has to do with salvation.  There is no more forgiveness of sins, or no more redemption.  The only possible redemption would have been to have come out, so God commanded His people to depart out of the midst, and His (true) people responded.  Those that stayed in the churches and congregations did not see the problem: “What is the big deal?”  They had no eyes to see.  They had no oil in their lamps to illuminate the Scriptures.  The elect had oil in our lamps, and we could see clearly what the Lord was commanding. 

In our next Bible study, we will move on to Genesis 37:29-36:

And Reuben returned unto the pit; and, behold, Joseph was not in the pit; and he rent his clothes. And he returned unto his brethren, and said, The child is not; and I, whither shall I go? And they took Joseph's coat, and killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the coat in the blood; And they sent the coat of many colours, and they brought it to their father; and said, This have we found: know now whether it be thy son's coat or no. And he knew it, and said, It is my son's coat; an evil beast hath devoured him; Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces. And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days. And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted; and he said, For I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning. Thus his father wept for him. And the Midianites sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's, and captain of the guard.

This is understandable in the historical context.  They were trying to cover their crime, and it worked for a long time, but what is going on spiritually?  That is always the question we want to ask.  One thing for sure is that there was much deceitfulness regarding the body of Joseph, was there not?  The children of Israel were engaged in a great deal of deceit concerning Joseph’s body.  And the fact was that Joseph was alive, but they were saying that he was dead.

Does that sound familiar?  What do we know about the Jews in the nation of Israel?  Do they recognize that Christ rose from the dead, or do they say He died?  “He died.  He is no more.”  So even though these were different circumstances, if we look at the body of Joseph as the body of Christ, I think we can get some spiritual insight into what is going on here.

Lord willing, we will talk more about that in our next Bible study.