Season 4 Genesis 39:11-18 (Sue Wiberg)
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Week 9 Genesis 39:11-18
Who are you, God, and what are you like? Presupposing the goodness of God. Seeing Jesus through the lens of Joseph.
Live by Grace, not by grabbing!
The Bible doesn’t name Zuli (“she” or Potiphar’s wife) because we can identify with her in a couple ways. We’ve talked about recognizing we are all like her. Trying to fill our God-sized hole in our heart with counterfeit comforts.
Think there is another view similar to seeing the enemy through Joseph’s brothers.
From vs 10, she “put pressure” Joseph day after day. Word could be like a command, demanding to sleep with her day after day. Feels relentless!
The enemy doesn’t leave us forever when we flee or stand firm on Jesus.
In Luke 4:13, when the devil had finished, he left him until an opportune time.
Not to say that he is not on a leash. Doesn’t have free rein in our lives. Has to respond to Jesus!
God allows enemy activity in His timing for a reason above our understanding!
Enemy always prowling around looking for someone to devour, ready to present charges to God!
1 Peter 5:8-9 Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. 9 Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith. Remember that your family of believers[a] all over the world is going through the same kind of suffering you are.
Job 1:6-12 read
So, what else could God be showing us through Zuli and Jacob?
Vs. 11 One Day. One day always comes when the enemy thinks everything is in place to enact his plan, but God.
No men in the house. I don’t think this was just a coincidence. The enemy is a patient planner and waits for the right time.
Vs. 12 She came and grabbed Joseph by the cloak and again demands, “sleep with me”.
She is to point of desperation and has made a plan to grab what she desperately needs, what she thinks Joseph can give her.
The word in Hebrew-Sakab- lie down, sexual connection, decease, cast down, lodge, ravish, sleep, rest, stay.
It’s a going down for sure!! Down out of God’s plan and secure boundary!
Used in many places
Gen 19 Lot’s daughters lay with their father to get pregnant.
Gen 26 Abimelek used when worried that someone might have slept with Sarai when Abram lied.
Gen 28 Jacob used when lying down after leaving home and put rock under head. God promised to give the land he was lying on.
Gen 30 Rachel and Leah used when bargaining with mandrakes to sleep with Jacob. Leah wins and says you must sleep with me; I hired you (vs. 16).
Gen 34 word used for Shechem raping Dinah. Lay with her by force!
Gen 34:7 Jacob’s son is outraged that Shechem had slept with Jacob’s daughter, a thing that should not be done.
Gen 35 Reuben slept with his father’s concubine. And more like this.
Joseph ran out and ran to God. Vs. 13 She had his cloak like Judas taking the silver and accepting the enemy’s plan! Letting him take over!
In verse 14, Zuli is calling men of the house back and says this Hebrew has been brought to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed.
Also said to the husband but in a way reminiscent of Adam saying, it’s that woman you gave me (Gen 3:12). Blaming her husband that this has happened.
This is how the enemy tries to flip the script on us: lies!!!
Hebrew for sport is Sahaq- to laugh outright (in merriment or scorn) by implication to sport-laugh, mock, play, make sport.
Whoa.
This right here. The enemy is relentless every day to draw us in, then turns on us to laugh, mock, and make sport. To Shame!!!!
This is what Zuli, really the enemy, is trying to do to Joseph and tries to do to us. Entice us in to hook us and flip the script. When he couldn’t entice Joseph, he enticed someone else to perpetrate his lies. But God!
Enemy trying to use sexual pleasure and desire, this “sleeping with,” grabbing someone to be filled with something needed. This is not what God designed, but what the enemy has twisted and perverted to make sport of us!!!
This is not to say that we aren’t all Zuli, caught in this trap of trying to fill ourselves with counterfeit comforts.
But the enemy loves to use broken people who are trying to fill needs in their own power to take them down and others. And he definitely wants to take Joseph out of the picture.
Trying to fill ourselves with counterfeit comforts only locks us into shame. This is not God’s plan for intimacy between husband and wife.
I wondered the difference between this word and what God truly intended.
I went back to Genesis 4, the first place of the Bible, recording an act of sex between the first man and woman.
I have had so many questions in my journey with God right here!!! I have been shamed and passed shame to others.
Gen 4:1 The man Adam had sexual relations with his wife, Eve. First, I noticed they are both named!!!!!! That is surely part of an intimate encounter.
Different Versions of 4:1 in English say;
Adam knew Eve, his wife
Adam made love to his wife, Eve
The man was intimate with his wife, Eve
the man had relations with his wife, Eve
the man had marital relations with his wife, Eve
Adam knew his wife, Eve
And she conceived! Life resulted!!!
Hebrew for sex/know 4:1-Yada-to know (to ascertain by seeing), many uses, figuratively, literally, euphemistically, and inferentially (including observation, care, recognition; and causatively, instruction, designation, punishment, etc.), and the definition goes on and on. Very complex in knowledge, knowing, to instruct, knowing, etc. Near the end says “lie by man” (sex).
All of this is about Intimacy. “Lie by man.” The woman made to walk next to the man. Taken from the side. Both are of equal importance, complements in differences. This is the intimacy of one flesh in God. Not just a physical act of having sex, but that is, of course, part of it.
It involves revealing, vulnerability, nakedness, experiencing, fully engaging with another, fully knowing another, and fully being known by another.
Sex was never meant to be a casual event for pure excitement and stimulation! A quick charge of filling/release and a purely emotional experience. So much more! And I can’t believe He has ME talking about this!
Verse 4:1- I think the address fits. Walking through the door (dalet, fourth letter of Hebrew, number 4) of intimacy, nakedness, and vulnerability with/in Jesus to be one with Him first and then others. He in us, us in Him!
Adam and Eve had been vulnerable before God about what they had done when God asked in Genesis 3, though God had more work to do in them. God covered them fully, making skins for them to wear. Taking their shame and bringing His Grace and promise of a Rescuer/Redeemer.
They could have stayed in hiding but came out into His light!!!
It’s opening the door to Jesus’ invitation, walking through/inviting Him in, and letting His Grace cover us fully! Letting Him take our shame!!!
Rev 3:20 “Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends.
Intimacy, as he designed with Him first, then our spouse, and then with others in His boundaries, honoring God and honoring others.
So this is beyond cool: the heart of our God weaved through His word and every letter of every word!!!
Yada- spelled with 3 Hebrew letters, and the dalet, 4th Hebrew letter, is in the center.
Adam spelled with 3 Hebrew letters, and the center is also the dalet!
Jesus is the man that comes to the bride and invites us into His heart, His Grace, to have the intimacy we all were made for!!!
1 Cor 15:21-22 So you see, just as death came into the world through a man, now the resurrection from the dead has begun through another man. 22 Just as everyone dies because we all belong to Adam, everyone who belongs to Christ will be given new life.
Life abundant in Jesus!!!!
Eve’s name-Chavvah- means Life!!!! Adam Yada Eve, and she conceived life!!!!
Eden means “pleasure”-3 Hebrew letters with the center the dalet! In Jesus, we have abundant life in the Garden of Eden, resting in Him. The place we were made for we return to in Him; he in us! Intimacy!!!
This garden definition is enclosed. Within His plan and boundary. Back to the beginning. Waiting on Our Enough to meet our needs, staying in His secure boundary, there is pleasure of Intimacy with Him!!! Grabbing to meet our needs leads to loss, pain, and grief, but God!!!
Another word for sex in Hebrew, Judah used when approaching his daughter-in-law, who he did not know!!! He did not yada that she was his DIL and thought she was a prostitute.
Said, “Let me come into you” as his proposition.
Hebrew Bo-to go or come (many applications)-abide, apply, attain, be, occur, besiege, bring, call, eat, employ, get, give, grant—just a few of the words used with this. And it seems the counterfeit way to get something that will never satisfy what it promises!
Gen 16:2 Sarai telling Abram to go into their slave to get a son!
Perversion of the enemy. Jesus wants us to live vulnerably, naked, and honestly before Him and He in us!!!
John 15:5 Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing.
Knowing who Jesus is and who we are, living in Him, He in us!!! Intimacy that produces much fruit. Apart from Him, we can do nothing!!!
Psalm 139:1-6 (read or homework)You have searched me and known (yada) me!!! This word is used throughout these verses of intimacy!!!
Such knowledge (from yada) too wonderful for me!!! Absolute abundance in the intimacy of God in Jesus!!!
Inviting God into full intimacy with us Psalm 139:23
Search me and know (yada) my heart, test me and know (yada) my anxious thoughts. Fully naked, vulnerable before our Lord Jesus!!! This is abundant/fruitful life!!!
This is the intimacy he designed for man and wife to show the intimacy he desires for his people with Him.
Ephesians 5:31-32 As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.”32 This is a great mystery, but it illustrates how Christ and the church are one.