The Bible In One Year Day 22 (Genesis 41 - 42, Job 33 - 34, Proverbs 4: 1-9)

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Joseph receives his Brothers (Francesco Bacchiacca)

Joseph Interpreting Pharaoh's Dream (Anthonie van Blocklandt)

Joseph and his Brothers (Abraham Bloemaert)

Day 22 Go To Joseph 

A Commentary 
 God Turns Evil into an Instrument of Salvation
Understanding the Scriptures -

The Didache Series (Chapter 6, page 122)

After years of service, Joseph rose to become the prime minister to the Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. Inspired by God, Joseph was able to predict that seven years of plenty would be followed by seven years of famine.  Under his wise government, Egypt stored up so much grain in the years of plenty that the Egyptians had more than enough food during the famine.  The rest of the world, however, was starving. 

Foreigners who wanted to by grain had to buy it through Pharaoh's chief minister, Zaphenathpaneah.  What Jacob's sons did not know as the Zaphenathpaneah was the Egyptian name that Pharaoh had given to their brother Joseph. He recognized them right away:  they were older, but they dressed and talked the way he remembered them.  There they were his brothers, bowing down before him - just as the dream had foretold all those years before. 

Joseph on the other hand was dressed like an Egyptian nobleman and spoke Egyptian through an interpreter.  

Joseph did not reveal himself right away.  He played some tricks on his brothers, making them suffer a bit for what they had done to him.  When he finally did decide to tell them who he was, they were afraid of him.  After all, he was the second most powerful man in the world.  If he wanted to take his revenge, he could.  But Joseph reassured them "and now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life."  

God brought good out of evil.  Joseph's brothers had betrayed and sold him, but God had used that betrayal to save the whole family.  For that reason, early Christians saw Joseph as a "type" of Christ.  Jesus Christ also would be betrayed by his own people, and God would use that betrayal to save the very people who betrayed him.  

The Ghent Altarpiece (Virgin Mary detail by Jan van Eyck)

A Daily Defense 

DAY 22 “Queen of Heaven” Condemned? 

CHALLENGE:  “Catholics should not regard Mary as the “Queen of Heaven.” The Bible speaks of devotion to the Queen of Heaven and condemns it in unequivocal terms (Jer. 7:18, 44:17–19, 25).”

DEFENSE:  The “Queen of Heaven” that Jeremiah refers to is not Mary. Therefore, he was not condemning Marian devotion. The fact that Jeremiah was not referring to Mary is obvious, since he was writing around 600 B.C., not the first century A.D. In his day, the title “Queen of Heaven” was used to refer to various pagan deities. There were many such deities, as every pagan pantheon had a major, ruling deity who was depicted as a king in heaven. Correspondingly, various goddesses were regarded as queens in heaven. Scholars are not sure which of these deities Jeremiah was referring to. It may have been a Canaanite goddess such as Ashtoreth (the wife of Ba’al), Asherah (the wife of El), or the warrior goddess Anat.

Whichever he meant, it is clear that the condemned devotion was taking place in his own day, for Jeremiah refers to it as “what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem” (Jer. 7:17). He also promises that God’s wrath would fall on members of his own generation as a result of this practice (Jer. 44:24–30). The fact that “Queen of Heaven” was used for a pagan deity in Jeremiah’s day does not mean that it can’t also have a legitimate use. 

Words and phrases gain their meaning and connotations from the way they are used in a particular community, and they are not permanently ruined just because pagans once used them. As noted, the same pagan pantheons that had Queens of Heaven also had Kings of Heaven, but that didn’t stop the biblical authors from referring to the true God as a King (Ps. 29:10, 47:2, 6–7, 103:19; Isa. 6:5; Mal. 1:14; 1 Tim. 1:17; Rev. 15:3, etc.). They even used the exact title “King of Heaven” for him (Dan. 4:37; Tob. 1:18, 13:7). The question thus is not whether “Queen of Heaven” was once used for a pagan deity, but whether it can have a different and appropriate sense. As we discuss elsewhere, it can (see Day 64).

Jimmy Akin, A Daily Defense: 365 Days (Plus One) to Becoming a Better Apologist