Brothers Keeping: Joseph and Job

By Tristam Joseph

Joseph and Job were both afflicted with adversity, judged to be undeserving, disrupting their lives for reasons undiscerned by neither one. Were their sentences fair? Did they object to their condemnations to suffer? How did they bear their burdens? Were their vilifications justified? What did they have to do to find redemption? How righteous must the blameless be? How righteous can they be?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tristam Joseph
• Release date: Jun 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9780961927240

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Brothers Keeping: Joseph and Job

By Tristam Joseph

Text copyright © 2014

Smashwords Edition

All Rights Reserved

Table of Contents

Encounter of Minds

Joseph’s Ordeal Begins

Reunion of Brothers in Disgrace

Establishing Joseph’s Servanthood

Ministering to the Victimized

Suffering Endures Amid Comforter’s Failures

Executing Joseph's Destiny

Job's Salvation

Blessed to be a Blessing

A Rainbow on the Horizon

Preparing for Inevitable Confessions

God Provides as He Chooses

Blessings—Exposing the Blameless

Epitaphs For Remembrance

Encounter of Minds

Bystander: Is suffering a mirage, a vision portending dysfunctional afflictions, descending unannounced on victims chosen to be but reluctant servants, never understanding why? Who decides when a human will be visited by a vision, or who the person might be? Few are the ones who say show me, send me, unless it is from their own choosing, willing dreams to direct their lives. Can any person know why visions come to some and reveal nothing to others? Ones blameless and upright need no visions, living on their own truths and wisdom, completing directions to live by. Ones struggling on their way to righteousness need visions, revelations from God to prevent being lost on His path to sanctification. Consider them all.

Joseph: My father recounted a vision, coming with his head resting on a stone, picked from creation's altar, never for comfort which no stone could offer, but to cradle promises for his life, a reservoir of strength to reveal his ways, an everlasting rock, securely anchoring his dreams, anointed as his citadel of hope, placed to be its foundation, a cornerstone anchoring a stairway to heaven, opening a window to God's revelations, chosen for him to see. Living by traditions and laws until then, my father's life began to change, realizing this unexpected vision came for some reason, from some unknown source, clouding his capacity to understand, leaving him no comprehension, denying him trust of its reality, wondering if it might have some purpose to change his ways, to make him vulnerable, ridiculing him into becoming a victim. I also wonder if the ways of my father would become mine through succeeding generations although I don't know if any can be called sins of the father.

Job: My father passed down no visions, relating none for my understanding, telling me nothing to determine my ways. He came doing what all men do and departed unnoticed, interfering little with my free will, allowing me freedom for all my actions, painting none with any blame, leaving me as upright as him. Encountering no visions, he left us to believe dreams were magic of the night, coming in darkness when the light of truth never shines. My mother was no different.

Bystander: No one could ever mistake you for prophets, abounding as foretellers, calling others to hear their words, claiming dreams from God, developing visions of their own choosing, deceiving others, shrewdly framing their guile, proclaiming their inventions to be genuine, doing all to maximize perceptions of their righteousness, assuring placement beside the Lord's right hand, but replacing needs for God with a sage human's prophetic wisdom, convincing others to heed his words. But are the prophets any different from the idols people worship, dubious sources of wisdom, generating convictions from uncertain mysterious thoughts, shadows whispering obscurities out of some dark corner, convincing many to consult themselves, needing no others for advocating their convictions, gathering their wits for what to say? But they should say, Listen to this, you pleasure-loving vain self-admirers, living in ease, secure in your accomplishments, confident no others are like you, all could end quickly, losing everything without any notice, striking you with calamity despite all the witchcraft and magic promised by your idols. As craftsmen making idols, you are waiting to be humiliated, but idols have no power to humiliate anyone, its power remaining with their maker.

Joseph: My father followed his people's customs, directed by his parents, deciding what was best for him, trying to supervise his life, but the hand of God changed tradition's intentions, assuring my father a blessing seemed to be undeserving, moving his mother's intuition to discern God's will, engaging her to deceive his father's obligation, duty to the first-born older brother, assuring my father would receive this blessing, honoring him with riches for embellishing the first-born's stature, and never disrupting our order's tradition. Deceived into believing my grandfather was blessing his older son, he said, Ah, the smell of my son is like the fragrance of a field, blessed by the Lord. May God give you of heaven's dew and of earth's richness--an abundance of grain and new wine. May nations serve you and peoples bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you. May those who curse you be cursed and those who bless you be blessed.

Bystander: But as blessings can sometimes be dubious treasures, Jacob's came to curse him with fear and suffering, testifying to recognition of persons giving blessings being sometimes blessed greater than ones receiving blessings.

Job: Was your father not blameless, deceiving his father and brother, bringing on burdens for all to bear, and what of his mother?

Joseph: Sometimes a person must forego trust in human traditions and obey only God's plans. Certain human beliefs make no sense. My father suffered curses common to being human and counted many blessings as well. He was cursed in being naive, but blessed in serving the Lord's ways with patience, blessed with the discovery of love for my mother, but tried in being cursed by patience's demand, convicting him to wait, passing seven years to marry her.

Bystander: Fathers must often consider patience to persuade their Lord, using soft speech to gain His attention.

Job: Didn't impatience tempt him with other woman during his wait, satisfying a man's innate lust, frustrating his inherent desires?

Joseph: Patience is never tested when many fruits are available and willing to be tasted. My father already had a wife, deceived by her father to marry off his oldest daughter, but little loved by him except in bed, generating ones less favored than me, forcing my unwed mother to tarry, waiting in bed with my father, unable to be settled, praying for the Lord's blessing to favor her with fertility, trusting her wait would no longer suffer her shame in being barren, so she presented a concubine to my father's bed, planned to provide a child to call her own, somehow fantasizing with such a possibility, a surrogate's fruit becoming her own.

Job: Did her knowing tolerate his acceptance of this dubious offering, sharing her gift, surprising her sometime-to-be husband with a second choice bed partner, while never convincing herself to remain chaste, preserving herself to enter her marriage bed pure?

Joseph: Never one to be left out, she chose to be one of his favorite delicacies, never entering her marriage vows with purity, persisting years in this role, but her lack of ingenuity often ignited her lover's boredom, dousing my father's flame for her, while kindling his desire to cast eyes on others, lasting her life until the birth of my brother Benjamin, ending her desire for any man.

Job: Then her patience was never tested.

Bystander: And so the many became one, united as humans decree.

Joseph: Although her actions swore no patience, doing whatever necessary, taunting its need to bless her time, God determined she would suffer impatience. Despite her sexual embraces with my father she was barren, infertile until I was conceived, provoking her to lament her womb's nakedness, and trust a scheme for confirming her identity, relying on a surrogate to bless her with children.

Job: Was it really God who decided on her pregnancy or was it healing of some infectious disease saddling her womb from promiscuous forays?

Joseph: I am told she never strayed, remaining loyal to my father, hiding her idol from all others, precious in protecting her fountain for blessings to come. On becoming pregnant she declared God had taken away her reproach, suggesting a removal of disgrace often attributed to sin. On the nature of her sin, only God seemed to know. She never asked God why He didn't let her know.

Job: I can imagine how she felt, begging God to have an audience, pleading with Him to understand our circumstances.

Joseph: My father taught me God's followers frequently have audiences with Him, opening conversations, seeking instructions, listening to his hidden secrets, counseling us on codes sustaining nature, sometimes communicating visions for us to unpack, daily activating resources He has concealed in us from birth. One vision led my father to assemble multicolored poles for directing his flock to build him wealth. Thereby, he counseled me to heed my dreams because some come from audiences with God.

Job: I have no need to converse with God. My Creator's self-appointed spokesman tells me I am blameless and upright, proclaiming my goodness and virtue, born instilled with His goodness, carrying His image, formed untainted and blameless, sympathetic to the understandings we all see in estimations of ourselves, stubbornly needing no atonement, no need to intercede for comrades in uprightness, intervening only to glorify whatever we determine to be justified, judged by our reason to vindicate as sinless, having evil of no consequence, so I remain to this day, being one untarnished since the watchmaker began my time.

Joseph: Does your Maker require more of you? Does being blameless and upright include being right with God or is it being faultless before human beings, following them with noble works to win their admiration? Has God really put His very nature in you?

Job: If being blameless and upright is sufficient, why must I seek to be righteous, chasing after winds, impossible to capture, forever changing its dogmatic directions while convinced by others my I am is plenty, sufficient, trusting I can never be imputed with His nature, the righteousness you attribute for Him?

Joseph: We must be righteous, demanding us to be more than blameless and upright, acknowledging we would never trust God to be less, to be imprisoned in our box. Righteousness, being right with God, obeying His commands, demands we must love Him, trusting in our becoming like Him, realizing the blameless and upright always fall short of becoming God-like.

Bystander: Is God experimenting with creation, testing different models for a messiah, wondering if one now blameless and upright could be molded into a righteous being, one truly in His image, as He watches blemished humans, created by His word, inflicted with disobedience, tempted to do evil, flourishing but never prospering, His joy remaining a stranger.

Job: I am honored with words of respect because I have always been a good-doer, praying daily for my family, covering them with God's protection, hoping they never sin and avoid displeasing Him.

Joseph: Do you praise God for your abundance, thanking Him for all you have?

Job: My good works reward me, counting on my achievements to shower me with blessings.

Joseph: You testify to good works having a purpose, enriching your life here, trusting you are also storing up treasures in heaven, protecting you from injustices, assuring you will never suffer the fate of evil ones.

Job: Having succeeded in all my efforts, rewarding me with comfort now, how could I believe in anything but the fruits of my achievements.

Joseph: You have earned distinctions of being blameless and upright, but have come short of achieving righteousness.

Job: That matters none. My life can be no better than it is now. My sons and daughters are mine, their children are mine, my flocks are mine, and all that you see is mine. Being blameless and upright blesses me with all I possess. My reward is God's recognition of my virtue and good works, assuring me of their foundation for my happiness.

Bystander: What have you done for your children?

Job: I have done everything possible to prepare my children for this world, educating them to deal with all our current problems.

Bystander: Have you taught them God's truths, strengthening them to follow His ways, to obey His commands, ensuring they will be loyally faith-integrated throughout their lives?

Job: They all know God's Word and what He expects of them to be blameless, to live upright lives. What more could anyone ask of them?

Bystander: If you cannot tell me, you don't know what He wants of you.

Job: You must think He wants us to be something impossible for any human being, unbelievable for the lot of us born sinful, expecting us to be righteous, accusing us of being disobedient, driving Him to be vengeful, seeking retribution, after making us out of a handful of dust to which we must return--wondering what can be expected from dust swept into a pile, commanding it to spring into life--never giving us any explanations for putting us on His stage, except maybe to amuse Himself.

Bystander: You could have tried to please Him, to be more than blameless, admitting you are not unique, recognizing all claim to be blameless, innocent in their doings.

Job: I differ little from others, believing my success cannot be called sin, with all the world realizing we would still be living as Neanderthals if no one endeavored to be affluent. With certainty He could bring my downfall, judging me to fall short of His expectations, as I'm not sure I could ever please Him.

Joseph: My father was challenged by envy and greed, prospering his ambition, entitling him to rewards for all his labors, but God restrained his unworthy deeds, rejecting them, calling him to witness His truth, silencing challenging words, protecting those He claimed, proclaiming them for him to adopt His nature, assuring evil's intents would become empty, finding no stolen idols hidden to sustain greed's wealth, none anyone could return, none able to cry out, In distress are we concealed. Happy are all having nothing, possessing no treasures to tempt desire, proclaiming the Prince's coming will find them with no worldly gods.

Job: God indeed guards the blameless and upright, repressing evil's great rage and restraining it's anger. Believing this, I clad myself with justice and clothe myself with innocence, striving to never lose my veil of blamelessness, trusting God will never test my faith in Him.

Joseph: Trusting he had sealed all of value in his heart, my father never coveted any worldly treasures, none ever being ornaments of God's grace. He reserved fear only for his kinsmen, never knowing thoughts harnessing their ways.

Job: No one dares testing me, especially close ones I have gifted abundantly, so all in my life fear to try my integrity. I live in peace with all, all knowing futile injustice leads to nowhere.

Joseph: My fathers gathered stones for altars to honor and pay God homage with praise and prayers, a dedication we still trust in. Do you follow this practice?

Job: God knows my heart and he requires no monuments of rocks to know my heart and recognize I am upright. He knows me by my deeds of good works promising to protect the fruits I have accumulated.

Joseph: Piles of stones may signify nothing but they remind me to honor my creator God who protects me with angels, fortifying His army, revealed by His messengers, never taken for granted by any innocence I claim.

Job: God has never spoken to me and I have never asked for His counsel or any interaction to intervene in my life. I am content with what I have, trusting what His spokesman has said of me, verifying I am blameless.

Joseph: God speaks in visions and circumstances, revealing His actions through words you are likely to never hear. Has He touched you, catching your attention, certain of the Holy Spirit's voice, showing His will for you, leading you in these ways, or is the spokesperson praising your virtues speaking from imaginations you will, reasoning them to be true?

Job: Only by blessings from my achievements could I recognize Him. He has laid no circumstances on me to make me fearful of anything, nothing to surround me with anxiety or needs for any protection. My abundant deeds, noteworthy as they are, protect me from unwanted circumstances. Being no second son has favored my circumstance, assuring me blessings for a first-born, endowing me with favored fruits from my father, treasures from my patriarchs, assigning me to bear the torch, continuing our legacy to be upright and blameless, committed to never appease evil, seeing it flee from my shadow, never jeopardizing peace I claim for my reward, the certain expectation for my noble virtues.

Joseph: What peace can you claim? Is it the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, beyond which you can never know, or is it serenity rewarded by your blamelessness and claimed as your due?

Job: No vision has ever come to my awareness, none showing God blesses me with peace, confessing I have never met Him face-to-face, encountering Him in a forbidden way, spelling certain death for fearful believers.

Bystander: Not by blamelessness can you come face-to-face with God, nor will religiosity prepare you for His meeting, needing more than works of righteousness to enter His fellowship, trusting all comes according to His mercy, confession's washing to regenerate our goodness, to renew our hearing the Holy Spirit.

Job: I trust people of understanding walk uprightly, asking who can criticize their wisdom, formed from their breadth of knowledge, trusting it to last until their purpose vanishes, disappearing with the multitude of erudite ones supporting their decisions, wise ones never needing to see God.

Joseph: My father had his name changed to seeing God after struggling with God, disguised as a mortal wrestler, engaging Him to a stalemate when he demanded God's blessing, insisting on becoming one blessed to be blessing, but God handicapped him for all to recognize, marking him as chosen, assigning him to represent remnants for announcing the promises of God's covenants, unfolding before him as truths revealed in a new day's light, fading all darkness away.

Job: My common sense conflicts with anyone claiming visions of God, colliding with any pretenses of hearing God, of encountering Him in any form. Life can go on well without His intrusion, without seeing His face or hearing His voice. No doubt He created and blessed us, providing all our needs without interfering in our ways, without coming to intercede at any moment's notice, trusting only in the clock He wound, assuring it keeps ticking.

Joseph: Naming a human being seeing God guarantees his seed will carry potential for any righteous progeny to meet God in visions and dreams, knowing scorn will be heaped on ones falsely broadcasting His revelations, limping along without righteousness to ease their suffering.

Job: No one has ever wrestled God to a draw, known by everyone to be omnipotent. Accept Him as we all do and do nothing to bring down His wrath. I wouldn't even attempt to battle Him with words. What battle has there ever been where Scripture doesn't tells us the battle is His?

Joseph: I will be obedient and comply with the visions and dreams he reveals. My father like all men has had fears, anxieties having potential to paralyze him, but he trusted in God, praying for His intercession, acknowledging the battle is His.

Job: In addition to claiming battles are His, He claims vengeance is mine, His, dissuading us from avenging wrongs, forcing us to wait patiently for His justice to prevail, sometimes embittering us, seeing unjust outcomes, beyond our reason's understanding.

Joseph: My brothers defied Him recently in retributions against a man who raped our sister, deceiving the man's father, convincing him to vow commitments for his people, godly obligations transformed to be ungodly, altering God's decrees so they could maim and slaughter an entire clan, plundering it's wealth, using tenets of God's covenant to lure its victims into submission, suggesting circumcision be done for intentions it was never meant to serve.

Job: We have never had such a problem disgracing our family, tarnishing our blamelessness and uprightness. How could your kin be afflicted with such evil?

Joseph: What tribe can claim unstained purity? Fate may yet visit you with evil's inevitable coming, choosing a time to be determined, selecting some designated priestly ones for doing its deeds.

Job: My fathers were clean, never destined to have sins for passing down to the fourth generation, committing their lives to be blameless, announcing to others they are upright, preparing the way for their progeny to expand their abundance and celebrate unimagined happiness.

Bystander: Sorrow awaits ones lounging in luxurious abundance, secure in their comfort, satisfied in their fame and popularity, attracting many coming for advice, seeking them out, oracles for developing blamelessness, waiting until their time runs out, destroying all they once had, giving each whatever they deserve.

Joseph: My father was driven to confess the sins of his family, returning to where he once met God, repenting for his actions, admitting he could never be blameless for his deeds, building an altar to renew his worship of God, hearing Him reaffirm His covenant, sealed by my father's vision of God.

Job: We never had an altar to worship God, trusting our prayers were enough, seeing them bless us in every possible way, bestowing abundant health and wealth. Words spoken to God cannot be matched by sprinkling water on a nest of stones.

Joseph: We became worthy by discarding our garments, washing away our dishonor, trusting God to restore our virtue and renew His claim on us, Bethel becoming the site to revisit with God, knowing He will be there for us. Water cleanses our souls of stone, but needing more for our relationship with God, faith pours out oil to heal our soul.

Job: I hope your life becomes more meaningful and rewards your family with more visions from God. It must be difficult to live in your kin's dysfunctional ways, meandering from one surprise to another, disrupting a blameless one trying to follow virtuous principles. I will return to see you my friend, coming on your calling, ready to assist you with words of wisdom, collected for safekeeping by years of devotion to reason and common sense.

Joseph: Are we different from others in our ways? Father tells us we are merely a remnant, blessed to be a blessing, called to build God's kingdom, each one having a purpose, and I must seek to be like the Lord, following Him on His path to be righteous, no matter what may confront me beyond the next hill, even if I encounter unexpected suffering. I am destined to follow Him, no matter what. From a remnant's threads can be woven many garments to wear for praising the Lord. I hear your suggestions and will consider your help, but I don't know if they conflict with His.

Job: I am your neighbor, ready to show young people how to thrive, to enlarge their territory, by growing their flocks, amassing wealth as promised for those worthy, teaching others to reason