Tehillah Generation Chapel
Daily Manna | Monday, July 16, 2018 | Topic: Conscience 72
Scripture: And when they saw Joseph afar off, even before he came near to them, they conspired against him to slay him. Genesis 37:18
Note: Conspiracy is a word that connotes evil intentions. The plot to murder Joseph was a conspiracy that carried all the ingredients of intrigue, evil collusion, collaboration, connivance, machination and treason. The perpetrators of this potentially heinous crime, orchestrated this plot secretly, fully aware that what they intended doing to their brother was unlawful, criminal and harmful. The later intervention of Reuben, when the plot was about to go into execution, was indicative of a carefully designed stratagem to exclude possible dissenting voices, until the stage is reached when nothing could be done to avert the plot.
Naturally, the conspiracy had to take place in the absence of Reuben and Joseph. Reuben was present with the crew but all the details of the plan, the discussions and the plot to kill, took place outside his knowledge and purview. That is how secret plots are successfully hatched, eliminating untrustworthy characters during the initial stages. Conspiracy begins with a minimum of two people working together, and in agreement to secretly do what they know to be illegal. Conspiracy carries elements of surprise, silence, subterfuge and secrecy, with a definite plan to cause unlawful harm to the intended target. Innocent Joseph was unfortunately the target of his wicked brothers.
David, like Joseph, was the target of king Saul’s paranoid attacks. The intended plot against Joseph was not founded on a solid incriminating evidence against his person, but the potential fear of his usurping their seniority through his dreams. Similarly, the reasons for king Saul having to move the command control centre of his reign in the palace for several years, chasing fruitlessly after an elusive David in the wilderness, was based on mere imaginary suspicions of a harmless David having a well oiled plan to usurp his throne. Both Joseph and David had no idea of the reasons for the plots against them. Both of them were totally helpless in the hands of their assailants, requiring the providential hands of God to survive the onslaughts.
Both David and Joseph were placed in such dangerous situations that required miraculous escape. While David had the whole military machinery and intelligence of Israel marshalled against him, Joseph had the weight of nine siblings pitched against him, except for Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn son and his kid brother, Benjamin, who was still at home with his dad. In the case of David, Jonathan, Saul’s firstborn son, who was heir apparent to the throne of king Saul, together with Michal, Jonathan’s sister and Saul’s daughter, were the medium through which God delivered David from Saul’s hands. Joseph had Reuben, whose mum, Leah, had been unloved and openly discriminated against by Jacob, to thank for his deliverance.
Food for thought: Saul’s conspiracy only succeeded in distracting him from palace rule to wilderness chase until his miserable death at the hands of his real enemies.
Declaration: And when they saw Joseph afar off, even before he came near to them, they conspired against him to slay him. Genesis 37:18
©Author: Rev Fred Aboe
