In many respects, dispossession of inheritance didn’t start with Joseph. His father Jacob dispossessed Joseph’s uncle Esau of his birthright and the blessing of the firstborn. Joseph’s great-grandparents Abraham and Sarah started the generational pattern by dispossessing Ishmael of the very same thing—the birthright and blessing of the firstborn. Jacob makes it clear through the gift of a coat-of-many-colours that Reuben is going to be passed over similarly in favour of Joseph.
Where Joseph differed from his forbears was in codifying dispossession as a political function, inventing forced resettlement to break people’s ties to their ancestral land.
In the last session, I mentioned some of those who were bequeathed Joseph’s mantle and were able to partially restore it to its original design. An uptake or return of inheritance is evident in the partnerships of Sheerah and Joshua, Achsah and Othniel (with its echoes of reversing Rebekah’s conspiracy against Isaac and Esau), Deborah and Barak, Mary and Jesus. But there were also couples who were the opposite—those who received the mantle but followed in Joseph’s footsteps, bringing about state-sanctioned dispossession. Most notable amongst these were Jezebel and Ahab in their theft of a vineyard from Naboth and his family.
Back on a more positive front, however, the story of Deborah shows how Joseph’s mantle was meant to be used and invested with a large measure of repair. Deborah was the first of the prophets in the modern sense of the term—she was the first to declare the word of God to the nation and call for the tribes to work together to bring about God’s will, to make it manifest here on earth as in heaven, and to overturn the oppression and dispossession experienced by His people.
Deborah was in fact the archetypal counter to the very spirit of dispossession that had made major inroads into Joseph’s life when he was given the name Zaphenath-Paneah. The first element there, in my opinion, refers to ‘Anat of Zaphon’—a Canaanite warrior goddess specialising in berserker-like carnage and dispossession.
Scholars have repeatedly pointed out that the description of Deborah harks back to Anat. Deborah is a ‘torch-bride’ and Anat a torch of the gods. Deborah is a judge and a mother in Israel and Anat is similarly classed as judge and mother. Like Anat, Deborah is a leader in battle. Deborah claims that the stars in their courses fought for the Israelites, while the stars were said to be part of Anat’s retinue. Deborah allies herself with Barak, lightning, while Anat’s loyalty is wholly given over to Baal Hadad, the lightning-wielder.
Perhaps the most significant aspect of Deborah’s leadership against the Canaanite forces that subjugated the Israelites is that the muster of the tribes was not, primarily, to fight. It was to draw out the enemy so God could defeat them.
This task still falls to the inheritors of Joseph’s mantle. Not to fight, but to draw the enemy out.
This is Grace Drops and I’m Anne Hamilton. May Jesus help you draw out the enemy safely.
Thank you to Lorna Skinner of www.riversofmusic.co.uk for the background music.
For more on Joseph’s mantle, see The Summoning of Time: John 2 and 20: Mystery, Majesty and Mathematics in John’s Gospel #2. Please get in touch through the contact form at Armour Books if you are in the US, UK or Australia and there are availability/price issues at the retailer.