The Silence of God - Blog

Date October 19, 2011
Author Michael Best
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One of the main things I try and teach teens when they study the Bible is that when something is repeated, you should take note of it. In my teaching I try and model this by highlighting and explaining the importance of repetition. In Genesis 39:2 and 21 a particular phrase is repeated – “The LORD was with Joseph.”

If you don’t understand what is going on in Genesis 39, then you don’t understand how radical of a statement that is. Joseph is daddy’s favorite, has dreams about his family bowing down to him, and tells his family about them. He goes to check on his brothers while they are out working (notice he’s at home with daddy), his brothers capture him, throw him in a well, and sell him into slavery. They smear blood on his special jackets so his father thinks he is dead.

That is where verse 2 jumps in and says God is with Joseph. But then chapter 39 happens, and Joseph does all the right things, resisting continual sexual pressure from his boss’s wife, but is then betrayed, beaten, and imprisoned for doing the right thing.

So to summarize, Joseph is hated by his many brothers, sold into slavery, is in a foreign country, falsely put in prison, and the only person who cares about him thinks he is dead.

Why does the author of Genesis repeat himself by saying God was with Joseph? Because anyone reading the story would come to conclusion that if all this happened to one person, that God had abandoned them. The reader is assured of God’s presence, because nothing in the story indicates that God is there. This chapter teaches us an extremely important lesson.

The silence of God does not mean the absence of God.

Many times in life we encounter circumstances that make us wonder where God is. The loss of a job, a relative getting cancer, a close relationship falling apart; these things hurt. We cry out to God and it doesn’t seem as if he is there.

But God is there. In our deepest hurt, pain, and suffering, in the good times and in the bad, he is there. Even when we can’t feel him, sense him, or hear him, he is with us. The silence of God is not the absence of God.