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after Joseph revealed his dreams to his brothers

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Jacob, foolishly, sends him off to check on the well-being of his brothers

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and return report

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Genesis 37:17-12

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they conspire against him to kill him

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here comes the dreamer

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throw him into a pit

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and say a wild beast devoured him

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Reuben heard this, said to not take his life

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shed no blood

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cast him into a pit

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but lay no hand upon him

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they cast him into an empty pit with no water in it

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the casting of Joseph into a pit is no innocuous detail

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Medieval artists regularly contrasted

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1. the dropping of Joseph into a pit

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2. the laying out of Christs' body after he was removed from the cross

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3. the casting of the prophet Jonah into the sea

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all three depicted the death and the resurrection

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in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus explicitly compares his own death and resurrection with the figure of Jonah

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Matthew 12:38-41

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an evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah

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so as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth

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Jonah is cast into the sea and then cast back onto dry land

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parallels Jesus descent into the realms of death and his resurrection

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however, we do not have a description of Joseph's descent or ascent into or out of the pit as death or resurrection

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compare

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the role of the pit in the Joseph story

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the role that pits will play in the Book of Psalms in the biblical psalter

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Psalm 30

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someone suffering from an illness

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feels he is going to die

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"if I go down to the pit, will the dust praise thee?"

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compares death to descent into a pit

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a pit is regularly used in the Old Testament to describe the underworld

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"thou has brought up my soul from Sheol (the underworld), restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit"

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its not hard to imagine how a pit could function as an image for the underworld

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refered to in the ancient world as cisterns

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walls of these structures are nearly vertical

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if it was a pit to hold water, the walls would have been plastered and smooth to touch

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nearly impossible for an individual to get out

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the only way to get out of the pit would be to have others lift you out

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Psalmist thanks the Lord for lifting him out to the pit he believes he had sunk into

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unless someone is there to lift someone out of the pit, death seems a certain end

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Joseph descends three times

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1. into the pit when brothers drop him into the pit

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2. Joseph's descent into Egypt

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entry is a descent

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return is an ascent

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not always apparent in translations

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3. descent into prison

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today we don't think of prisons or jails as being underground

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in Hebrew, the word for pit, "bor", is often used to describe a jail

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Genesis 41:14

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jail in which Joseph will be put is described as a pit