Crystal Writes A Blog

Feeding Pearls to Pigs

Cute pig staring through fence.
By Michael Loudon (thornypup) at Flickr

This is the beginning of another full portion for the week. As of Saturday as Sundown, we are in Parashah 9: Vayeshev (meaning “He continued Living”) and includes text from Genesis 37:1 through Genesis 40:23. Today’s portion comes from Genesis 37:1 through Genesis 37:11 and tells about Jacob/Israel in the land of Canaan and then goes right into the story of Joseph.

So Joseph seemed to have a penchant for making people angry with him. First of all, they already had reason to find fault with him out of jealousy because they knew their father loved him the most. The Scripture says it was because he was the son of his old age, but I’m pretty certain Jacob’s love for him was greater due to his Jacob’s greater love for Rachel. And if the love itself wasn’t enough to make all the other brothers jealous, then there was the infamous “coat of many colors.” In one text I read, their theory was that the coat was a prayer shawl with the family lineage sewn in, but I can’t be sure.

So then, at seventeen years old (which the Scripture says is still just a boy) Joseph was out in the field helping to care for the sheep. While there, he was working with his father’s servant girls, and he brought a bad report about them to his father. After that, and maybe because he was feeling so confident in his father’s love, he started this habit of telling his brothers about dreams that didn’t make them look so good. in the first of these dreams, he said they were all out in the field bundling wheat when his wheat stood up on its own, and their bundles bowed down before his. Of course they teased him with saying things like how great a king he would be while he bossed all of them around. He did a similar thing when he told them about a dream where even the sun, moon, and stars bowed down before him. Even his father didn’t like the idea of hearing how he might bow before his son, but at least he took it to heart.

So, a very good friend of mine once taught me well on the meaning behind casting our pearls before swine. Or, as I listed in the title, trying to feed pearls to pigs. She said that God gives us special treasures. Sometimes they are dreams and visions. Sometimes they are simple truths. Sometimes they are deep revelations and truths. But always, we should not share every single thing He shares with us just because we know it to be true. We must wait for God to direct us to share our treasure. If we don’t wait,  it can end up becoming a situation where whoever we share it with shows our treasure little to no value and, in a way, dirties or trashes what was once a special treasure.

See, pigs would see no value in pearls since they will basically eat anything. They would not look at pearls as pearls–if they ate them at all. They would not see anything as treasure but only more slop. If we want our special moments and revelations to remain special, we must be careful to reveal the treasures we hold in our hearts, especially the ones we have received from our Creator, only to those who God directs. Though Joseph had wonderful visions of the future, his brothers did not treasure his dreams and only devalued them by teasing and taunting him. What God reveals to us should never be hidden under a bushel, but it must be shown to the right people at the right time. As it says in Proverbs 25:11, a good word spoken in due season is like apples of gold in settings of silver.

November 23, 2013 Posted by Crystal A Murray (aka CrystalWriter) | Bible Study, Nonfiction, Torah Commentary | Adonai, Almighty, appropriate, Bible, Bible Gateway, Bible reading, Bible study, bowing, brothers, Complete Jewish Bible, Creator, crystalwriter, dreams, Genesis, God, good timing, Holy Bible, Jacob, Joseph, Lord, Old Covenant, Old Testament, Parashah, pearls before swine, Portions, Scripture, sharing, The Complete Jewish Bible, timing, Torah, Torah commentary, Torah Portions, Torah Reading, treasures, Word, Word of God, Word of the Lord, www.biblegateway.com, Yahveh, Yahweh | 4 Comments