Joseph and the beasts

“A wild beast has killed him,” Jacob says of Joseph when he sees the bloody robe. Suffering, death, wild animals, a robe stripped off – it’s all back in Psalm 22: “Many bulls have surrounded me; strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me. They open wide their mouth at me, as a ravening and a roaring lion . . . . They divide my garments among them . . . Save me from the lion’s mouth; and from the horns of the wild oxen.” The brothers are there too: “I will tell of Thy name to my brethren.” Psalm 22 is the song of Joseph as well as of David.

And, if this is right, we have indirect evidence that the NT writers considered Joseph also a type of Christ.

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