God took away my reproach,
and she called his name Joseph,
and said, "The Lord shall add to me another son."
You know, I'm sorry, Rachel,
but the way you name kids is really irritating.
It's like, first, you name your kid Dan,
because you're so, "Oh God, answer my prayer!
"He judged me, and..."
Wrong, bad name.
Then the next name, Naphtali,
"Oh man, I've been fighting with my sister,
"and I finally won the fight, yeah!"
What?
And then now this name.
I mean, think about it, you've been praying
for years and years and years.
You just wanted to have a baby so bad.
You finally have a baby.
Surely you're happy now.
Surely you're satisfied.
You're living the dream now, right?
Isn't this great?
No, because let me tell you something.
Envious, covetous people will never be happy.
They will never be satisfied.
And so what does she name him?
She basically names him, "Give me another one."
That's basically what she's naming him.
Because the word Joseph is basically the verb to add.
It's like addition.
And so that's what that three-letter root is,
where we get the name Joseph.
And so she says, well, she's calling his name Joseph,
it says in verse 24,
and said, "The Lord shall add to me another son."
Now, you know, you might be tempted to read that as,
well, she just has a lot of faith that, you know,
God answered one prayer and he's gonna answer another.
Doesn't really seem to jive with the rest of the story,
though.
She doesn't really seem to be a giant of the faith.
And so I think it's more likely a sign of,
I'm not really satisfied with having one baby.
In fact, you know, I'm gonna name this baby,
give me another one.
Which obviously his name doesn't literally mean,
give me another one, but it basically means add, addition.
You know, add more.
And so she's saying, the Lord's gonna add to me another son.
And she called his name Joseph.
Genesis chapter 35, verse 16.
And they journeyed from Bethel,
and there was but a little way to come to Ephraim,
and Rachel travailed and she had hard labor.
So now she's having that second child
that she wanted so bad.
'Cause she didn't say, "Give me child lest I die."
She said, "Give me children or else I die."
So now here comes children, right?
Second child.
She had hard labor.
It came to pass when she was in hard labor
that the midwife said unto her,
"Fear not, thou shalt have this son also."
And it came to pass as her soul was in departing,
for she died, that she called his name Benoni.
But his father called him Benjamin.
You say, "Surely, Pastor Anderson,
she's getting better at the baby names by now."
This baby name was so bad that her husband vetoed it
and says, "No, I don't care if you died
while you named it this.
I don't care if it's your last dying wish.
That is not gonna be this kid's name."
All he's just like, "No.
I let you name it, you know, Dan and Naphtali and Joseph,
but just no, okay?"
Because here's what's funny about this.
You know, you think like, is she finally happy?
Is she having her second baby?
No, this name, Benoni, means something along the lines of
son of my sorrow, or son of my affliction,
or son of my sorrow.
So this didn't make her happy.
His father called him Benjamin.
And the name Benjamin,
it could mean a couple different things.
At face value, it means son of my right hand.
So that's like a more positive, uplifting name
than, you know, son of my drag of a life.
Son of my sorrow.
You know, he names it, you know,
the most obvious meaning,
like the way the letters are in this word right now
would be son of my right hand,
which is a good thing, obviously.
So he's given him like a positive name, you know.
'Cause when we think of the right hand,
think of like, you know,
your right hand man or something, right?
But either way, it's positive, right?
Whatever the name is,
he's taken her negative name, Benoni,
and saying like, no, we're not gonna name it that.
And he gives it a nice name.
Whatever Benjamin means, it's a nice name, okay?
It's positive about the baby.