Genesis 37

Updated
2001-05-26; 14:31:43utc

THE LIFE OF JOSEPH

Chapter 37-50

Chapter 37 starts out by saying: "This is the account of Jacob." Most of what is written in this chapter and the following pertains to Joseph. A chapter about Judah briefly interrupts Joseph's story. The KJV renders the phrase with "These are the generations of Jacob" and the RSV says "This is the history of the family of Jacob." The latter rendering makes the most sense. In a sense is Joseph's story the story of the whole family, since he saved all from starvation.

Joseph's life and experiences may be taken as an image of Christ's salvation of the nation of Israel and ultimately of the whole world. Not only was Christ the beloved of the Father, but He was rejected by His own and even sold for thirty pieces of silver. We may presume that at His revelation as King, Israel will recognize Him as their Messiah and will be saved by Him. The prophecies of the Old Testament are too numerous to quote. Paul indicates in Rom. 11:25-27 the purpose and sequence of God's temporary rejection of Israel on the basis of their unbelief. We read: "I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: 'The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.'"

The story of Joseph's life is one of the most moving and most beautiful parts of the whole Bible. In many other respects, besides the one mentioned above does Joseph portray our Lord Jesus Christ. Joseph must have been a brilliant man with a balanced character. He comes through as the only one of Jacob's sons who has a deep sense of righteousness and a living faith in God. Joseph's attitude in the midst of terrible suffering is a shining testimony. He was far superior to his father in rectitude, unselfishness and trust in God. His life has glorified God throughout the centuries.

It is difficult to determine where the story starts. We get the impression that Moses backtracks in the beginning of this chapter. In verse 10 Jacob says to Joseph: "What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?" The mention of Rachel, Joseph's mother, would make no sense if these words were spoken after Rachel's death. So we take it that, at least the first eleven verse of this chapter, describe a situation prior to Rachel's death.

The story starts when Joseph is seventeen years old. Verse 2 tells us "This is the account of Jacob. Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them." The sons of Bilhah and Zilpah were Dan and Naphatali, Gad and Asher. We do not read what they did, but when we consider the acts of Lea's sons, Reuben, Simeon and Levi, we understand enough of the moral behavior of the boys in Jacob's family.

It has often been said that Joseph had no business telling on his brothers, but if what they did was as criminal as what Lea's boys had done, it would have been immoral of Joseph to keep things to himself. Even with Joseph's reports Jacob probably never knew half of what went on in his family. And, as we have seen before, even when he knew he did not do anything about it.

When Jacob checks the accounts in his prophetic utterances at the end of his life, he has not too much to say about his evil sons. Of the above mentioned boys the only one who receives anything that may sound like a reproach is Dan. In Ch. 49:17 Jacob says: "Dan will be a serpent by the roadside, a viper along the path, that bites the horse's heels so that its rider tumbles backward."

The favoritism Jacob had shown to Rachel is carried over to her son Joseph and later to Benjamin. As we have seen before, this attitude laid the foundation for all the tensions and a jealousy in the family, but it was not an excuse for what the boys did. Yet Jacob's love for Joseph may have been a strong stimulus for the moral rectitude and beauty of his life and of his faith in God, but it also stimulated sin in the lives of the other boys.

The outward demonstration of Jacob's love for Joseph was the clothing his father gave him to wear. Evidently the Hebrew word that describes what Joseph was wearing is unclear. The NIV calls it "a richly ornamented robe." The KJV says that it was "a coat of many colours" and the RSV describes it as "a long robe with sleeves." Obviously it was a garment that surpassed what was ordinarily worn by the other members of the family. We can not

commend Jacob for his wisdom and psychological insight. Singling out one of his sons in this way was extremely thoughtless. Jacob was a man who let himself be governed by his emotions, without caring or thinking whether this was detrimental to others or not. His clearly shown preference for Rachel made Lea suffer and his favoritism toward Joseph upset the whole balance of family life. But Jacob does not have seemed to care.

Jesus, Who was portrayed by Joseph, did also receive preferential treatment by the Father. But the difference between the two is so immense that it is hardly necessary to point it out. On the one hand we see a sinful, selfish father and a nice, but mortal and imperfect human teenager; on the other hand is the Almighty God, the source of eternal love, Who sends What is dearest to Him to earth to demonstrate His love to a lost world. And the receiver of this love is the Son, the second Person of the Trinity, Who "is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being ..." (Heb. 1:3). We cannot accuse God of the same weakness as Jacob demonstrated. Jacob's love for Joseph was egoistic. God's love is also self centered, but the eternal difference is determined by the fact that God is the center of the universe and Jacob wasn't.

The reaction of Joseph's brothers to the love Jacob bestows upon them is hatred for Joseph. Joseph ultimately suffers more from his father's love than he benefits from it. The attitude of the other sons indicates that they craved for love from their father, which they did not receive. There must have been an immense amount of strife and jealousy in the family. The tension between the two sisters carried over to their sons. Leah's sons must have prided themselves on the fact that they were the sons of Jacob's actual wife. Everybody must have looked down upon the boys of the slave girls. But the hatred toward Joseph surpasses every other feeling. It probably gave a sense of unity between them, as a common enemy usually does.

Joseph's two dream aggravated the situation considerably. We cannot but think that Joseph must have been extremely naive to pass on these dreams. It could hardly be that he was not aware of his brothers' feelings towards him. The dreams must have kept him from loosing his self-esteem. It is hard on one's ego to be hated, especially for a person who wants to please. And Joseph seems to have been such a person. It is true that he served the Lord in Potiphar's house and in prison, but the very human tendency to want to please people was probably present also.

On the other hand Joseph used the dreams as a weapon of defense. He had to show his brothers that he was more important than they made him out to be. The dreams were a divine revelation, which played an important part in Joseph's life when he was sold and enslaved and crushed. They pulled him through. His own dreams probably stimulated his gift of explaining other people's dreams, which means that he hung on to his dreams in the darkness of his life.

But, most of all, the dreams were God's revelation to Joseph. God knew what Joseph would have to go through and God showed him part of the glory ahead. In this respect also Joseph was like Jesus "the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." (Heb. 12:2). The dreams were a preparation for Joseph in view of the suffering that was ahead of him.

The dreams were given for our benefit also. God has a wonderful plan for our life, as Campus Crusade puts it. The problem is that we cannot see more than one step ahead of us. If we start looking to God for guidance, with an attitude of submission and obedience, God gives us pieces of the jigsaw puzzle, but not necessarily in the right order. He gives us enough so that we obtain a solid basis to trust Him.

The fact that God does have a wonderful plan for each of us does not mean that the plan looks so great to us from where we are. Imagine that someone would have shouted to Joseph, when he was thrown in the empty well, with threats of being killed ringing in his ears, "God has a wonderful plan for your life!" At the moment the experiences did not make sense. Their significance could only be seen after all the pieces were in place. As always, it seems that God takes tremendous chances with His children.

For Joseph the dreams were the Word of God. The word dream is a dangerous word for us, because it evokes often images of a never-never land that is beyond our reach. We use dreams as narcotics to ease the pain. Joseph's dreams were God's promises to him. God promised glory to Joseph and to us. This glory is a harder reality than the reality in which we live at present. The heavenly grass in C. S. Lewis's book "The Great Divorce" was hard

as diamond and went straight through the feet of the people who did not share in heavenly glory. We will come to the point sooner or later where we realize that sin brings us to a never-never land of lies. God's dreams are truth. For us the written Word fulfills the same function as the dreams did to Joseph. This does not exclude supernatural revelations, but for most of us Abraham's words to the rich man in hell are valid: "They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them. If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead." (Luke 16:29,31)

The first dream is describes in verse 7, where Joseph tell his brothers: "We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it." We read very little in the book of Genesis about Abraham's descendants being engaged in agriculture. Although their main occupation was raising of animals, they must have sown and harvested also, otherwise this dream would be completely irrelevant. The mention of grain can also be seen as a reference to the famine that would come upon the Middle East several years later, when Joseph's dream would be fulfilled. The boys do get the point; they understand that according to Joseph's dream they will bow down before him, because of his superior position. Obviously they do not take the dream seriously. They disregard any supernatural element that might be in it. To them Joseph's dreams are the products of his imagination, stimulated by the special treatment Jacob gives him. The result is an increased hatred.

The second dream contains more cosmic elements. Verse 37 tells us: "I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me." The problem here is that both the moon and eleven stars are mentioned. Jacob's interpretation, given in verse 10, mentions his mother, as the moon and the brothers. As we said before, this would indicate that Rachel was still alive. If she was Benjamin had not been born yet. Consequently at that point Joseph would only have had ten brothers at that time. The eleventh star could be Dinah, but her name is not mentioned in this context.

In spite of the fact that Jacob rebukes Joseph, he does take the dreams seriously. Because verse 11 says: "His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind." However, after Joseph's disappearance Jacob does not fall back on the dreams to ease his sorrow. He is convinced that Joseph is dead, implying that the dreams were not a divine revelation.

If we are correct in supposing that Rachel was still alive when Joseph was seventeen and had those dream there most have been a space of several years between verse 11 and 12; we do not know how many. From the events described in chapter 43 we get the impression that Joseph must have known Benjamin, although this is not clearly stated. Also the fact that he asked no questions about his mother, seems to indicate that he knew she was no longer alive.

Jacob appears to have been at Bersheba, the place where Isaac had lived most of his life. This seems to be the meaning of the first verse of this chapter. The phrase: "Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan," could also be taken in a more general sense. But when Jacob sends Joseph on his errand, we read that he leaves from the valley of Hebron. (See verse 14). The brothers had taken the flocks back to Shechem, the city they had annihilated when Dinah was raped. The fact that they took their animals back to graze there shows that they had no fear for retaliation. They considered themselves masters of the land, who exploited that fact that "the terror of the Lord" had fallen upon the towns of the area, as we read in chapter 35:5.

With verse 12 starts the great adventure of Joseph's life. His father sends him on an errand to Sechem to see how his brothers are doing. Considering the fact stated in verse 2, it seems that Jacob was rather naive in doing this. Jacob's sons must have believed that Jacob sent Joseph on a spying mission. It seems that Jacob had very little idea about what was going on in his family, or that he did not care.

Upon arrival at Shechem, Joseph learns from a man who sees him wandering around, that his brothers have moved the flocks farther away to Dothan. So he follows their trail and joins up with them. They see him from afar off. Verse 18-20 show us what kind of criminals Jacob's sons actually were. We read: "But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him. 'Here comes that dreamer!' They said to each other. 'Come now, let's kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we'll see what comes of his dreams.'" They are a bunch of cold-blooded murderers. Reuben is the only one who stands out as, at least, half-decent. His word, as oldest brother, does not seem to carry any weight though. He has to plot Joseph's rescue. He has no doubt that his brothers are capable of committing the crime.

When Joseph arrives they strip him off his robe and throw him in a dry well. This does not mean that they have given up on the idea of murdering their brother, because Judah says in verse 26: "What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood?" After throwing Joseph in the cistern they sit down and have their meal, as verse 25 tells us. In doing so, they show how callous they are. Some of Joseph's agony must have registered though, because, years later the brothers recall the event when they stand before Joseph, who at that time is lord of Egypt. In Ch. 42:21 we read: "They said to one another, 'Surely we are being punished because of our brother. We saw how distressed he was when he pleaded with us for his life, but we would not listen; that's why this distress has come upon us.'" But at the time they are about to commit the crime they sit down and eat and probably crack a joke.

In Truman Capot's book "In Cold Blood" two man murder a family of four, husband and wife and two children. After committing the crime they get in their car and drive away. Then they stop, eat something and laugh. Sometimes sitting down and eating can be more criminal than killing someone.

While the brothers are eating and relaxing they see a caravan of merchants pass. They are described as Ishmaelites and Midianites coming from Gilead on their way to Egypt. These people were not slaves handlers. At least, we are told that their merchandise consisted of spices, balm and myrrh. It is Judah who conceives the idea that to sell Joseph would even be better than killing him. Selling him they make at least some money. Selling Joseph is the lesser of two evils, but it is evil. Whether Judah had some qualms or not, we cannot tell. His conscience does not bother him as it does Reuben, but there may have been a tender spot that could lead to his salvation. We have to remember that the brothers are more motivated by their hatred of their father than of Joseph. Ultimately what they do is an effort to get back at Jacob as we shall see later.

So Joseph is pulled out of the cistern and sold for twenty shekels of silver. This transaction foreshadows the betrayal of Christ. Zechariah, the prophet foretells this in Zech. 11:12 - "I told them, 'If you think it best, give me my pay; but if not, keep it.' So they paid me thirty pieces of silver." And in Matt. 26:15 Judas goes to the Jewish leaders and asks, "'What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?' So they counted out for him thirty silver coins." A fifty percent inflation over a period of about twenty centuries! We do not read what the brothers did with the money. We know that for Judas it meant despair to the point where he committed suicide.

Reuben was not present when the deal was made. When he returns he becomes desperate because Joseph has disappeared. His first impression is probably that the brothers have killed him. His despair credits him, but he does not have enough moral courage to stand up to his brothers. He becomes part of the plot, because of his silence, when they dip Joseph's robe in goat blood to deceive Jacob into thinking that a wild animal had killed Joseph.

Their deception of Jacob is almost as cruel as what they did to Joseph. How they must have hated their father to do such a thing to him. It would have been more merciful had they killed him. We read nowhere in Genesis that Jacob ever found out what actually happened. We do not get the impression that, when Jacob went to Egypt and stayed with Joseph, his son ever told him the secret. From Ch. 50:15-17 we could concluded that Jacob knew. We read: "When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, 'What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?' So they sent word to Joseph, saying, 'Your father left these instructions before he died: ''This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.'' Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father.' When their message came to him, Joseph wept." It could very well be though that they lied and that the quotation of Jacob's words was their own invention. Had Jacob known, he would no doubt have mentioned the fact in his last words to his sons. How terrible it must have been to have such a skeleton in the family closet!

When the sons bring Joseph's coat to Jacob they are careful not to tell an outright lie. They just show the blood stained robed to Jacob to let him draw his own conclusion. It is Jacob's verdict that Joseph was devoured by a ferocious animal, not theirs. They see their father collapse under the weight of his grief; they stand by and fake sadness and sympathy. But, knowing them, I suppose they were not kept awake at night with feelings of guilt.

These were the founding fathers of the nation of Israel, God's chosen people. These were the men God had in mind when He said to Abraham in Ch. 18:19 - "I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him." All this seems a complete victory for Satan. But the seed of God's grace and forgiveness was planted in the heart of Joseph and in him it would grow to full maturity.

Jacob's mourning was probably a combination of deep grief and ritual. The efforts by his children to comfort him were most likely directed at the ritual part. Jacob decided to keep on performing the ceremony of mourning till the end of his life. Some of these mourning rituals are preserved among the tribes of Irian Jaya. The custom is probably widespread all over Asia. The Danis of the Irian Jaya Highlands will set aside a day of crying over a deceased relative. Much of these rituals are tied up with spirit appeasement. The Papua's along the North coast of Irian Jaya incorporated this custom in their Christianity in a syncretistic way. They will hold memorial services forty days and one hundred days after the death of a relative. Jacob's mourning may have been tied in with customs that had little or no connection with the religion of YHWH. There seems to be an element of denial of eternal life and resurrection on Jacob's behavior. All this does not mean that emotional hurt was not deep.

I have always believed that it is harder to lose a grown up child than a young one. I praise the Lord that I have no personal experience of either loss. We should not downplay Jacob's loss, or supposed loss, because, of course, Joseph was not dead. Jacob himself was deceived more than anybody he ever deceived in his life. He paid more than double for what he had done to Esau, Isaac, Laban and others. If we enter into fellowship with God sinning becomes very expensive. It seems that in his grief Jacob never sought the Lord, or fell back on the experiences of divine revelation he had received throughout his life. This killed the emotional nerves in his soul almost completely. We see this from his reaction when his sons tell him in Ch. 45:26 that Joseph is still alive. "They told him, 'Joseph is still alive! In fact, he is ruler of all Egypt.' Jacob was stunned; he did not believe them." The KJV says: "And Jacob's heart fainted, for he believed them not." The Dutch translates it with "his heart remained cold." Odilon Vansteenbergh, one of the directors of the Belgian Gospel Mission, once said about this verse that it was the saddest in the whole Bible. If a person can no longer believe in the resurrection and rejoice in it, he is not far from spiritual death.

We have to take our grief to God. He is the only One who can wipe away our tears. Psalm 68:20 says: "Our God is a God who saves; from the Sovereign LORD comes escape from death." This does not only mean that God can save us from dying, but also that He can and will protect us from the consequences of death in and around us. As Psalm 56:8 puts it: "Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?" (KJV). Joseph was not dead, but Jacob was, almost.

The chapter ends with the information that Joseph was sold in Egypt. Ch. 37:36 "Meanwhile, the Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard."