I remember an older teenage boy named Rick. His dad and I were close friends as we worked together for Georgia Baptists. Rick was handsome and well-mannered. Mr. Personality. You probably couldn’t dislike him, even if you tried. On one occasion, I saw Rick in a crowd of other young people. He turned on his personality, almost like a politician working the crowd. Later, I complimented him for being so friendly and outgoing with the other young people. Rick flashed a big grin and said, “This time tomorrow, I won’t remember any of these guys and gals. But they’ll remember me!”
This young man had a lot going for him. He had been raised by loving, caring parents. I never shared that incident with his father. But I realized, despite the way his dad and mother had raised him, this was a self-centered fellow. That was about forty years ago, so I can’t tell you what sort of man Rick became, but I like to believe he grew out of looking at the world through selfish eyes.
Rick came to mind when I was planning this message because we’re going to focus on a conceited young man in Genesis. His name is Joseph, and his story begins in the opening verses of the thirty-seventh chapter and continues through fourteen chapters, all the way to the end of the book. Joseph is so significant that he gets approximately the same amount of space as Abraham, the father of the Jewish people. Abraham was Joseph’s great-grandfather, Isaac his grandfather, and Jacob his father. Joseph’s story is longer than the combined space given to Father Jacob and Grandfather Isaac.
We will leave most of his adult years to some other time. Today, we’ll focus largely on his years as a spoiled youngster, his father’s pet as the next-youngest of twelve brothers.
We need a bit of background about the parentage of those twelve brothers in order to understand more of how these older brothers relate to Joseph. Or fail to relate to him. Jacob is the father of them all. But four different women are the mothers. And it’s not a matter of a woman dying and then the widower marrying another woman. No. This is in a period when men thought it was OK to have several wives, all at the same time.
It goes back before Jacob got married. After he gets in trouble with his twin brother and tricks the parents, Jacob flees to the region where his mother’s people live. There, Jacob goes to work for his Uncle Laban as he promptly falls in love with Laban’s daughter Rachel. If she is his uncle’s daughter, then she is Jacob’s first cousin. And that was not prohibited in those years.
Laban seems to agree to this marriage, but then he tricks Jacob into marrying Leah, Rachel’s older sister. Laban wants the older daughter to get married first. Well, Rachel is Jacob’s true love. But he has to agree to work additional years to claim Rachel as his wife in addition to Leah.
In this atmosphere of multiple wives, it’s not unheard of for a man to have intimate relations not only with his wives but with the slave women who serve the wives. Jacob is eager to have a son by Rachel, whom he really loves. But, despite their attempts, Rachel does not become pregnant. Jacob becomes angry with Rachel when she is unable to give him a child. In anger, he turns to Leah, who, you remember, was his second-choice wife.
Then, surprise! surprise! Leah gets pregnant and gives Jacob his first son, Reuben; then a second son, Simeon; then third, Levi; and a fourth, Judah. So Jacob is now the father of four, but none of the four is Rachel’s.
She is envious of her sister. So, in her desperation, she tells Jacob to take her slave woman, Bilhah. If Bilhah gets pregnant, Rachel will claim that baby as her own. Bilhah does have -- not one son but -- two, Dan and Naphtali.
Leah isn’t going to sit idly by while Rachel claims two sons by the slave woman. So Leah gives Jacob her maid servant, Zilpah, in hopes that Zilpah can have babies and, thus, keep Leah ahead of Rachel. So Leah’s slave woman has two sons by Jacob: Gad and Asher.
So, by now, Papa Jacob has eight sons. But none from Favorite Wife Rachel. Indeed, while poor Rachel is jealous of her sister and the two slave women, Leah gets pregnant two more times, with Issachar and Zebulun.
Now, the totals stand: Leah six sons, the two slave women two each, for a grand total of ten. And Rachel still has none. Jacob also has a daughter, but girls don’t matter.
With all this jealousy and infighting among the four women who have borne Jacob’s children, we can realize the tensions and politicking among the mothers and, in turn, among the sons of each woman. It would be clear to the ten older brothers that their father is not happy with any of them as he keeps trying and hoping Rachel will give him a son.
At long last, Rachel does have a son, Jacob’s eleventh. That son is Joseph. Rachel will have one other son, Benjamin. But she dies as she gives birth to this twelfth son of Jacob.
All this, then, is background for today’s passage in Genesis, chapter 37:
[2] This is the history of the family of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was shepherding the flock with his brothers; he was a lad with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father's wives; and Joseph brought an ill report of them to their father. [3] Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he made him a long robe with sleeves.
[4] But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him. [5] Now Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers they only hated him the more. [6] He said to them, "Hear this dream which I have dreamed: [7] behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf arose and stood upright; and behold, your sheaves gathered round it, and bowed down to my sheaf." [8] His brothers said to him, "Are you indeed to reign over us? Or are you indeed to have dominion over us?" So they hated him yet more for his dreams and for his words.
[9] Then he dreamed another dream, and told it to his brothers, and said, "Behold, I have dreamed another dream; and behold, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me." [10] But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him, and said to him, "What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the ground before you?" [11] And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind.
We cannot justify the brothers’ hate for Joseph, but there are three factors which can help us understand their feelings:
First, Joseph is a tattletale: He feels it his duty to report to their father whatever the older brothers do. In verse 2, he brought an ill report to Father Jacob (who is also called Israel). This verse also contains a reminder of the tangled family structure which made for strife. Joseph was a lad with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives. We saw a few moments ago, they would be Dan and Naphtali and Gad and Asher.
In a moment, we’ll see Jacob sends the boy out regularly to report on the older sons. Joseph is aware -- all twelve of the brothers are well aware -- that he has a place of privilege, which we will notice shortly. These four older brothers -- the sons of the slave women -- don’t like the little snip. So, whatever they do or say, large or insignificant, Joseph readily turns it into a major incident, and that sends him trotting home to daddy.
By age 17, he should have grown past this tattletale stage. But, Joseph probably had developed this tattling posture to something near a professional level, as a way to attract his father’s attention.
A second reason for the brothers’ resentment: Joseph is his father’s open favorite.
Jacob has made no secret of his special love for this son of his special wife. A clear, physical sign of this favoritism is the clothing Joseph wears. Those of us who grew up reading the King James Version always heard Joseph’s garment called a coat of many colors. Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice even produced a Broadway show called Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. But a better translation of the Hebrew words is a coat with long sleeves.
This long-sleeved garment is “Sunday-best” so to speak -- not for manual labor. So the very sight of this stuck-on-himself teenager strutting around in his best suit -- instead of work clothes -- is enough to set these brothers off.
We do well to remind ourselves of the disaster we are courting when we play favorites among our children or grandchildren. We can’t always be equal in treatment of our children. One may get honored treatment at one time and another get the spotlight another time. But long term, our love should show impartially to each child. Jacob failed in this regard.
A third reason for brotherly resentment: Joseph is quick to sing his own praise.
In a later chapter, we’re told, Joseph is handsome and good-looking. Here, we see he’s aware of his positive qualities and not bashful about pointing these out to others.
A modern writer boasted that he was good at talking with people and winning their confidence. But he admitted, after he gains a person’s attention in a conversation, he stops listening, much like the teenager I mentioned in beginning. This writer seems very self-centered, like teenage Joseph.
In Bible times, people placed great emphasis on the meaning of dreams. And Joseph’s inclination to toot his own horn shows up as he tells his family about his dreams which put him in a very favorable light in comparison with his parents and his brothers. In later years, his ability to interpret dreams will play a positive role in Joseph his life and the lives of his brothers and their father.
But his early report of dreams is the straw that breaks the camel’s back with his half-brothers. Joseph has two dreams whose meanings are rather obvious. In the first dream, the family is harvesting grain, each person tying stalks of grain into bundles or sheaves. Joseph’s sheaf stands upright, and the sheaves of the other family members bow before his sheaf.
In the second dream, the sun, moon, and eleven stars bow down before Joseph. Father Jacob rebukes his young favored son for suggesting that the family will all bow down before him. The brothers are very upset over this arrogance. However, Father Jacob files this story away in his mind for further study, even though he chides his wonder child for telling such a story.
There’s probably very little love between Leah’s sons and the sons of the slave women, but all three groups of brothers unite when it comes to their hostile feelings toward Daddy’s Pet. These men grew up in an environment of jealousy and strife as all their mothers competed for first place in Jacob’s good graces. This naturally breeds distrust among the various groups of brothers.
By the time Joseph reveals his dreams of superiority, most of the brothers are looking for the right opportunity to get rid of him, even killing him, if it comes to that.
Perhaps Jacob has regularly sent Joseph to find the older sons and bring back word about their work. Jacob is getting old, so it’s not easy for him to supervise his wide ranging possessions. So at some point after Joseph’s dreams, Jacob once more sends him out to look for his brothers. The brothers probably have been gone a long time, and it probably takes days for him to track them down.
Verses 18 and following tell what happens as Joseph finds the brothers working:
They saw him afar off, and before he came near to them they conspired against him to kill him.
But two of Leah’s son intervene to try to save the boy’s life: first Reuben, then Judah.
[22] And Reuben said to them, "Shed no blood; cast him into this pit here in the wilderness, but lay no hand upon him" -- that he might rescue him out of their hand, to restore him to his father. [23] So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the long robe with sleeves that he wore; [24] and they took him and cast him into a pit. The pit was empty, there was no water in it.
We see the callousness of the brothers. They throw Joseph into the pit, then sit down to eat, with consciences clear. While they are eating, they see a merchant caravan heading for Egypt with spices. At this point, Judah makes his effort to save Joseph’s life. At his suggestion, the brothers agree to sell Joseph to the traders and let them take him to Egypt as a slave. Reuben is away from the group when they make this decision, so when he returns, he goes to the pit and discovers Joseph is missing. He fears the worst, but then he learns the brothers have an alternative to actual death: They have kept the long-sleeved robe, so they kill a goat and smear its blood onto the robe to show their father and tell him Joseph is dead. This has the desired effect: Father Jacob sinks into deep grief, refusing to be consoled.
These are the short-term consequences of Jacob’s partiality and the hard-heartedness of the brothers. But there also are long-term consequences.
The brothers are finished with Joseph. Or so they think. But God has only begun with this seemingly impractical dreamer.
During that long journey to Egypt with the traders, Joseph probably has some bad dreams -- along with many regrets for his loose tongue and prissy ways which almost cost his life and did cost his freedom. As a person who looked for deeper meaning of dreams, he most likely did a lot of reevaluating of those dreams of power and his family having to kneel down before him.
When they get to Egypt, the traders sell the tattletale youth to Potiphar, a high-ranking official in Pharaoh’s court. We don’t know all that has happened in his young life, but he wins Potiphar’s confidence and is given responsibility over the household.
We don’t have all the details of Joseph’s life. But years must have passed. Obviously, Potiphar, as a man of authority, would not have turned over the operation of his household to a teenage boy. As Joseph was growing up, he learned how to get on the good side of his father. No doubt, he used those same skills to gain a hearing with Potiphar who owned him as a slave. As he matures, he learns from both the positives and negatives in his earlier years.
Painful experiences can either hurt us or help us. They can make us bitter, or they can make us better. Joseph came to see himself in a new light. His brothers intended to harm him, but we will see, Joseph turned their harm into good. He recalled how God had dealt with his father Jacob, his grandfather Isaac, and his great grandfather Abraham. After a time, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob became the God of Joseph. He grew to understand that God can work in mysterious ways His wonders to perform.
Joseph is described earlier as handsome and good-looking. Potiphar’s wife is taken with Joseph and tries to seduce him. When he refuses her advances, she tells her husband that Joseph tried to seduce her. Potiphar can hardly take Joseph’s side against his wife. So he puts Joseph in prison, but he puts Joseph in charge of the other prisoners.
While in prison, Joseph does more interpreting of dreams---eventually interpreting pharaoh’s troubled dream of a famine coming to Egypt. Pharaoh hears Joseph’s interpretations and puts Joseph in charge of preparation by storing ahead for the famine.
Again, years pass. In the widespread famine, Joseph’s brothers travel to Egypt seeking food. They come to Pharaoh’s court and unknowingly encounter their brother as the administrator for the crisis. He is at least eight or ten years older, and they think he probably is dead.
Joseph has the chance to revenge himself against his brothers, but he has matured. He assures them of food for surviving the famine and makes himself known to them. Now, as a man of faith, he tells them:
God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God . . .
So Joseph’s story is one of growth in self-awareness, growth in dependence on God, growth in skills to help others, and growth in love and forgiveness toward those who intended harm.
In his youthful years, Joseph reminds me of a four-year-old named Teresa. Her parents were close friends of ours. Often she was the only child in the room when several couples got together. One night we were talking about things we were interested in and not paying a whole lot of attention to Teresa. After a while, she interrupted and said, “Why don’t you say something important. Say something to ME!”
Joseph’s self-centeredness got him in trouble with those who had to put up with his attitude. But in time, he saw himself in a new light, and God was able to use him in surprising ways to benefit those who had wronged him.
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