Israel's Favorite Son

Today we begin our study of the final major section in the book of Genesis. The first major section, chapters 1–11, gave us the primeval history which forms the backdrop to the entire scope of the biblical story, from creation to new creation. The next two major sections in Genesis focus on the three patriarchs of the ancient nation of Israel: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We come now to part 4 of our study of Genesis, chapters 37–50. These chapters are mostly concentrated on Joseph, one of Jacob’s 12 sons.

The Joseph story is among the most brilliant stories in the Hebrew Bible. I hope that, as we work through this story together, we will not just take the story seriously, but that we will also learn to enjoy the story for the beautiful piece of literature that it is. As Robert Alter says at the end of his book, The Art of Biblical Narrative, it is when we learn “to enjoy the biblical stories more fully as stories” that we “come to see more clearly what they mean to tell us about God, man, and the perilously momentous realm of history.”[1]

We look today at chapter 37, which will catapult us into the story of Joseph. And here we already find the premise that the promises of God will not be thwarted by the imperfections of those through whom he has chosen to bring his promises to fulfillment. Here are three things for us to consider as we read and interpret the Joseph story: Joseph’s place, Joseph’s plans, and Joseph’s path.

Joseph and His Place

First, let’s keep in mind Joseph’s place in the Genesis story. Forgetting the grand narrative of Genesis will lead us to read the Joseph story in very different ways than what is intended by the original author. So, let’s remember some of the ways that the book of Genesis is put together.

The Final Life History

Here in verse 2, we read, “These are the generations of Jacob.” This is the defining literary marker in the book of Genesis, occurring eleven times in Genesis, essentially dividing the book into 12 sections. We first saw it in Genesis 2:4.

The marker typically indicates the transition from one person whose life history has just been told to that of one or more of his children. So, “the generations of Terah” in Genesis 11:27 introduces the storyline of Terah’s son, Abraham. “The generations of Isaac” in Genesis 25:19 introduces the storyline of Isaac’s son Jacob.

Half of these 12 storylines or life histories show up in the first eleven chapters of the book which take us through primeval history. The pace of these life histories slows down when we get to Abraham in chapter 12. And now, here in Genesis 37:2, we come to the final life history related in Genesis: “These are the generations of Jacob.”

There are some oddities about this final life history, however. We would expect that “the generations of Jacob” would begin with the death of Jacob, but Jacob doesn’t die until we get to the end of chapter 49. This section, then, is like part 2 of the Jacob story. Indeed, as we said when we began the Jacob life history in chapter 25, about half of the book of Genesis is about the life history of Jacob, who of course is renamed Israel. By the time we get to the end of this final life history in Genesis, we have moved from a life story to a national story.

The Sons of Jacob

So, although Joseph is a central character in these chapters, this final section is not so much about him as it is about him and his brothers, who together will form the family of Israel, the ancient nation of Israel.

Again, up to this point the literary makers identifying life histories have concentrated on just one individual: Abraham then Isaac then Jacob. Now the family history expands: Jacob, then his twelve sons, the children of Israel.

And this matters because the book of Genesis has, as its central thesis, the divine promise that was made to Abraham in Genesis 12. God’s promise to Abraham was that he would turn him into a great nation to whom the blessing of God would come, the blessing that would overthrow the curse of sin and death so vividly described in the first 11 chapters of Genesis. It’s hard to make a blessed nation out of a person’s descendants if only one descendant of that person is chosen to carry on the promise of a nation. At some point, the life history has to expand to more than just one individual. Here, at last, the Abrahamic covenant begins to take real, national shape through “the generations of Jacob.”

Jacob and Esau

One more observation here. While the book of Genesis, since chapter 12 anyway, usually concentrates on one major figure who dominates the story as the heir of the divine promise, we’ve also encountered very brief records of the life histories of those who were not the chosen heir. So, before we were told of the “generations of Isaac” in Genesis 25:19, we had “the generations of Ishmael” in Genesis 25:12-18. We find the same thing here. Before “the generations of Jacob” begins in Genesis 37:2, we find “the generations of Esau” told to us in Genesis 36.[2]

What is the significance of this? It is easy to make the mistake that the major figures of Genesis (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and his sons) are the “good guys” while the non-elect figures like Ishmael, Esau, and Esau’s descendants are the “bad guys.” But the family history of Ishmael and Esau at the very least shows that they, too, were blessed, that their descendants developed into nations of their own.

At the same time, the chosenness of Israel, traced through the family history of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and his sons, does not run on a parallel track. Remember that God’s promise was that through the chosen family of Abraham the blessing would come to all other nations. Israel has been chosen for a reason. It exists for the benefit of the world, to restore the world and its people and nations back to the way God designed it all to be in the first place.[3]

Will that happen? If so, how will it happen? We turn to this last major section in Genesis to see if these questions can be answered. So, let’s begin.

Joseph and His Plans

This last major section in Genesis begins with a dream. Joseph had a couple of dreams, we are told in this chapter. And dreams will play a significant part in his life story later on as well. So, let’s talk about Joseph and his dreams, or perhaps, his plans that he develops out of his dreams.

The Significance of Dreams

Are you a dreamer? We are told that most of us dream about 4-6 times every night, so I guess there isn’t anything particularly extraordinary about a dream.

Unless, of course, your dreams start coming true.

I can’t say that I’ve ever had a dream that could be interpreted as being prophetic or revelatory. Most of my dreams, like most people’s dreams, are quickly forgotten.

But I’ve met several people who claim to have more substantive dreams than I have. People whose dreams are much more vivid. Their dreams are far more extraordinary than mine because of how they seem to apply to real-life situations in uncanny ways. It’s almost as if God himself communicates to them through their dreams.

That’s certainly how it is with Joseph. The only other person in Genesis who has a dream is Jacob in Genesis 28, that dream in which he saw a ladder connecting heaven and earth. That was certainly a significant dream, causing Jacob to understand that he was on holy ground, standing on the very threshold of God’s own house. But Joseph’s dreams are even more significant because of their prophetic nature. What Joseph dreams about (or, later, what he interprets others to have dreamed about) are future events revealed ahead of time through the dream.

Royal Aspirations

Joseph has two dreams in this chapter. In the first, Joseph’s bundle of grain “arose and stood upright” while his brothers’ bundles bowed down to it (v. 7). Not hard to know what that dream implies. “Are you indeed to reign over us?” (v. 8) is his brothers’ response to his reported dream.

His second dream is even more explicit. “The sun, the moon, and the eleven stars were bowing down to me,” he says. And his father, Jacob, is incredulous. “Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the ground before you?” (v. 10).

The controversy here is not over the interpretation of Joseph’s dreams but over the legitimacy of them. Perhaps this was Joseph’s dream alright—an expression of his youthful ambition. “One day I’ll be President of the United States,” said a young Bill Clinton to his Boys Nation delegates shortly after shaking hands with President Kennedy. “Sure,” said another delegate in response, “I’m going to be Pope, and I’m not even Catholic.”[4] And yet—

What should we make of the royal aspirations signified by Joseph’s dreams? I want us to remember what that means, not just for Joseph, not just for his brothers and his family, but for the Genesis story, indeed for the entire biblical story.

The Savior of the World

That Joseph would be exalted to this kind of royal status implied by his dream would not just make him one of the great figures in history, one of the select few who rise to become a legitimate king or consequential person in world history. Within the Genesis story, we would expect the fulfillment of his royal aspirations to be more significant than that.

The key to the book of Genesis, once more, is the Abrahamic covenant, the fivefold blessings promised to Abraham in Genesis 12 which are the solution to the fivefold curses found in Genesis 3–11. Throughout the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the informed reader is looking for the fulfillment of this covenant and its promises of blessing, land, and a royal lineage. “The promise of royal offspring is so thoroughly folded into the Abrahamic expectation that it becomes part of the very fabric of the covenant.”[5] So, should Joseph’s dreams come true, we would there see a real fulfillment of exactly what God had promised to Abraham.

And what would that mean? What does the presence of a kingly figure as the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant mean to the larger biblical story? When we go all the way back to the beginning we remember that God’s intention in making the world and then making human beings in his image—God’s intention is not only that God himself would be king, reigning over his people, but that God’s reign would also be carried out through his people. Thus, “As God acts to reclaim humanity and restore his kingdom . . . the restoration of human vicegerency is vital to that end.”[6]

This, then, is the real significance of Joseph’s dreams. If indeed his dreams come true, then this means, within the Genesis record, that Joseph is a sign of the truthfulness of the Abrahamic covenant. And if indeed Joseph’s dreams come true, then this means, within the entire biblical record, that Joseph is a sign of a very real savior—that is, a kingly power who can save his people from death. Don’t get too spiritual here: we’re talking about real, physical death, the kind of death you would experience if a famine came over the land and someone provided you with the food you need to keep from starving to death. That’s what salvation means; that’s what a savior is.

Spoiler alert: that’s what Joseph becomes. “You have saved our lives,” say the Egyptians to Joseph when the famine was at its severest point (Gen 47:25).

Joseph and His Path

It is here, then, that we come to see something else about Joseph and his story that ought to interest us. Joseph, more than anyone else in Genesis, prefigures the real and ultimate Savior of the world. That’s what the larger storyline of the Bible is all about—someone through whom real salvation would be found. And when we read the Joseph story as Christians, we can’t help but see what the New Testament itself wants us to see—that Jesus of Nazareth is the new and final Joseph.[7] Jesus and Joseph walk a similar path, and Jesus is the one who has “saved our lives” to an even greater extent than Joseph does.

The Favorite Son

You’ll see the resemblance, I’m sure. We are told here, right at the beginning, that “Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his sons” (v. 3). Throughout the Jacob stories, we frequently find this sort of favoritism: Isaac favored Esau over Jacob; Rebekah favored Jacob over Esau; Jacob loved Rachel over Leah. And so the favoritism continues on to Jacob and his children. The favoritism was not merely sibling perception; Jacob made Joseph “a robe of many colors” that made it clear that Joseph was the favored one.

Don’t get too hung up by the “robe of many colors.” That translation is traditional (it comes from the Greek and Latin translations); the Hebrew meaning is unclear, as we find it elsewhere only in 2 Samuel 13 where the ESV renders it “a long robe with sleeves.” The point is that it was a particular piece of clothing, not the ordinary garments worn by others. Joseph’s brothers got the point: it was this particular garment that made them see that their father loved Joseph more than he loved any of the rest of them (v. 4). And they hated Joseph because of it.

We might wish to pontificate here on how parents shouldn’t have favorites among their children, and indeed the favoritism we find throughout the Jacob narrative seems to be the source of so much trouble in his life. But that would be to miss the point of this narrative.

Favoritism has to do with chosenness, and chosenness has to do with salvation in the Genesis story. Jacob favored Joseph, we are told, “because he was the son of his old age” (v. 3). This explanation seems to mean more in the larger story than simply that Joseph was born when Jacob was old. After all, Jacob had yet another son born after Joseph, Benjamin, whose mother was also Rachel, the favored wife of Jacob. To signal out Joseph as Jacob’s “son of his old age” reminds us of what was true of Isaac, born to Abraham as “a son in his old age” according to Genesis 21:2. Jacob’s favoritism of Joseph may, in fact, signal that Joseph was also God’s favorite, God’s chosen one.

And, yes, God does have favorites. Of course he loves us, more than we could possibly know, but he does not love any of us more than he loves his one and only Son. You’d better be glad that this is so. Your salvation depends on it.

The Ambitious Son

It also depends on the favored son carrying out his favored status. The one who is chosen to be the savior needs to have some ambition. And Joseph has got that!

It’s hard not to get the impression that Joseph, here at 17 years old and with a clearly defined status as the favorite among the 12 sons of Jacob, is something of a brat. The “bad report” of his brothers that he gave to his father in verse 2 makes him look like the classically annoying tattletale. The way he reports his dreams makes him sound like the braggart who enjoys flexing on the “little people” around him. Listen closely. Can you hear him singing?

… I'm gonna be a mighty king So enemies, beware … I'm gonna be the main event Like no king was before I'm brushin' up on lookin' down Workin' on my roar Thus far a rather uninspiring thing … Oh I just can't wait to be king.[8]

Go ahead and roll your eyes. Go ahead and be just a little annoyed. But then again, what if your salvation depends on this favorite son and his ambition, his willingness to walk the path toward royalty?

After all, that path, as we see here, begins this way: his brothers “stripped him of his robe” (as Jesus was stripped of his garments, Matthew 27:28) “and threw him into a pit” (vv. 23-24). Then they “sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver,” as Judas sold Jesus to the chief priests for thirty pieces of silver (Matt 26:15).

Such a tragic story. For all the fault we may wish to find in Joseph’s immaturity, none of it could be justification for how his brothers treated him. And yet— “By selling Joseph into Egypt, his brothers have apparently disposed of him for good, but unwittingly they have actually helped the fulfillment of his dreams.”[9]

The Providence of God

And so, by reading and meditating on the Joseph story, we come to see something we really need to see, and not just hear, a picture, not just an explanation. Theologians call it the providence of God. It is a difficult doctrine, because we wonder why God allows, decrees, ordains, controls—the verb we use here creates a lot of emotion in a lot of people—why does God do things this way? Couldn’t he do another way, a better way even?

Where is God in the Joseph story? That’s actually a data-filled question, since the Joseph story comes to us with hardly any theological commentary. “The narrator embraces a primarily ‘secular’ outlook in his retelling of the events by providing little explicit theological evaluation on the meaning of this small portion of Israel’s history.”[10]

We are left to draw our own conclusions, except for this one fact: in the end, the promises of God are not thwarted by the imperfections of those through whom he has chosen to bring his promises to fulfillment. “In hindsight, readers can see that in God’s providence, the further Joseph descends in social rank, the closer he moves to the royal court.”[11] (Emadi, 55).

And so, providence. It’s a doctrine, a teaching of the biblical story, that brings comfort to some even as it brings a lot of complaint from others.

But the path that Joseph travels is presented to us as the providential path of God. Not just the path God ordains, but God’s own path, the path he himself travels. Who, after all, is Israel’s favorite son, the one who was destined to bring salvation not only to Israel but to the entire world? This is Joseph’s story, indeed, but the story certainly does not end with Joseph. “Joseph is the type of king Israel will see again.”[12] The question is, what will we say about him when he arrives?

_____

[1] Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative, Revised and Updated (New York: Basic Books, 2011), 235.

[2] The phrase “these are the generations of Esau” occurs twice in Genesis 36 (vv. 1, 9). This is the only time such a phenomenon occurs. Many commentators suggest that 36:9-43 is a later insertion. See Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 16–50, vol. 2, Word Biblical Commentary, ed. Bruce M. Metzger, David A. Hubbard, and Glenn W. Barker (Dallas: Word Books, 1994), 334-335.

[3] Samuel Emadi, From Prisoner to Prince: The Joseph Story in Biblical Theology, vol. 59, New Studies in Biblical Theology, ed. D. A. Carson (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2022), 35.

[4] “A Future President Meets JFK,” Clinton Foundation, www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0uErdlyTUo.

[5] Emadi, From Prisoner to Prince, 49.

[6] Emadi, From Prisoner to Prince, 46.

[7] Emadi, From Prisoner to Prince, 55.

[8] Elton John and Tim Rice, I Just Can't Wait to Be King, perf. Jason Weaver, Laura Williams, and Rowan Atkinson, on The Lion King: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Burbank, CA: Walt Disney Records, 1994), audio recording.

[9] Wenham, Genesis 16–50, 356.

[10] Emadi, From Prisoner to Prince, 40. Emadi gives the statistics on how infrequently God is mentioned in these final 14 chapters of Genesis compared to the references to God in the first 36 chapters.

[11] Emadi, From Prisoner to Prince, 55.

[12] Emadi, From Prisoner to Prince, 62.