Genesis Chapter 37
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Genesis Chapter 37 (Joseph’s Vision)
Intro: James ended us last Sunday in Genesis 35 which covered the death of Rachel, Jacob excepting his blessing and finally taking the name Israel from God, and ended around the death of Isaac.
We are going to be skipping over chapter 36 this morning. Chapter 36 goes over the lineage of Esau and his descendants and their settlement. Later on throughout the bible we will use this chapter to go back to look at the names and where they came from, it is very important to know where to find these names and lineage so just note that 36 is the descendants of Esau.
And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan.
Jacob settled in the area of Canaan where his father Isaac was not.
These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren; and the lad was with the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives: and Joseph brought unto his father their evil report.
Joseph, being Jacob’s 11th son, the first born of his wife Rachel, This kind of starting us off showing how Joseph and Jacob had a close bond with each other.
Now Israel loved Joseph more d all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours.
Israel being Jacob remember, Showing his favoritism toward Joseph. Joseph was the firstborn from Rachel. Rachel remember was Jacob’s first love and after years and years of her being barren, and Jacob is not really trying to hide his favoritism for Joseph.
And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him.
Jacob’s favoritism for Joseph is causing his brothers to despise him and have resentment toward him.
And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren: and they hated him yet the more.
And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed:
Joseph is presenting a “prophetic” dream unto his brothers and they are hating him for it. They despise him either way from their fathers favoritism.
For, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf.
And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words.
So the more and more Joseph interacts with his brothers the more they hate him, This is the 3rd written documentation that his brothers hated him. We will see later on how this hate builds to cause actions against Joseph from his brothers.
And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me.
So once again he has another dream, the 11 stars representing his brothers, the sun and the moon representing Jacob and his stepmother, and how they show obeisance to him meaning, to bow down or to humbly beseech.
This dream representing his whole family to depend and follow Joseph
And he told it to his father, and to his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?
Jacob rebuked, meaning here he criticized Josephs dream, Jacob is unaware this is a repetitive dream so he is questioning it and the possibility of it coming to pass.
And his brethren envied him; but his father observed the saying.
So now that he has had this prophetic dream of ruling over his people, Josephs brothers are now envying him, having jealousy
And his brethren went to feed their father’s flock in Shechem.
And Israel said unto Joseph, Do not thy brethren feed the flock in Shechem? come, and I will send thee unto them. And he said to him, Here am I.
Jacob or Israel, is sending Joseph to his brothers in the field.
And he said to him, Go, I pray thee, see whether it be well with thy brethren, and well with the flocks; and bring me word again. So he sent him out of the vale of Hebron, and he came to Shechem.
Geographical knowledge, Schechem and Hebron were about 50 miles apart. So around 5 days at least on foot to where they were.
And a certain man found him, and, behold, he was wandering in the field: and the man asked him, saying, What seekest thou?
So this unknown man found Joseph wondering in the field and asked him what he is searching for. This man is not named so it is kinda leaving the assumption to whether or not this could be the same man Jacob wrestled with back in Genesis 32, who turned out to be a divine being of God.
And he said, I seek my brethren: tell me, I pray thee, where they feed their flocks.
And the man said, They are departed hence; for I heard them say, Let us go to Dothan. And Joseph went after his brethren, and found them in Dothan.
Dothan is roughly 15 miles north of Shechem.
And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him.
So his brothers are talking about taking him out already. They are away from others in the field way far off from their father Jacob.
And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh.
Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
Pretty self explanatory here, they are conjuring up a plan to take out Joseph and sort of like a smart comment “we shall see what will become of his dreams.” knowing they killed him and tried covering it up.
And Reuben heard it, and he delivered him out of their hands; and said, Let us not kill him.
Reuben is the oldest of them. He is the firstborn son of Jacob, so he being the oldest, most likely has in the back of his mind that if something happens to Joseph he will be the first one held accountable and questioned about it.
And Reuben said unto them, Shed no blood, but cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, and lay no hand upon him; that he might rid him out of their hands, to deliver him to his father again.
These pits back then were like big water containers or like a cistern or well. Water towers for back then basically.
And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stript Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colours that was on him;
They stripped him from his coat that was from their father, they did not have all the different dies and synthetic material we have today, so a coat of many colors was probably very expensive and rare during this time period. It being a gift to him from their father shows his favoritism so there was envy over that as well. That is why is is mentioned again here and they stripped him of it.
And they took him, and cast him into a pit: and the pit was empty, there was no water in it.
This pit was just a big empty vessel basically.
And they sat down to eat bread: and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt.
Ishmaelites were the people of Ishmael, Ishmael was Isaac’s half brother. Joseph’s great uncle.
And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit is it if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood?
Judah was the 4th oldest of the 12 sons of Israel
Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmeelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother and our flesh. And his brethren were content.
“instead of us killing him, let us sell him, after all his is our brother, we just want him gone.” and they were all in agreement.
Then there passed by Midianites merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmeelites for twenty pieces of silver: and they brought Joseph into Egypt.
Remember here the Midianites who were descendants of Midian
and the Ishmeelites, the descendants of Ishmael.
Ishmael was the son of Abraham and Sarah
Midian was the son of Abraham and Keturah
And Reuben returned unto the pit; and, behold, Joseph was not in the pit; and he rent his clothes.
That word rent in the Hebrew translates to meaning to revile or tear out. So Reuben going back and seeing Joseph is gone, he is trying to make it look like Joseph is dead.
And he returned unto his brethren, and said, The child is not; and I, whither shall I go?
And they took Joseph’s coat, and killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the coat in the blood;
So they took his clothes and now that they mauled them up, soaked them in blood to enhance the image that Joseph was killed or dead.
And they sent the coat of many colours, and they brought it to their father; and said, This have we found: know now whether it be thy son’s coat or no.
Like we talked about before, this was a very rare coat for this day in age, they are trying to kinda show ignorance here questioning whether or not this is Josephs to better portray the image that they have no clue what is going on to Jacob their father.
And he knew it, and said, It is my son’s coat; an evil beast hath devoured him; Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces.
And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days.
Jacob basically took what was left of Joseph’s clothes, cleaned them up, and made kept it as a piece of remembrance and used it for mourning his son.
And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted; and he said, For I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning. Thus his father wept for him.
And the Midianites sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh’s, and captain of the guard.
So see here it says the Midianites sold him to Potiphar in Egypt not the Ishmaelites.
They more I studied this the more it was revealed that there are two different depictions here of this story and they were sort of merged together,
We have to remember that this story was not written in real time, it was passed down. Not a huge detail but it was one or the other, Ishmalites or the Midianites that sold him but either way the story and lesson are the same.
Little details like this can cause confusion sometimes but remember don’t get so caught up on the little things that you miss the bigger picture here.
Conclusion: So look at what we can take from this and how we can apply it to our lives. Look at how Joseph’s brothers let their self envy and pride take over and they try tearing Joseph down. As children of Christ, we are all brothers and sisters of God. We should be building each other up under Christ, not letting our jealousy and self envy take over and break each other down. None of us would be where we are today if it was not for the family and people around us. Not just blood family but family under Christ. We need to remember to love one another the way Christ loves us, and build each other up to be successful in our path for God.
Genesis Chapter 37 (Joseph’s Vision)
