Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Genesis 37:1

And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan.

1. sojournings ] Cf. Gen 17:8, Gen 28:4, Gen 36:7 (P).

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

– Joseph Was Sold into Egypt

17. dotayn Dothain, two wells? (Gesenius)

25. n^eko’t tragacanth or goats-thorn gum, yielded by the astragalus gummifer, a native of Mount Lebanon. tsery opobalsamum, the resin of the balsam tree, growing in Gilead, and having healing qualities. lot, ledon, ledum, ladanum, in the Septuagint stakte. The former is a gum produced from the cistus rose. The latter is a gum resembling liquid myrrh.

36. potyphar Potiphar, belonging to the sun.

The sketch of the race of Edom, given in the preceding piece, we have seen, reaches down to the time of Moses. Accordingly, the history of Jacobs seed, which is brought before us in the present document, reverts to a point of time not only before the close of that piece, but before the final record of what precedes it. The thread of the narrative is here taken up from the return of Jacob to Hebron, which was seventeen years before the death of Isaac.

Gen 37:1-5

Joseph is the favorite of his father, but not of his brethren. In the land of his fathers sojournings. This contrasts Jacob with Esau, who removed to Mount Seir. This notice precedes the phrase, These are the generations. The corresponding sentence in the case of Isaac is placed at the end of the preceding section of the narrative Gen 25:11. The son of seventeen years; in his seventeenth year Gen 37:32. The sons of Bilhah. The sons of the handmaids were nearer his own age, and perhaps more tolerant of the favorite than the sons of Leah the free wife. Benjamin at this time was about four years of age. An evil report of them. The unsophisticated child of home is prompt in the disapproval of evil, and frank in the avowal of his feelings. What the evil was we are not informed; but Jacobs full-grown sons were now far from the paternal eye, and prone, as it seems, to give way to temptation. Many scandals come out to view in the chosen family. Loved Joseph. He was the son of his best-loved wife, and of his old age; as Benjamin had not yet come into much notice. A Coat of many colors. This was a coat reaching to the hands and feet, worn by persons not much occupied with manual labor, according to the general opinion. It was, we conceive, variegated either by the loom or the needle, and is therefore, well rendered chiton poikilos, a motley coat. Could not bid peace to him. The partiality of his father, exhibited in so weak a manner, provokes the anger of his brothers, who cannot bid him good-day, or greet him in the ordinary terms of good-will.

Gen 37:5-11

Josephs dreams excite the jealousy of his brothers. His frankness in reciting his dream to his brothers marks a spirit devoid of guile, and only dimly conscious of the import of his nightly visions. The first dream represents by a figure the humble submission of all his brothers to him, as they rightly interpret it. For his dreams and for his words. The meaning of this dream was offensive enough, and his telling of it rendered it even more disagreeable. A second dream is given to express the certainty of the event Gen 41:32. The former serves to interpret the latter. There the sheaves are connected with the brothers who bound them, and thereby indicate the parties. The eleven stars are not so connected with them. But here Joseph is introduced directly without a figure, and the number eleven, taken along with the eleven sheaves of the former dream, makes the application to the brothers plain. The sun and moon clearly point out the father and mother. The mother is to be taken, we conceive, in the abstract, without nicely inquiring whether it means the departed Rachel, or the probably still living Leah. Not even the latter seems to have lived to see the fulfillment of this prophetic dream Gen 49:31. The second dream only aggravated the hatred of his brothers; but his father, while rebuking him for his speeches, yet marked the saying. The rebuke seems to imply that the dream, or the telling of it, appears to his father to indicate the lurking of a self-sufficient or ambitious spirit within the breast of the youthful Joseph. The twofold intimation, however, came from a higher source.

Gen 37:12-17

Joseph is sent to Dothan. Shekem belonged to Jacob; part of it by purchase, and the rest by conquest. Joseph is sent to inquire of their welfare ( shalom peace, Gen 37:4). With obedient promptness the youth goes to Shekem, where he learns that they had removed to Dothan, a town about twelve miles due north of Shekem.

Gen 37:18-24

His brothers cast him into a pit. This master of dreams; an eastern phrase for a dreamer. Let us slay him. They had a foreboding that his dreams might prove true, and that he would become their arbitrary master. This thought at all events would abate somewhat of the barbarity of their designs. It is implied in the closing sentence of their proposal. Reuben dissuades them from the act of murder, and advises merely to cast him into the pit, to which they consent. He had a more tender heart, and perhaps a more tender conscience than the rest, and intended to send Joseph back safe to his father. He doubtless took care to choose a pit that was without water.

Gen 37:25-30

Reuben rips his clothes when he finds Joseph gone. To eat bread. This shows the cold and heartless cruelty of their deed. A caravan – a company of travelling merchants. Ishmaelites. Ishmael left his fathers house when about fourteen or fifteen years of age. His mother took him a wife probably when he was eighteen, or twenty at the furthest. He had arrived at the latter age about one hundred and sixty-two years before the date of the present occurrence. He had twelve sons Gen 25:13-15, and if we allow only four other generations and a fivefold increase, there will be about fifteen thousand in the fifth generation. Came from Gilead; celebrated for its balm Jer 8:22; Jer 46:11. The caravan road from Damascus to Egypt touches upon the land of Gilead, goes through Beth-shean, and passes by Dothan. Spicery. This gum is called tragacanth, or goats-thorn gum, because it was supposed to be obtained from this plant. Balm, or balsam; an aromatic substance obtained from a plant of the genus Amyris, a native of Gilead. Myrrh is the name of a gum exuding from the balsamodendron myrrha, growing in Arabia Felix. Lot, however, is supposed to be the resinous juice of the cistus or rock rose, a plant growing in Crete and Syria. Judah, relenting, and revolting perhaps from the crime of fratricide, proposes to sell Joseph to the merchants.

Midianites and Medanites Gen 37:36 are mere variations apparently of the same name. They seem to have been the actual purchasers, though the caravan takes its name from the Ishmaelites, who formed by far the larger portion of it. Midian and Medan were both sons of Abraham, and during one hundred and twenty-five years must have increased to a small clan. Thus, Joseph is sold to the descendants of Abraham. Twenty silver pieces; probably shekels. This is the rate at which Moses estimates a male from five to twenty years old Lev 27:5. A man-servant was valued by him at thirty shekels Exo 21:32. Reuben finding Joseph gone, rends his clothes, in token of anguish of mind for the loss of his brother and the grief of his father.

Gen 37:31-36

The brothers contrive to conceal their crime; and Joseph is sold into Egypt. Torn, torn in pieces is Joseph. The sight of the bloody coat convinces Jacob at once that Joseph has been devoured by a wild beast. All his daughters. Only one daughter of Jacob is mentioned by name. These are probably his daughters-in-law. To the grave. Sheol is the place to which the soul departs at death. It is so called from its ever craving, or being empty. Minister. This word originally means eunuch, and then, generally, any officer about the court or person of the sovereign. Captain of the guards. The guards are the executioners of the sentences passed by the sovereign on culprits, which were often arbitrary, summary, and extremely severe. It is manifest, from this dark chapter, that the power of sin has not been extinguished in the family of Jacob. The name of God does not appear, and his hand is at present only dimly seen among the wicked designs, deeds, and devices of these unnatural brothers. Nevertheless, his counsel of mercy standeth sure, and fixed is his purpose to bring salvation to the whole race of man, by means of his special covenant with Abraham.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Gen 37:1-2

Joseph

The history of Joseph

Josephs is one of the most interesting histories in the world.

He has the strange power of uniting our hearts to him, as to a well-beloved friend. He had the genius to be loved greatly, because he had the genius to love greatly, and his genius still lives in these Bible pages.

I. JOSEPH WAS A HATED BROTHER. The boy was his fathers pet. Very likely he was the perfect picture of Rachel who was gone, and so Jacob saw and loved in him his sainted wife. In token of love his father foolishly gave him a coat of many colours, to which, alas! the colour of blood was soon added. It was for no good reason that his brothers hated him. Joseph brought unto his father their evil report. Not that he was a sneaking tell-tale; but he would not do as they did, nor would he hide from his father their evil doings. God means the children of a family to feel bound together by bands that grapple the heart, and to stand true to one another to lifes end. Reverence the mighty ties of kindred which God has fashioned. Joseph also teaches you never to make any one your foe without a very good reason. The weakest whom you wrong may one day be your master.

II. JOSEPH WAS A BLAMELESS YOUTH. Though terribly tempted, he never yielded. He was shamefully wronged, yet he was not hardened or soured. His soul was like the oak which is nursed into strength by storms. In his heart, not on it, he wore a talisman that destroyed sins charms. The heavently plan of his piety disclosed all its beauty, and gave out its sweet odours in the wicked palaces of Potiphar and Pharaoh.

III. JOSEPH WAS A FAMOUS RULER. He entered Egypt as a Hebrew slave, and became its prime minister. He was the hero of his age, the saviour of his country, the most successful man of his day. He became so great because he was so good; he was a noble man because he was a thorough man of God.

IV. JOSEPH WAS A TYPE OF CHRIST. Joseph, like Jesus, was his fathers well-beloved son, the best of brothers, yet hated and rejected by his own; was sold from envy for a few pieces of silver, endured a great temptation, yet without sin; was brought into a low estate and falsely condemned; was the greatest of forgivers, the forgiver of his own murderers; and was in all things the son and hope of Israel. (J. Wells.)

The commencement of Josephs history

I. As DISTINGUISHED BY HIS EARLY PIETY. His conduct was not back-biting, but a filial confidential report to his father.

1. It showed his love of truth and right. He would not suffer his father to be deceived by a false estimate of the conduct of his sons. He must be made acquainted with the truth, however painful, or be the consequences what they might to all concerned.

2. It showed his unwillingness to be a partaker of other mens sins.

3. It showed a spirit of ready obedience. He knew that a faithful report of the conduct of his brethren was a duty he owed to his father.

II. As MARKED OUT FOR A GREAT DESTINY. III. AS THE OBJECT OF ENVY AND HATRED.

1. Because of his faithful testimony.

2. Because of his fathers partiality.

3. Because of the distinction for which God had destined him. (T. H.Leale.)

Jacob and Joseph

I. THE DIVISION FOUND IN JACOBS FAMILY. Four reasons for this.

1. Jacobs favouritism for Joseph.

2. The scandal-bearing of Joseph.

3. The polygamy of Jacob.

4. The envy of the brothers.

II. JOSEPHS MISSION TO SHECHEM. Observe here the bloodguiltiness of these brothers; they did not take Josephs life, but they intended to take it; they were therefore murderers. Let us make a distinction; for when we are told that the thought is as bad as the crime, sometimes we are tempted to argue thus: I have indulged the thought, I will therefore do the deed, it will be no worse. This sophistry can scarcely deceive the heart that uses it; yet, merely to put the thing verbally right, let us strip it of its casuistry. The thought is as bad as the act, because the act would be committed if it could. But if these brethren of Joseph had mourned over and repented of their sin, would we dare to say that the thought would have been as bad as the act? But we do say that the thought in this case was as bad as the act, because it was not restrained or prevented by any regret or repentant feeling; it was merely prevented by the coming in of another passion, it was the triumph of avarice over malice. But all these brothers were not equally guilty. Simeon and Levi and others wished to slay Joseph; Judah proposed his being sold into captivity; while Reuben tried to save him secretly, although he had not courage to save him openly. He proposed that he should be put into the pit, intending to take him out when the others were not by. His conduct in this instance was just in accordance with his character, which seems to have been remarkable for a certain softness. He did not dare to shed his brothers blood, neither did he dare manfully to save him. He was not cruel, simply because he was guilty of a different class of sin. It is well for us, before we take credit to ourselves for being free from that or this sin, to inquire whether it be banished by grace or only by another sin. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)

The fathers favourite, and the brothers censor

1. We are taught here the evil of favouritism in the family. The balance, as between the different children in the same household, must be held evenly by the parents. No one ought to be the pet of either father or mother, for the pet is apt to become petted, haughty, and arrogant towards the others; while the showing of constant favour to him alienates the affections of the rest, both from him and from the parents. Is that you, Pet? said a father from his bedroom to a little one who stood at the door in the early morning knocking for admission. No, it isnt Pet, its only me, replied a sorrowful little voice; and that was the last of pet in that family. See what mischief it occasioned here in Jacobs household!

2. We may learn from this narrative how bitter is the antagonism of the wicked to the righteous in the world. The real root of the hatred of Josephs brethren is to be traced to the fact that he would not consent to be one of them, and join in the doing of things which they knew that their father would condemn. His conscience was tender, his heart was pure, his will was firm. He was a Puritan and they were regardless, and they chose to set down his non-conformity to pride rather than to principle, and persecuted him accordingly. There is an immense amount of petty persecution of this sort going on in all our colleges, commercial establishments, and factories, of which the principals and the great world seldom hear, but which shows us that the human nature of to-day is in its great features identical with that which existed many centuries ago in the family of Jacob. What then? Are the upright to yield? are they to abate their protest? are they to become even as the others? No; for that would be to take the leaven out of the mass; that would be to let evil become triumphant, and so that must never be thought of. Let the persecuted in these ways hold out. Let them neither retaliate, nor recriminate, nor carry evil reports, but let them simply hold on, believing that he that endureth overcometh.

3. The case of Joseph here brings up the whole question of our responsibility in regard to what we see and hear that is evil in other people. I have come to the conclusion that Joseph was by his father placed in formal charge of his brokers, and that it was is duty to give a truthful report concerning them, even as to-day an overseer is bound in justice to his employer to state precisely the kind of service which those under him are rendering. That is no tale-bearing; that is simple duty. But now, suppose we are invested with no such charge over another, and yet we see him do something that is deplorably wrong, what is our duty in such a case? Are we bound to carry the report to his father or to his employer, or must we leave things alone and let them take their course? The question so put is a delicate one and very difficult to handle. But I think I see two or three things that cast some little light upon it.

(1) In the first place we are not bound by any law, human or divine, to act the part of a detective on our neighbour and lay ourselves out for the discovery of that in him which is disreputable or dishonest. We must have detectives in the department of police, and they are very serviceable there; but that every one of us should be closely watching every other to see what evil he can discover in him is intolerable, and we should discourage in all young people every tendency to such peering Paul Pryism.

(2) Then, in the second place, when, without any such deliberate inspection on our part, we happen to see that which is wrong, we should, in the way in which we treat the case, make a distinction between a crime and a vice. A crime is that which is a violation of the civil law; a vice is that which, without violating the civil law, is a sin against God. Now suppose that what we see is a crime–the man, let us say, is robbing his employer–then my clear duty, if I would not be a particeps criminis, is to give information to his master, and let him deal with the case as he sees fit. On the other hand, if the evil is a vice–say, for example, sensuality or the like, which does not, directly at least interfere with his efficiency as a servant–then I must deal with himself alone. If he hear me, then I have gained him; but if he refuse to hear me, then I may say to him that, as he has chosen to pay no heed to my expostulation, I shall feel it my duty to inform his father of the matter; and then, having acted out that determination, I may consider that my responsibility in regard to him is at an end, unless, in Gods providence, there is given me some other opening through which to approach him. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)

Joseph at home

I. THE OCCUPATION OF HIS EARLY YEARS. Trained from youth to healthy labour and useful employment. Idleness, like pride, was never made for man.

II. THE ACCOUNT WHICH HE GAVE TO HIS FATHER OF WHAT HE HAD SEEN WHILE WITH HIS BRETHREN. When open and undisguised sin has actually been committed before our eyes, we are on no account to wink at it. It is a time to speak when, by reporting what is amiss to those who have power to restrain and correct it, we may either put an end to that evil, or bring those to repentance who have committed it. This, however, is both a difficult and painful duty, and it requires much wisdom and grace to perform it aright.

III. ISRAELS SPECIAL LOVE FOR JOSEPH.

IV. THE MANNER IN WHICH HE SHOWED HIS PARTIALITY. Various ways may be found of showing our approbation of those that are good, without displaying those outward marks of distinction, which are almost certain to provoke the envy of others.

V. THE IMPROPER FEELINGS AWAKENED IN THE BREASTS OF HIS OTHER CHILDREN.

VI. JOSEPHS REMARKABLE DREAMS. He dreamt of preferment, but not of imprisonment. (C. Overton.)

Joseph the favourite son

1. Joseph, though the object of his fathers tenderest love, was not brought up to idleness. The young man who is desirous of rising in the world, should not forget that the worlds prizes are for those who win them on the field of toil.

2. It is impossible to determine whether it was Jacobs partiality and Josephs superior merit which secured for him the office of superintendent of his brethren. Whatever may have secured him the situation, he seems to have proved himself equal to it.

3. Jacobs ill-disguised partiality for the son of endeared Rachel prompted him to an act injurious at once to himself, to Joseph, and to his other children. (J. S. Van Dyke.)

Josephs first experience of life

I. This young man was taught to work.

II. He was placed in favourable circumstances.

III. He saw the iniquity of society.

IV. He remained uncontaminated in the midst of evil.

V. He sought to better society: (Homilist.)

Lessons

1. The Churchs line is drawn by Gods Spirit eminently opposite to the wicked.

2. The Churchs generations are best made out from the best of her children.

3. Youth is eminently memorable, when it is sanctified, and gracious.

4. Gracious parents are careful, though never so rich, to bring up their children in honest callings. So Jacob did Joseph, &c.

5. God can preserve some pure, though conversing with wicked brethren, and relations.

6. Gracious dispositions cannot bear or favour the sins of nearest relations.

7. Souls grieved with sins of other relations bring the discovery to such as can amend them (Gen 37:2.) (G. Hughes, B. D.)

Joseph

In Joseph we meet a type of character rare in any race, and which, though occasionally reproduced in Jewish history, we Should certainly not have expected to meet with at so early a period. For what chiefly strikes one in Joseph is a combination of grace and power, which is commonly looked upon as the peculiar result of civilising influences, knowledge of history, familiarity with foreign races, and hereditary dignity. In David we find a similar flexibility and grace of character, and a similar personal superiority. We find the same bright and humorous disposition helping him to play the man in adverse circumstances; but we miss in David Josephs self-control and incorruptible purity, as we also miss something of his capacity for difficult affairs of state. In Daniel this latter capacity is abundantly present, and a facility equal to Josephs in dealing with foreigners, and there is also a certain grace of nobility in the Jewish Vizier; but Joseph had a surplus of power which enabled him to be cheerful and alert in doleful circumstances, which Daniel would certainly have borne manfully but probably in a sterner and more passive mode. Joseph, indeed, seemed to inherit and happily combine the highest qualities of his ancestors. He had Abrahams dignity and capacity, Isaacs purity and power of self-devotion, Jacobs cleverness and buoyancy and tenacity. From his mothers family he had personal beauty, humour, and management. A young man of such capabilities could not long remain insensible to his own destiny. Indeed, the conduct of his father and brothers towards him must have made him self-conscious, even though he had been wholly innocent of introspection. The force of the impression he produced on his family may be measured by the circumstance that the princely dress given him by his father did not excite his brothers ridicule but their envy and hatred. In this dress there was a manifest suitableness to his person, and this excited them to a keen resentment of distinction. So too they felt that his dreams were not the mere whimsicalities of a lively fancy, but were possessed of a verisimilitude which gave them importance. In short, the dress and the dreams were insufferably exasperating to the brothers, because they proclaimed and marked in a definite way the feeling of Josephs superiority which had already been vaguely rankling in their consciousness. And it is creditable to Joseph that this superiority should first have emerged in connection with a point of conduct. It was in moral stature that the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah felt that they were outgrown by the stripling whom they carried with them as their drudge. Either are we obliged to suppose that Joseph was a gratuitous talebearer, or that when he carried their evil report to his father he was actuated by a prudish, censorious, or in any way unworthy spirit. That he very well knew how to hold his tongue no man ever gave more adequate proof; but he that understands that there is a time to keep silence necessarily sees also that there is a time to speak. And no one can tell what torture that pure young soul may have endured in the remote pastures, when left alone to withstand day after day the outrage of these coarse and unscrupulous men. An elder brother, if he will, can more effectually guard the innocence of a younger brother than any other relative can, but he can also inflict a more exquisite torture. (M. Dods, D. D.)

Feeding the flock

Joseph feeding his fathers flock

We have in the text various statements respecting Joseph.

I. His feeding his fathers flock.

II. His fathers great love for him.

III. His brethrens hatred of him.

IV. His keeping company more especially with the humbler children of Israel, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, the two handmaids.

1. The description of the youthful Joseph, as feeding his fathers flock, may well remind us of the great Shepherd and Bishop of our souls, who as the good Shepherd laid down His life for the flock of God, and leads His own sheep forth by the still waters of salvation, and makes them to lie down in the wholesome pastures of His Word (Psa 80:1-19; Psa 95:6-7; Isa 40:11; Eze 34:22-31; Zec 13:7).

2. We are now to consider Joseph as the dearest of his fathers sons, as a type of Jesus, the beloved Son of His Eternal Father. Joseph as he grew up was still more endeared to his father. The death of his mother would naturally lead Jacob to centre his affections still more absorbingly upon him. And it appears, that Joseph repaid the old mans warm affections by filial obedience and love. And parents value a dutiful and heavenly-minded child the more, when, like Joseph, he is preserved unpolluted by the bad example of his ungodly brothers. We have in the inspired narrative very early proofs of this partiality of the patriarch. And he put the two handmaids and their children foremost, and Leah and her children after, and Rachel and Joseph hindermost (Gen 33:1-2). But it is time we directed our attention to One greater than Joseph. The love of the Father to the Lord Jesus immeasurably exceeds every love of which we have any experience in our own breasts. It passeth knowledge. Of all the sons of God, Jesus is certainly the chiefest among ten thousand and the altogether lovely in the sight of His eternal Father. Jesus is indeed the only-begotten of the Father, His only-begotten Son. The obedience and love and filial sympathy of the Lord Jesus was, to use the language of men, the solace of Jehovahs heart when grieved with the ingratitude and vileness of the whole human family. He was a perfect Son, and the only perfect Son the world ever beheld. The zeal of His Fathers house consumed Him. Throughout His whole life He was, like Joseph, separate from His sinful brethren, and mourned with His Father over their wickedness. The obedience of Christ to His Father was well pleasing to Him, and we are again and again informed throughout the Gospels that the Father delighteth to honour the Son, and viewed every step of His work on earth with the highest satisfaction.

3. His keeping company with the humbler children of his father, the sons of Bilhah, and the sons of Zilpah, the two handmaids. In how much higher a sense must it have been indeed painful in the extreme for the meek and lowly Saviour to live in the polluted atmosphere of our guilty world. What wonderful condescension what humility, that He should stoop from heaven to mingle with vile stoners here! Learn a lesson of forbearance and patience with sinners from our dear Redeemer.

4. And now let us briefly consider the last particular respecting Joseph, mentioned in my text; viz., the envy with which his brethren regarded him. As this envy will come again under our notice as we proceed further into the life of Joseph, we will now simply consider the result of it mentioned in the text: They could not speak peaceably unto him. The higher a man rises in the estimation and friendship of some, the more he is hated and abhorred by others. The nearer a man lives and the closer a man walks with his heavenly Father, the more will he experience of this worlds envy and the anger of the old serpents seed. If Joseph drinks most fully of the sweets of his fathers love, he must also drink most deeply of the bitters of his brethrens hate. If anything could disarm opposition and rob envy of his fang, surely it was the mild meekness and humility of that Man of Sorrows. (E. Dalton)

.

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

CHAPTER XXXVII

Jacob continues to sojourn in Canaan, 1.

Joseph, being seventeen years of age, is employed in feeding

the flocks of his father, 2.

Is loved by his father more than the rest of his brethren, 3.

His brethren envy him, 4.

His dream of the sheaves, 5-7.

His brethren interpret it, and hate him on the account, 8.

His dream of the sun, moon, and eleven stars, 9-12.

Jacob sends him to visit his brethren, who were with the flock

in Shechem, 13, 14.

He wanders in the field, and is directed to go to Dothan, whither

his brethren had removed the flocks, 15-17.

Seeing him coming they conspire to destroy him, 18-20.

Reuben, secretly intending to deliver him, counsels his brethren

not to kill, but to put him into a pit, 21, 22.

They strip Joseph of his coat of many colours, and put him into

a pit, 23, 24.

They afterwards draw him out, and sell him to a company of

Ishmaelite merchants for twenty pieces of silver, who carry him

into Egypt, 25-28.

Reuben returns to the pit, and not finding Joseph, is greatly

affected, 29, 30.

Joseph’s brethren dip his coat in goat’s blood to persuade his

father that he had been devoured by a wild beast, 31-33.

Jacob is greatly distressed, 34, 35.

Joseph is sold in Egypt to Potiphar, captain of Pharaoh’s guard, 36.

NOTES ON CHAP. XXXVII

Verse 1. Wherein his father was a stranger] megurey abiv, Jacob dwelt in the land of his father’s sojournings, as the margin very properly reads it. The place was probably the vale of Hebron, see Ge 37:14.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

1. Jacob dwelt in the land whereinhis father was a strangerthat is, “a sojourner”;”father” used collectively. The patriarch was at this timeat Mamre, in the valley of Hebron (compare Ge35:27); and his dwelling there was continued in the same mannerand prompted by the same motives as that of Abraham and Isaac (Heb11:13).

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger,…. And this stands opposed unto, and is distinguished from the case and circumstances of Esau and his posterity, expressed in the preceding chapter, who dwelt in the land of their possession, not as strangers and sojourners, as Jacob and his seed, but as lords and proprietors; and so these words may be introduced and read in connection with the former history; “but Jacob dwelt”, c. a and this verse would better conclude the preceding chapter than begin a new one. The Targum of Jonathan paraphrases the words, “and Jacob dwelt quietly”; or peaceably, in tranquillity and safety; his brother Esau being gone from him into another country, he remained where his father lived and died, and in the country that by his blessing belonged to him:

in the land of Canaan, and particularly in Hebron, where Isaac and Abraham before him had dwelt.

a “at habitavit”, Schmidt.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Gen 37:1-2

The statement in Gen 37:1, which introduces the tholedoth of Jacob, “ And Jacob dwelt in the land of his father’s pilgrimage, in the land of Canaan, ” implies that Jacob had now entered upon his father’s inheritance, and carries on the patriarchal pilgrim-life in Canaan, the further development of which was determined by the wonderful career of Joseph. This strange and eventful career of Joseph commenced when he was 17 years old. The notice of his age at the commencement of the narrative which follows, is introduced with reference to the principal topic in it, viz., the sale of Joseph, which was to prepare the way, according to the wonderful counsel of God, for the fulfilment of the divine revelation to Abraham respecting the future history of his seed (Gen 15:13.). While feeding the flock with his brethren, and, as he was young, with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, who were nearer his age than the sons of Leah, he brought an evil report of them to his father ( intentionally indefinite, connected with without an article). The words , “ and he a lad, ” are subordinate to the main clause: they are not to be rendered, however, “he was a lad with the sons,” but, “as he was young, he fed the flock with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah.”

Gen 37:3-4

“ Israel (Jacob) loved Joseph more than all his (other) sons, because he was born in his old age, ” as the first-fruits of the beloved Rachel (Benjamin was hardly a year old at this time). And he made him : a long coat with sleeves ( , Aqu., or , lxx at 2Sa 13:18, tunica talaris , Vulg. ad Sam.), i.e., an upper coat reaching to the wrists and ankles, such as noblemen and kings’ daughters wore, not “a coat of many colours” (“ bunter Rock, ” as Luther renders it, from the , tunicam polymitam , of the lxx and Vulgate). This partiality made Joseph hated by his brethren; so that they could not “ speak peaceably unto him, ” i.e., ask him how he was, offer him the usual salutation, “Peace be with thee.”

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

The History of Joseph.

B. C. 1729.

      1 And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan.   2 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.   3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours.   4 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.

      Moses has no more to say of the Edomites, unless as they happen to fall in Israel’s way; but now applies himself closely to the story of Jacob’s family: These are the generations of Jacob. His is not a bare barren genealogy as that of Esau (ch. xxxvi. 1), but a memorable useful history. Here is, 1. Jacob a sojourner with his father Isaac, who has yet living, v. 1. We shall never be at home, till we come to heaven. 2. Joseph, a shepherd, feeding the flock with his brethren, v. 2. Though he was his father’s darling, yet he was not brought up in idleness or delicacy. Those do not truly love their children that do not inure them to business, and labour, and mortification. The fondling of children is with good reason commonly called the spoiling of them. Those that are trained up to do nothing are likely to be good for nothing. 3. Joseph beloved by his father (v. 3), partly for his dear mother’s sake that was dead, and partly for his own sake, because he was the greatest comfort of his old age; probably he waited on him, and was more observant of him than the rest of his sons; he was the son of the ancient so some; that is, when he was a child, he was as grave and discreet as if he had been an old man, a child, but not childish. Jacob proclaimed his affection to him by dressing him finer than the rest of his children: He made him a coat of divers colours, which probably was significant of further honors intended him. Note, Though those children are happy that have that in them which justly recommends them to their parents’ particular love, yet it is the prudence of parents not to make a difference between one child and another, unless there be a great and manifest cause given for it by the children’s dutifulness or undutifulness; paternal government must be impartial, and managed with a steady hand. 4. Joseph hated by his brethren, (1.) Because his father loved him; when parents make a difference, children soon take notice of it, and it often occasions feuds and quarrels in families. (2.) Because he brought to his father their evil report. Jacob’s sons did that, when they were from under his eye, which they durst not have done if they had been at home with him; but Joseph gave his father an account of their bad carriage, that he might reprove and restrain them; not as a malicious tale-bearer, to sow discord, but as a faithful brother, who, when he durst not admonish them himself, represented their faults to one that had authority to admonish them. Note, [1.] It is common for friendly monitors to be looked upon as enemies. Those that hate to be reformed hate those that would reform them, Prov. ix. 8. [2.] It is common for those that are beloved of God to be hated by the world; whom Heaven blesses, hell curses. To those to whom God speaks comfortably wicked men will not speak peaceably. It is said here of Joseph, the lad was with the sons of Bilhah; some read it, and he was servant to them, they made him their drudge.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

GENESIS – CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Verses 1-4:

Verse 1 properly belongs with the preceding chapter. It concludes the section dealing with a summary of Esau’s history and his dwelling in Mt Seir, contrasting this with Jacob’s dwelling in the Land of Canaan.

Verse 2 begins a new section in the saga of the Chosen People.

The focus shifts to Joseph He is the one whose destiny it is to preserve Israel during their time of training in Egypt. Though the New Testament does not describe Joseph as a type of Christ, his life pictures that of Messiah in many ways. His betrayal, his humiliation, his elevation to highest dignity, preserving alive his people, and their ultimate recognition of him and their repentance, all illustrate the life and ministry of Christ.

The record of Joseph begins when he was seventeen. He was the son of Rachel, born in Padan-aram (30:24). He was a shepherd, tending Jacob’s flocks in company with the sons of Bilhah (Rachel’s maid) and Zilpah (Leah’s maid). Bilhah’s sons were Dan and Naphtali. Zilpah’s sons were Gad and Asher. Jacob’s reason for this arrangement Is not explained in the Scriptures. It may be that there was stronger jealousy toward Joseph from Leah’s six sons than from the sons of the handmaids.

The language of verse 2 implies that Joseph did not bring to Jacob any eyewitness account of his brothers’ misconduct. Rather, he repeated to his father the common rumors of a bad nature which were circulating in the district about them. This added fuel to the fires of their jealousy against Joseph. Jacob’s love for Rachel transferred to the son she bore him.

Doubtless he loved his other children, but his favorite was Joseph, who was born in his ninety-first year. Jacob did not hide his preference for Joseph over his other sons. He made and gave to Joseph a “coat of many colors,” literally a “coat of ends,” tunic reaching down to the arms and feet. This was a garment such as princes and other dignitaries wore. Garments such as this are pictured on monuments in Egypt, portraying people of Palestine and Syria wearing similar coats, partly colored, usually with stripes around the hem and the borders of the sleeves. It was a clear indication of Jacob’s intention to transfer the right of the first-born to Joseph His three oldest sons had demonstrated their unfitness for this position – Simeon and Levi by their conduct at Shechem, and Reuben by his moral impurity (Ge 35:22).

The coat Jacob gave to Joseph added more fuel to the fires of jealousy which smoldered in the brothers. So intense grew their hatred that they were unable to “speak peaceably” to Joseph This is a reference to the Oriental custom of greeting, “Peace be unto thee.” This volatile situation was further provoked by events soon to follow.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

1. And Jacob dwelt. Moses confirms what he had before declared, that, by the departure of Esau, the land was left to holy Jacob as its sole possessor. Although in appearance he did not obtain a single clod; yet, contented with the bare sight of the land, he exercised his faith; and Moses expressly compares him with his father, who had been a stranger in that land all his life. Therefore, though by the removal of his brother to another abode, Jacob was no little gainer; yet it was the Lord’s will that this advantage should be hidden from his eyes, in order that he might depend entirely upon the promise.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

JOSEPH. GODS FAVORITE

Gen 36:1 to Gen 50:26

IF we began our study with the 36th chapter of Genesis we should have to do with the generations of Esau, who is Edom. It is a chapter filled with hard names of men, many of whom wore the title Duke, but like many of the lords and dukes of the present day, did nothing worthy the pen of inspiration. The men whose history God passes over with the mere statement of birth, name, title and death, we may be excused for skipping in our search for the more important characters and the more impressive lessons of the sacred Word.

The 37th chapter introduces us to such a character in Joseph, and launches us upon a study which has engaged the most serious thought of Scripture students for thousands of years. According to the reckoning of John Lord, in his essay on Joseph, this great-grandson of Abraham was born at Haran about 3701 years ago. The most distinguishing feature of his early life was his peculiar and prophetic dreams or visions. He comes before us in the blush of seventeen summers, nicknamed by those who knew him best, this Dreamer. Already in the visions of the night, God had vouchsafed to him the earnest of his coming supremacy and power. The eleven sheaves of his brethren had made obeisance, while Josephs sheaf had stood upright and received their homage. The sun and moon and eleven stars had gathered at his feet. And, when the dreams were known, his father gently reproved, but his brothers resolved and agreed to watch for a chance to act. The favorite of the household was to be put out of the way. The beauty of face that had made him a subject of parental partiality was to be despoiled. The jealousy-breeding coat was to become all crimson; the tattling tongue was to be silenced, and this business of first dreaming and then interpreting to his own profit was to be brought to a deserved end!

Such were the resolutions; and their chance came. Joseph is at last within their grasp, and with a shout of triumph they cry, as they lift their eyes to his sweet though envied face,

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 dreamt (Gen 37:19-20).

The remainder of the story is familiar to every one of you, and I do not propose to give time to a rehearsal of its incidents, but rather to a consideration of its fundamental lessons.

DIVINE FAVORS DO NOT INSURE AGAINST HUMAN HATRED.

Joseph had, indeed, almost a monopoly of the favors to be coveted in this life. Through his veins there pulsed no common or unclean blood. Four of his brethren were of the meaner extraction of slave mothers, while six others were born to the tender-eyed Leah. It was Josephs good fortune, and doubtless his pride, to be the elder son of the beautiful Rachel, the only lawful wife of Jacob, because the woman of his selection, and the only one to whom he was bound by love. It may be a sin in the child to love his father and mother less because they are those in whom he can take no special pride, but I am sure that his joy is as commendable as natural who loves and delights in them the more, because they are virtuous, honorable and superior in every way. Such a pride was Josephs possession. Who of us are as grateful as we should be for godly and noble parentage?

Again, providence had favored this child in his own person. Joseph was a goodly person and well favored (Gen 29:6). Doubtless that fact accounts for some of Jacobs inexcusable partiality. He saw in the beautiful boy those princely features which called for a royal tunic as a natural complement. Beauty of person is one of Gods better gifts, and it has played its part in the role of human history. It was that charm and that alone that saved the child, Moses, and opened to him the princess nursery and put him in the splendid Egyptian school from which he graduated unto the great work of saving his people and serving his God. It was beauty of face and grace of form that brought Esther to the throne at the very time when the interests of Israel were trembling in the balance, and Gods people were waiting for just such a friend. The prominent role that Cleopatra played in the world is assigned almost entirely to the solitary circumstance of her personal charms. I have often wondered why the great artists have not made more of Joseph as a subject fit for the choicest marble, and worthy the best skilled brush.

In his spirit also, Joseph was divinely favored. So far as the record of his life goes, it would be dangerous to affirm that the splendid child, or the saintly man, Samuel, was ever possessed of sweeter temper than that which Joseph discovered in all the changing and trying experiences of his life. Not a single indictment against his conduct can be successfully sustained. If it be said that his brothers hated him on account of his intolerable pride, let it be remembered Eliab hurled at David this sentence, I know thy pride and the naughtiness of thy heart. In each instance the bigger brother was voicing the naughtiness of his own heart instead. If he be charged with tattling because he brought unto his father the evil report of his brethren, let us answer with a question, Is silence at the sight of sin a virtue? If a report is to be made, to whom other than the father, the rightful authority? His behavior toward the woman whose unholy love his beauty had excited discovers at once a righteousness of personal character, a keen sense of others interests, and a splendid sensitiveness to sin against God that all right thinking people must admire. His dealing with the butler whose freedom he secured, to be rewarded by base neglect for two long years, proved his patience with forgetfulness and ingratitude. Toward his fratricidal brothers, whose lives eventually fell to his disposal, he discovered only the bosom of love, treating with all tenderness those who had attempted his destruction. Blood may be a good thing, and beauty a joy forever, but that magnanimity of soul which can forget a wrong, be patient with a weakness, and treat with affection those who have subjected you to contemptthat is divine! To do that is to prove ones kinship with the Son of God.

Finally Joseph was favored with dreams of a wider and nobler life. The most promising youth is the one who enjoys such visions of the night. Guizot once wrote to his son who was contesting for a university prize, You are ambitious, my boy; you have a right to be. A man at forty may be too ambitious, but at 20, never.

Now and then the world is astonished by the sudden awakening of some sleeping Samson who discovers unsuspected powers at the attack of the Philistines of opposition; but the rule is that Longfellows, while still beardless, dream of being laureates and write to their mothers asking, Do you not think I may one day write books that will be read all over the land? I think that Dr. Hillis has called attention to an important truth when, in his book A Mans Value To Society, he emphasizes the imagination as the architect of manhood.

But let no man conclude that such Divine favors will insure against human hatred. Jealousy is the blindest of passions, and envy never sees anything save through the green glasses which convert all virtue into vice, and all merit into excuses for murder. We have already seen that Josephs conduct toward his brethren was commendable and in every instance meant for their good. But as the belligerent Israelites resented Moses plea for peace between brethren, so these sons of Leah and the concubines interpreted Josephs just report of their behavior as bad tattling. How many a noble Christian man has been insulted and cruelly criticised because, forsooth, he tried to get people to live right and when they would not, reported their sins to the church!

The modern martyr is that noble Joseph who keeps out of fights himself and says to his brethren, You must behave or I shall be compelled to report you to our spiritual mother. Yes, it is one of the most significant suggestions of the sham of modern profession that it will brook no correction from the brother of tenderest love, yea, even from the officials of the church of God elected for the very purpose of counsel and, when needful, of correction.

Again, how many, Joseph-like, are hated because they have had some dream of position, influence and real worth? You have heard it said, There is one black sheep in every flock. Yes, and the converse is equally true, In a black flock one white sheep appears. In most families there is one child that early comes into possession of that broader view of character, conduct and life. How often his first utterance of the hope for the future, that has grown big within his breast, is met with some expression of contempt for such pretensions, or scorn for such pride of heart! Josephs experience and Davids has been known to the bleeding heart of many a precocious boy. An education has been resolved upon, and he begins the long climb of attainments ladder alone. It would seem enough that he should struggle single-handed, and without assistance or sympathy, but how often he must make his way upward, carrying in memory the bitter reproaches and keen sarcasm of his brothers who see nothing in his dream save concentrated egotism and vain conceit!

If any reader has suffered at one or more of these points, I come to say, Be not discouraged! Retrace your steps in nothing! Be slow to conclude you are wrong, or that it is of no use to labor against such opposition. Christ experienced it all boiled down to its last bitterness and yet, when it did its final work of lifting Him to the cross, it only hastened His crown. Josephs brethren can sell him, but if he is always right the Lord will be with him, and the sale into slavery is only an additional push toward the waiting throne.

Now for our second suggestion,

And Josephs master took him and put him into prison. But the Lord was with Joseph (Gen 39:20-21).

INNOCENCE CANNOT BE EFFECTUALLY DISHONORED.

People sometimes make the mistake of affirming that an innocent man cannot be injured. On the contrary, history is rife with illustrations of the fact that no character is so easily sullied as that of the purest and best of men and women. The principle is easy of explanation. The whiter the sheet of paper the easier it is for dirty fingers to leave their track. Some people have the impression that after all preachers and other religious people are about as capable of immoralities as are the members of any other circle. Alas! for the poisoning power of a sensational and truthless press! Many a Joseph has been silenced, and even banished for a while by such confessed lovers of the profession. They know the ease with which that lord, Public Opinion is excited to jealousy and cruel judgment. They know, too, the inability of the best man to defend himself when accused of the meanest crimes, and so they clap their hands and seek on the spotted hounds of slander. Let us ever be slow in believing charges that are calculated to humble the best reputations to the dust, and wrong the most innocent by robbing them of their good name, and opening for them the door into some dungeon of shame!

Joseph may submit to the inevitable, and under the ban of the law, languish in silence, but God has a reckoning to make, and then the Hamans will swing on the gallows, and the Mordecais ride in the royal chariot and dictate to the throne.

Innocent men, however, can best afford to be lied about and wronged, since truth has wonderful powers of coming abroad. So far as the record of Scripture goes, Joseph complains in never a word. Who doubts that by faith he saw his final triumph; and said in his heart of that prison what the three Hebrew children, of a later time, said of the fiery furnace, Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us, and He will deliver us. The innocent and righteous man, and he alone, can employ such words and give to them their weight. I come more and more to think that no enemy can effectually injure him who walks uprightly, loves the truth and obeys God.

Dr. Talmage tells how, some years ago, two professed temperance lecturers speaking in Ohio, and taking the unusual course for that class of men, maligned Christians and preachers. Among other things they claimed to be well acquainted with Dr. Talmage and declared that their former drunkenness began with drinking wine from that clergymans table. Talmage, indignant over such a charge, went to Patrick Campbell, then chief of the Brooklyn police, and requested his company to Ohio to effect the arrest of the libelous orators. Campbell only smiled and said, Do not waste your time by chasing these men. Go home and do your work, and they can do you no harm. The advice was taken, and the falsehood died of weakness, if indeed it was not stillborn. There is not a scandal in the power of the tongue strong enough to blight the life that loves innocence and clings to God. Joseph may be imprisoned and never entertain the thought of breaking jail, and yet there are not doors enough in all the dungeons of Egypt to keep him in the narrow cell. Butlers will need his help, the king will require his wisdom and God will bring him forth. This brings us to a third lesson.

And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Thou shalt he over my house and according unto thy mind shall all my people be ruled, Only in the throne shall I he greater than thou (Gen 41:39-40).

PRISONS WILL NOT HOLD THE MAN FIT TO BE PREMIER.

I know of few things that will so certainly effect recognition as merit. You cant sell into slavery the man who has it. You may set a price on him and be paid it, but you cant enslave him. There was an old colored man who trotted me on his knees the year the Civil War began. He never was a slave. He was always free! He would have been free on the southern plantations where masters rode with revolver in pocket and whip in hand. You cant enslave the man who makes himself needful to you at every turn. You can put him in prison but an hour later you will need him and bring him out again. Darius once had Daniel put into a lions den. But Daniel was still freer than the king. He curled himself up in a corner of that cage and slept, while Gods angel watched with his hand at the hungry mouths. But the king went to his palace and passed the night in fasting, and his sleep went from him, and very early in the morning he made haste to see if the Hebrew was yet alive, without whom the kingdom could not run; and so Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius and in the reign of

Cyrus the Persian. The city authorities at Philippi tried imprisoning Paul and Silas, but next day they came and let them forth and gave them full permission to depart in freedom. You may bind the body of Zedekiah with fetters of brass, and carrying him away to Babylon, imprison him for life; but he, in whom the spirit of Joseph is, must yet rule in the throne.

Moreover he called for a famine upon the land; he brake the whole staff of bread. He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant; whose feet they hurt with fetters; he was laid in iron. Until the time that his word came, the word of the Lord tried him. The king sent and loosed him; even the ruler of the people, and let him go free. He made him lord of his house and ruler of all his substance; to bind his princes at his pleasure and teach his senators wisdom (Psa 105:16-22).

Men are slow at times to discern merit, but even jailbirds will feel its power and witness to its presence. The incidental remarks in Acts, which say of the midnight song of Silas and Paul and the prisoners heard them, is not more significant than the sentence which informs us of Joseph that he was in favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. Let no man flatter himself that he has great virtues but the world is ignorant of them. Goodness is power and will be felt, and the worlds wise men will be discovered, though a very prison seek to both hide and silence them. God knows the nooks of the universe and when there is need of a man he will find the fittest one in some corner and bring him forth.

When Saul has uncrowned himself, there is a shepherd youth known to God upon whom the mantle will fall. When Eli is old and his family are an offense to heaven, there is a boy in the temple trained, though the great outside world has never heard his name. When famine threatens Egypt and the king is unequal to the task of averting it, Joseph is lying in wait, ready to take the place by Divine appointment.

Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley

CRITICAL NOTES.

Gen. 37:3. The son of his old age] He was ninety years old when Joseph was horn. A coat of many colours.] Heb. A tunic of parts. The expression occurs again in 2Sa. 13:18, to describe the garment worn by kings daughters. This was a coat reaching to the hands and feet, worn by persons not much occupied with manual labour, according to the general opinion. It was, we conceive, variegated either by the loom or the needle, and is therefore well rendered , a motley coat. (Murphy.)

Gen. 37:4. And could not speak peaceably unto him.] The meaning is, that they refused to bid him good day, or to greet him with the usual salutation, Peace be with thee.

Gen. 37:9. The eleven stars.] Joseph himself being the twelfth. Knobel concludes from this that the signs of the Zodiac were not unknown to the Israelites.

Gen. 37:11. But his father observed the saying.] Heb. Kept the word, or the matter The word observed, as rendered by the LXX., is very nearly the same word as that used by St. Luke, His mother kept all these things. (St. Luk. 2:19.)

Gen. 37:12. Shechem. It was over fifty miles from Hebron. Jacob had formerly bought a piece of ground there. (Gen. 33:19.)

Gen. 37:14. See whether it be well with thy brethren] Heb. See the peace or the welfare, i.e., Go and see how it fares with thy brethren and the flocks.

Gen. 37:17. Dothan.] A town about twelve miles north of Shechem. It is only mentioned in one other place, 2Ki. 6:13-19.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Gen. 37:1-17

THE COMMENCEMENT OF JOSEPHS HISTORY

The history of Joseph commences at the opening of this chapter, and continues throughout the book. It is important, as showing how the Hebrew spirit came in contact with Egyptian culture and literature. Here we have Joseph brought before us

I. As distinguished by his early piety. Even at this opening of Josephs history we can discover the signs of a high moral and devout tone of character. His brethren were of a different spirit. They were not only undevout, but were ready to commit the vilest wickedness. Joseph saw and heard things, when he was with them in the field, which vexed his righteous soul. He felt the duty laid upon him to bring report of their conversation and behavour to their father. This was not malicious tale-bearing, but the faithful performance of a sense of duty. For, where wickedness is done it ought not to be concealed. Josephs conduct was not back-biting, but a filial confidential report to his father.

1. It showed his love of truth and right. He would not suffer his father to be deceived by a false estimate of the conduct of his sons. He must be made acquainted with the truth, however painful, or be the consequences what they might to all concerned.

2. It showed his unwillingness to be a partaker of other mens sins.

3. It showed a spirit of ready obedience. He knew that a faithful report of the conduct of his brethren was a duty he owed to his father. He had learned filial reverence and obedience. How readily he obeyed his fathers command when he was sent upon that long journey to Shechem. (Gen. 37:14). He entered upon the journey in all the simplicity of his heart, expecting no evil. Joseph was not entirely a spoiled child, kept at home safe from all dangers. His father had a healthy confidence in a son who was accustomed to obey cheerfully. He believed that Joseph had some hardy virtues.

II. As marked out for a great destiny. Joseph relates two of his dreams. There was no difficulty in understanding their meaning. The first showed that his brethren were to be in subjection to him, and the second that he would even have a wider dominionhis father, his mother, and his brethren bowing down before him to the earth. These dreams must be regarded as Divine intimations of his future sovereign greatness, and they were remarkably fulfilled in Egypt twenty-three years afterwards. Though Jacob chided his son for the bold uttering of his dreams, yet we are told that he observed the saying. (Gen. 37:10-11). He had a secret persuasion that those dreams were prophetic. And the hatred of his brethren shows a dreaded suspicion of the same prophetic import. It may not have been a shrewd policy in Joseph boldly to utter and declare these dreams before those with whom they were so intimately concerned. But he was a youth of genuine simplicity and transparency of character. He was openly honest. He had a natural fitness for future distinction and honour, and so the choice of God is justified to men.

III. As the object of envy and hatred.

1. Because of his faithful testimony. He did not join in the company of his brethren. They perceived that there was some alteration in their fathers conduct towards them, and would naturally suspect that his favourite son would be their accuser. So the world hated Jesus, because He testified of it that the works thereof were evil.

2. Because of his fathers partiality. (Gen. 37:4.) There was much in this that was injudicious, but it was not altogether unreasonable. Joseph was the child of the wife most beloved. His disposition was of that kind which naturally wins affection. He was the only one among his brethren who had the fear of God, or knew the duty of a Song of Solomon

3. Because of the distinction for which God had destined him. They envied him the honour which they plainly saw God had intended for him. To take it away from Joseph would not have been of any benefit to them. But such is the spirit of envy which refuses to admire, or have any complacency in that which does not belong to self. How hard it is to submit to the decisions of Providence! That spirit of hatred and envy which his brethren showed towards Joseph was like that of Cain towards Abel, of Esau towards Jacob, of Saul towards David, and of the Scribes and Pharisees towards Our Lord.

SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES

Gen. 37:1. The character of sojourners is common to all the patriarchs. Jacob afterwards claimed and confessed his character as a pilgrim before Pharaoh. They who say such things plainly declare that they seek a country.

The dukes of Edom had habitations in the land of their possessions. (Gen. 36:43). But Jacob, with his father Isaac, were pilgrims in the land of Canaan; content to dwell in tents here that they might dwell with God for ever. Justin Martyr saith of the Christians of his time: They dwell in their own countries but as strangers; have right to all, as citizens; but suffer hardship, as foreigners.(Trapp.)

Gen. 37:2. The unsophisticated child of home is prompt in the disapproval of evil, and frank in the avowal of his feelings. What the evil was we are not informed; but Jacobs full-grown sons were now far away from the paternal eye, and prone, as it seems, to give way to temptation. Many scandals came out to view in the chosen family.(Murphy.)

Joseph only bore tidings to his father of conduct which had already become notorious and of ill-fame.

Gen. 37:3-4. In Gods government there is election, but no favouritism; for God judges by character. But turning to the conduct of Jacob, we find something different. True, Joseph was superior to his brethren, but there was something more; he was the son of the favourite wife and therefore the favourite child. His coat was the badge of his fathers unjust love, and therefore upon it his brethren wreaked their fury.(Robertson.)

I see in him not a clearer type of Christ than of every Christian. Because we are dear to our Father, and complain of sins, therefore we are hated of our carnal brethren. If Joseph had not meddled with his brothers faults, yet he had been envied for his fathers affection; but now malice is met with envy.(Bp. Hall.)

Gen. 37:5-11. Josephs brethren hated him yet the more for his dreams. So the Jews did Jesus for His parables; especially when he spake of his exaltation.(Trapp.)

The simplicity with which Joseph relates his dreams, reminds us of Isaacs nave question on the way to Mount Moriah: but where is the lamb? It stands in beautiful contrast with that moral earnestness which had already, in early age, made him self-reliant in presence of his brethren.(Lange.)

The concealment of our hopes or abilities hath not more modesty than safety. He that was envied for his dearness, and hated for his intelligence, was both envied and hated for his dreams. Surely God meant to make the relation of these dreams a means to effect that which the dreams imported. We men work by likely means; God by contraries. Had it not been for his dreams he had not been sold; if he had not been sold, he had not been exalted. Full little did Josephs brethren think, when they sold him naked to the Ishmaelites, to have once seen him in the throne of Egypt. Gods decree runs on; and, while we either think not of it, or oppose it, is performed.(Bp. Hall.)

Envy is a specially diabolical sin. Through envy of the devil death entered into the world. (Wis. 2:24).

1. It is purely a spiritual sin, it is purely a soul-sin, owing less than any other to the temptations of the flesh. He whose chief delight is in intellectual pleasures, and is free from vulgar appetites, may yet be full of this sin of envy.

2. It is most essentially evil. Almost every other passion has in it some good, or seeming good. Revenge may claim justification from some sense of wrong, and be regarded as of near kin to justice. Anger may throw the blame upon violent passions so easily aroused. Carnal passions of every kind may charge their sins upon the body. But envy is an evil, pure and simple. It needs no body, nor nerves, nor foul desires, but springs up within the soul.
3. Other sins yield some present pleasure, but envy has nothing but torment.

Gen. 37:12-17. He stayed not at Shechem, whither his father sent him; but missing them there, he seeks farther, till he found them. This is true obedience, whether to God or man, when we look not so much to the letter of the law, as to the mind of the lawmaker.(Trapp.)

That dream of Josephs regal sheaf, to which all the rest did homage, was remarkably fulfilled when his brethren came to him in Egypt for corn. They literally bowed down before him for this precious commodity.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

PART FORTY-SIX
THE STORY OF JOSEPH

(Gen. 37:1-36; Gen. 39:1 to Gen. 47:31)

1. The Biblical Story: Joseph as a Youth in Canaan (Gen. 37:1-36).

1 And Jacob dwelt in the land of his fathers sojournings, in the land of Canaan. 2 These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren; and he was a lad with the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his fathers wives: and Joseph brought the evil report of them unto their father. 3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colors. 4 And his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren; and they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him.
5 And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it to his brethren: and they hated him yet the more. 6 And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed: 7 for, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves came round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf. 8 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. 9 And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it to his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed yet a dream; and, behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars made obeisance to me. 10 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? 11 And his brethren envied him; but his father kept the saying in mind.
12 And his brethren went to feed their fathers flock in Shechem. 13 And Israel said unto Joseph, Are not thy brethren feeding the flock in Shechem? come, and I will send thee unto them. And he said to him, Here am I. 14 And he said to him, Go now, see whether it is well with thy brethren, and well with the flock; and bring me word again. So he sent him out of the vale of Hebron, and he came to Shechem. 15 And a certain man found him, and, behold, he was wandering in the field: and the man asked him, saying, What seekest thou? 16 And he said, I am seeking my brethren: tell me, I pray thee, where they are feeding the flock. 17 And the man said, They are departed hence; for 1 heard them say, Let us go to Dothan. And Joseph went after his brethren, and found them in Dothan.
18 And they saw him afar off, and before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to saly him. 19 And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh. 20 Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into one of the pits, and we will say, An evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams. 21 And Reuben heard it, and delivered him out of their hand, and said, Let us not take his life. 22 And Reuben said unto them, Shed no blood; cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, but lay no hand upon him: that he might deliver him out of their hand, to restore him to his father. 23 And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stripped Joseph of his coat, the coat of many colors that was on him; 24 and they took him, and cast him into the pit: and the pit was empty, there was no water in it.
25 And they sat down to eat bread: and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a caravan of Ishmaelites was coming from Gilead, with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt. 26 And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit is it if we slay our brother and conceal his blood? 27 Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother, our flesh. And his brethren hearkened unto him. 28 And there passed by Midianites, merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. And they brought Joseph into Egypt.
29 And Reuben returned unto the pit; and, behold, Joseph was not in the pit; and he rent his clothers. 30 And he returned unto his brethren, and said, The child is not; and I, whither shall I go? 31 And they took Josephs coat, and killed a he-goat, and dipped the coat in the blood; 32 and they sent the coat of many colors, and they brought it to their father, and said, This have we found: know now whether it is thy sons coat or not. 33 And he knew it, and said, It is my sons coat; an evil beast hath devoured him; Joseph is without doubt torn in pieces. 34 And Jacob rent his garments, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days. 35 And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he said, For I will go down to Sheol to my son mourning. And his father wept for him. 36 And the Midianites sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar, and officer of Pharaohs, the captain of the guard.

(1) The Motif of the Joseph-Story is obvious, namely, that of the operation of Divine Providence in relation to human affairs, and in relation especially to all those eminent personages whose lives in any significant way become related to the development of Gods Plan and Redemption, both through His people of the Old Covenant and His people of the New Covenant, the fleshly and spiritual seed of Abraham, respectively (Gal. 3:23-29). With the exception of ch. 38 and ch. 49 the whole of this final section of Genesis is a biography of Joseph. This narrative, unlike what has gone before, proceeds without any visible divine intervention and without any new revelation; it is one long lesson. Providence thwarts mens plots and turns their malice to profit. The lesson is explicit in Gen. 50:20 (cf. Gen. 45:5-8). Betrayed by his brothers, Joseph is rescued by God who makes the betrayal itself serve the divine purpose, for its resultthe arrival of Jacobs sons in Egypt is the first step in the making of a chosen people. This theme of salvation (the survival of a numerous people, Gen. 50:20) runs throughout the whole of the Old Testament to be enriched in the New. Here, as later in the Exodus, we have a preliminary sketch of the Redemption. Not a few details in the narrative bear witness to a precise knowledge of Egyptian affairs and customs as known to us from Egyptian sources (JB, 59).

(2) Joseph the Dreamer: His Brothers Hatred (Gen. 37:1-24). We meet Joseph again as a lad of seventeen years dwelling with his father in the land of the latters sojourning, that is, in the area around Hebron (25:37). It is interesting to note that Jacob, like his father Isaac and his grandfather Abraham, was just sojourning in the Land of Promise. They were still pilgrims (cf. Heb. 11:8-16). They owned nothing except the plot that had been purchased by Abraham for a burial site, the Cave of Machpelah (Gen. 23:17-20). At the beginning of the significant history of Joseph, we find him on his way, at his fathers command, to the place where his brothers were tending their flocks, supposedly near Shechem. However, on arriving at Shechem Jacob learned that the brothers had gone to Dothan, to which place he accordingly followed them. Already Joseph had aroused the hatred and envy of the brothers on three counts (as would be said in legal phraseology): 1. He reported to his father the misconduct (whatever form that took) of the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, Jacobs concubines. We find it difficult to believe that Joseph had any personal prejudices in the matter or even any personal desire to injure these men. We are inclined to think that his motive was good: apparently he had higher ideals than the brothers and felt that his father should know about their delinquencies. Or perhaps it was just childish naivete, on the part of this lad of seventeen. At any rate, the brothers hated him for voluntarily taking upon himself the role of a tale-bearer. However, there are some who would justify his actions, e.g., the following: It is no just charge against Joseph that he brought an evil report of his brethren. Had he carried it out of malice, however true, it had been so far evil; but brought from a desire that parental advice might effect reformation, it was both justifiable and right (SIBG, 273). 2. Jacob loved him more than his other children, and showed his partiality by decking out Joseph in a coat of many colors. A garment of several colors is a mark of honor in all countries, more especially in the East. In Europe every dignitary has its appropriate color and garment, in every profession and employment, civil or military. This was a long outer robe, made of many bright pieces and bright colors. It was expensive, showy, and usually worn only by persons of rank (SIBG, 273). This garment must have been a constant source of irritation to the brothers. It is supposed to have been a long coat (tunic) with sleeves (cf. 2Sa. 13:18), that is, an upper coat reaching to the wrists and ankles, such as noblemen and kings daughters wore. This parental favoritism made Joseph actually hated by his brothers, so much so that they could not speak peaceably unto him, that is, ask him how he was, offer him the customary salutation, Peace be with thee, etc. 3. His dreams of a prophetical character finally tipped the scales. The first dream was that his brothers sheaves all made obeisance to his sheaf; the second, that the sun, moon, and eleven stars (that is to say, his father, mother, and eleven brothers) all bowed down before him, pointing in an unmistakable way to Josephs supremacy: the first to his supremacy over his brethren, the second to his supremacy over the whole house of Israel. The brothers with their ill-will could not see anything in the dreams but the suggestions of his own ambition and pride of heart; and even the father, notwithstanding his partiality, was grieved by the second dream. The dreams are not represented as divine revelations; yet they are not to be regarded as pure flights of fancy from an ambitious heart, but as the presentiments of deep inward feelings, which were not produced without some divine influence being exerted upon Josephs mind, and therefore were of prophetic significance, though they were not inspired directly by God, inasmuch as the purposes of God were still to remain hidden from the eyes of men for the saving good of all concerned (K-D, 335). (Note the allusion, to his mother, Gen. 37:10. Rachel, Josephs mother, was now dead, but the customs of the Jews and of other nations conceded the title of mother to one who was not really a mother, but merely the wife of a father.) These dreams were interpreted by Joseph himself: we can only wonder whether his demeanor in telling them expressed self-righteousness or sheer naivete. Certainly his interpretation indicated his future supremacy over his entire family: the father could well sense that a secret pride and self-satisfaction prompted the telling and administered a deserved rebuke (EG, 960). The father saw what the dream signified: he interpreted the luminaries to mean I and thy mother and thy brethren. The question naturally arises: how can the mother, though dead, make obeisance? The simplest answer is that though she was dead she lived in the memory of this son and the father (EG, 960). We read that Jacob, though reprimanding his son, kept the sons saying in mind (cf. Luk. 2:19; Luk. 2:51). Dreams play a large part in the history of Joseph (cf. ch. 40); however, they are evidently not divine apparitions (as in Gen. 20:3, Gen. 28:12 ff., Gen. 31:11; Gen. 31:24); essentially they are, in Josephs case, of the character of premonitions.

We have been told in Gen. 37:8 that the brothers hated Joseph for his dreams and all the more for his interpretation of them. Now in Gen. 37:11, we read that they envied him. Envied him for what? Envy is now added because this second dream went far beyond the first in its implications. Previously, Josephs supremacy over his brothers had been indicated. Now it is supremacy over the whole family that is suggested. But Jacob, like Mary, Luk. 2:19, bore the thing in mind. Strange things seemed to be foreshadowed by these remarkable dreams. In a measure they coincided with Jacobs own purposes, which he had intimated by the special cloak he had been providing for his favorite son. On the whole the folly of parental partiality is only too effectively portrayed (EG, 960).

(3) The Conspiracy (Gen. 37:18-24). Throughout all this Jacob seems to have been strangely ignorant of the attitude of his other brothers toward Rachels son. Joseph himself seems not to have suspected that their envy was so strong as to turn into the commission of a crime against him. At any rate he went, under his fathers orders, to Shechem but discovered that the brothers had moved on some distance to Dothan, a place fifteen miles north of Shechem, toward the plain of Jezreel. Joseph arrived at his destination only to find out that his brothers hatred had burgeoned into a conspiracy to kill him. We can clearly detect the sheer contempt in their voices when, on seeing the lad approach them, they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh! Immediately they formed the malicious resolution to put this dreamer to death, to throw him into one of the pits (cisterns), and then report to the father that a wild beast had slain him, and in this manner to bring the dreamers dreams and words (Gen. 37:8) to nought.

We might raise the question at this point as to what kind of personality Joseph manifested in these various relationships. We find great difference of opinion. For instance, one writer tells us: The very youthful Joseph must have been exasperating, to say the least. Undisciplined by contact with the world, he was boastful, thoughtless and egotistical. He needed the experience which came to him in order that he should become his noblest self. To be protected in a happy home from everything disagreeable is a pleasant experience, but not one which develops real greatness of character (HH, 43). Some commentators think of Joseph as what we would call a spoiled brat. We might ask, Is it possible to avoid the feeling, from what is said about him, especially in these days of his youth, that he was tainted with a large measure of self-righteousness? Other writers view the young man in a better light. Concerning the evil report which he brought back to his father of the evil doings of the sons of Bilhah and those of Zilpah, Murphy writes: The unsophisticated child of home is prompt in the disapproval of evil and frank in the avowal of his feelings. With reference to Josephs interpretations of his dreams, Murphy writes: His frankness in reciting his dream to his brothers marks a spirit devoid of guile, and only dimly conscious of the import of his nightly visions (MG, 442443). Lange writes: At the age of seventeen Joseph became a shepherd with his brethren. Jacob did not send his favorite son too early to the herds; yet, though the favorite, he was to begin to serve below the rest, as a shepherd-boy. At this age, however, Joseph had great naiveness and simplicity. He therefore imprudently tells his dreams, like an innocent child. On the other hand, however, he was very sedate; he was not enticed, therefore, by the evil example of some of his brethren, but considered it his duty to inform his father. . . . That the sons of the concubines surpassed the others in rude conduct, is easily understood. Josephs moral earnestness is, doubtless, the first stumbling-block to his brethren, whilst it strengthens his father in his good opinion (CDHCG, 583).

At any rate, it was Reuben, who was the eldest son, and therefore specially responsible for his younger brother, opposed this murderous proposal. He dissuaded his brothers from killing Joseph outright, advising them to throw him into a dry pit (cistern) that was near. Naturally, Joseph would inevitably perish in the pit, and so their hatred was satisfied. However, it was Reubens intention to take Joseph out of the pit later and restore him to his father. As soon as Joseph arrived on the scene, they took off his coat of many colors (his coat with sleeves) and threw him into the pit.

(4) Joseph is Sold into Slavery (Gen. 37:25-28). No sooner had the would-be fratricides sat down to eat, after throwing Joseph into the dry cistern, than they espied a company of Ishmaelites from Gilead advancing along the road that traversed the plain of Dothan to the great caravan highway that led from Damascus by way of Megiddo, Ramleh and Gaza into Egypt. The caravan drew near laden with spices, including the balsam for which Gilead was so well-known (Gen. 43:11; Jer. 8:22; Jer. 46:11). Judah seized this opportunity to propose to the brothers that they sell Joseph to these Ishmaelites. Said he, What profit is it if we slay our brother and conceal his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother, our flesh. Lest the victims blood cry to heaven, the murderer covered it with earth (Gen. 4:10, Eze. 24:7) (JB, 61). And the brothers hearkened unto him.

Just what motivated Judah to take this step? Was it for the sum of money that would be their gain in consequence of the transaction? We can hardly think so. As we shall see later, Judahs conduct throughout the entire history of Joseph and his sons was marked by a certain quality of nobility that we cannot overlook. Reuben wished to deliver Joseph entirely from his brothers malice. Judah also wished to save his life, though not from brotherly love so much as from the feeling of horror, which was not quite extinct within him, at incurring the guilt of fratricide; but he would still like to get rid of him, that his dreams might not come true. Judah, like his brethren, was probably afraid that their father might confer upon Joseph the rights of the firstborn, and so make him lord over them. His proposal was a welcome one. When the Arabs passed by, the brethren fetched Joseph out of the pit and sold him to the Ishmaelites, who took him into Egypt (K-D, 337). Then Judah began to use the language of a hypocritical self-interest, says Delitzsch. This, however, seems not at all justified by Judahs after-history. It must be presupposed that Judah was unacquainted with Reubens intention. The brethren were so much excited that Judah alone could not have hoped to rescue Joseph from their hand. The ferocity, especially, of Simeon and Levi, is known to us from former history. Judah, therefore, could not think otherwise than that Joseph must die from hunger in the pit. As in opposition to this, therefore, and not as a counteraction of Reubens attempt at deliverance, is his proposal to be judged. Joseph lived still, though a slave. There was a possibility of his becoming free. He might make his escape by the caravan routes that passed south through his home. Reuben, in his tenderness, had made a subtle attempt to save him. In the bolder policy of Judah we see that subtle attempt crossed by one more daring. No doubt both had some ill-feeling towards Joseph, and were, therefore, not capable of a mutual and open understanding. That both, however, preserved a better conscience than the rest, is evident from the later history. . . . What Joseph says of himself afterwards, that he was stolen out of the land of the Hebrews (Gen. 40:15), does not contradict our narration. Was he to sell to the Egyptians the crime of his brethren? (Lange, 584).

The different names given to the tradersviz., Ishmaelites (Gen. 37:25; Gen. 37:27-28 b), Midianites (Gen. 37:28 a), and Medanites (Gen. 37:36)do not show that the account has been drawn from different legends, but that these tribes were often confounded, from the fact that they resembled one another so closely, not only in their common descent from Abraham (Gen. 16:15 and Gen. 25:2), but also in the similarity of their mode of life and their constant change of abode, that strangers could hardly distinguish them, especially when they appeared not as tribes but as Arabian merchants, such as they are here described as being: Midianites, merchantmen. [Why not say that the names were used interchangeably? For Medanites, see the marginal rendering of Gen. 37:28, ASV.] That descendants of Abraham should already be met with in this capacity is by no means strange, if we consider that 150 years had passed since Ishmaels dismissal from his fathers housea period amply sufficient for his descendants to have grown through marriage into a respectable tribe. The price, twenty (sc. shekels) of silver, was the price which Moses afterwards fixed as the value of a boy between 5 and 20 (Lev. 27:5), the average price of a slave being 30 shekels (Exo. 21:32). But the Ishmaelites naturally wanted to make money by the transaction (K-D, 337). It would not make sense to say in one breath, Let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and then in the same breath without explanation show how he was sold to Midianites, who, by the way, again appear as Ishmaelites before the end of the verse. Incidentally, in Gen. 37:36 a modification of the name Midianites occurs: they are called Medanites, [again see Gen. 25:2]. Nor is the difficulty grave. First of all, Ishmaelites and Midianites have one ancestor, Abraham (Gen. 16:15, Gen. 25:2). Both groups may have been in this caravan. The Ishmaelites may have been the dominant faction, the Midianites the more numerous. In such a case both designations would be suitable. Instead of trying to reconcile a surface discrepancy critics press the different names in the interest of proving that the material of the chapter came from two different sources (Leupold, EG, 969). As to the statement attributed to Joseph in Gen. 40:15 in which he emphatically protested that he was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews, Leupold adds: But would you expect Joseph actually to reveal what his brothers had done to him? That passage would hardly cover the case of the Midianites who are supposed to have drawn him from a well. For to draw an abandoned wretch from a pit and to sell him is hardly theft (EG, 969).

(5) Jacobs Deep Grief (Gen. 37:29-36). The Ishmaelites, having completed the transaction, went on their way. Everything was settled in Reubens absence; it may be that the brothers suspected that he intended to rescue Joseph. When he returned (note this verb: obviously, he had been absent) and found Joseph gone, he rent his clothes (a sign of intense grief on the part of the natural man), and exclaimed The child is not; and I, whither shall I go? That is, How shall I account to his father for his disappearance? The brothers, however, were at no loss about what to do: they dipped the colorfully variegated tunic (which had been an eyesore from the beginning) in the blood of a he-goat and sent it to Jacob, asking him whether it was Josephs garment. (Their revenge thus prepared a cruel shock for the father. Had the father controlled his grief he might have found it suspicions that the cloak was not torn, but only stained with blood). At any rate, everything worked out as scheduled: the father examined the cloak, and recognized it immediately as Josephs. But the murderers were hardly prepared for the intense grief that overwhelmed Jacob. Their cruel device succeeded too well: Jacob was simply inconsolable: alarmed, and probably prompted by a feeling of guilt all his sons and all his daughters sought to comfort him, (Dinah is, of course, his only daughter named in Scripture). But Jacob refused to be comforted! He, too, rent his garments and put sackcloth upon his loins and mourned for his son many days, (Sackcloth was made of goats hair, a coarse texture of a dark color: cf. Isa. 50:3, Rev. 6:12. Wearing sackcloth was another badge of grief among Jews and heathen alike: 2Sa. 3:31; 1Ki. 20:31; 1Ki. 21:27; 1Ch. 21:16; Neh. 9:1; Isa. 37:1-2; Rev. 11:3). Assuming that Josephthe child of his deep and true love, the son of Rachelhad been devoured and destroyed by wild beasts, Jacob gave himself over to bitter, uncontrollable grief, exclaiming, Do not attempt to comfort me, for I will go down to Sheol mourning for my son. How should his sons comfort him, when they were obliged to cover their wickedness with the sin of lying and hypocrisy, and when even Reuben, although at first beside himself at the failure of his plan, had not courage enough to disclose his brothers crime (K-D, 338).

While his father Jacob wept for him, Joseph was taken into Egypt by the Midianites and sold to Potiphar, the commanding officer of the royal bodyguard, the official who executed the capital sentences ordered by the king (corresponding to a similar office among the Chaldeans, cf. 2Ki. 25:8; Jer. 39:9; Jer. 52:12). Joseph, while his father was mourning, was sold by the Midianites to Potiphar, the chief of Pharaohs trabantes, to be first of all brought low, according to the wonderful counsel of God. and then to be exalted as ruler in Egypt, before whom his brothers would bow down, and as the savior of the house of Israel (K-D, 338). Note the word Sheol here: this was the Hebrew counterpart of the Greek and Roman Hades, the gloomy underworld of departed spirits or shades. (The word for the eternal abode of lost souls, in the New Testament, is Gehenna, a name derived from the gorge outside Jerusalem known as Ge-Hinnom, or the Valley of Hinnom, the place where the refuse of the city was constantly burning. It is significant that Jesus used this term, Gehenna (cf. Mat. 5:22; Mat. 5:29-30; Mat. 10:28; Mat. 18:9; Mat. 18:23; Mat. 18:15; Mat. 23:23; Mar. 9:43; Mar. 9:45; Mar. 9:47; Luk. 12:5, Jas. 3:6). (For Sheol in the O.T., see especially Deu. 32:22, 2Sa. 22:6; Job. 11:8; Job. 26:6; Psa. 16:10; Psa. 139:8; Pro. 15:11; Pro. 27:20; Isa. 28:18, Eze. 32:27; Jon. 2:2, Hab. 2:5, etc.). Modern English translations generally use the originals, Sheol in the O.T., and Hades in the N.T. In most cases in the O.T., it simply signifies the grave. It can have no other meaning, apparently, in Gen. 37:35; Gen. 42:38; 1Sa. 2:6; 1Ki. 2:6; Job. 14:13; Job. 17:13; Job. 17:16, and in many passages in the writing of David, Solomon, and the prophets. The darkness and gloom of the grave was such that the word denoting it came to be applied to the abiding place of the miserable. (UBD, s.v.). In some instances, the word surely denotes the opposite of heaven (cf. Job. 11:8, Psa. 139:8, Amo. 9:3). In others it seems to mean strictly the abode of the wicked (as in Psa. 9:17, Pro. 23:14) as distinguished from the righteous. The same general concepts are apparent in the Hades of the New Testament writings. In some cases the term does surely refer to the grave (e.g., Act. 2:31, 1Co. 15:55); in others, to the underworld of punishment beyond the grave (Mat. 11:23; Mat. 16:18; Luk. 10:15; Luk. 16:23; Act. 2:27; Act. 2:31; Rev. 1:18; Rev. 6:8; Rev. 20:13-14). In classical Greek, Hades is indeed the unseen world, taking its name from the god of this world. In Greek mythology the cosmos was divided among three brothers: Zeus ruled over the land, Poseidon over the sea, and Hades over the world beyond death and the grave. (Their Roman counterparts were Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto). In the eleventh chapter of the Odyssey, Homer pictures Odysseus and his crew as plunging into the deep waters of the river Oceanus [which was supposed to encircle the earth], where lie the land and city of the Cimmerians who live enshrouded in mist and darkness, which the rays of the sun never pierce either at his rising or as he goes down again out of the heavens, but the poor wretches live in one long melancholy night. When we got there, we beached the ship, took the sheep out of her, and went along by the waters of Oceanus till we came to the place of which Circe had told us. This place was at the entrance to Hades, the underworld. Odysseus goes on to tell how he ordered his men to dig a trench there, how he prayed sufficiently to the dead, and how he then took the necessary steps to achieve communication with the shades who inhabited this dreary land. He tells the story as follows: I cut the throats of the two sheep and let the blood run into the trench, whereon the ghosts come trooping up from dark Erebusbrides, young bachelors, old men worn out with toil, maids who had been crossed in love, and brave men who had been killed in battle, with their armor still smirched with blood; they came from every quarter and flitted round the trench with a strange kind of screaming sound that made me turn pale with fear. One by one the great heroes and heroines of the Heroic Age came up to the trench; and on drinking of the sacrificial blood, each recovered memory and conversed with Odysseus [the Latin Ulysses] concerning reminiscences of life on earth. The testimony of the shade or ghost of Achilles is perhaps the most significant of all. Said Achilles: Speak not a word in deaths favor. I would rather be a paid servant in a poor mans house and be above ground than king of kings among the dead (Samuel Butler translation). The Butcher-Lang translation here is more meaningful, as follows: Achilles says: Nay, speak not comfortably to me of death, oh great Odysseus. Rather would I live on ground as the hireling of another, with a landless man who had no great livelihood, than bear sway among all the dead that be departed. At the termination of the conversation, Odysseus tells us: So I spake, and the spirit of the son of Aeacus, fleet of foot, passed with great strides along the mead of asphodel, rejoicing in that I had told him of his sons renown. This is the true picture of Hades as envisioned in the early classical worldthe Greek counterpart of the Hebrew Sheol. It was the dark, dank, colorless habitation of the shades of the departed dead, a refuge, one might well say, of eternal melancholy hopelessness. This would indeed be eternal punishment.

T. Lewis makes the following interesting comments on the primitive conception of Sheol. This is the first place in which the word occurs, and it is very important to trace, as far as we can, the earliest conception, or rather emotion, out of which it arose. I will go down to my son mourning to Sheoltowards Sheol, or, on the way to Sheol, the reference being to the decline of life terminating in that unknown state, place, or condition of being, so called. One thing is clear: it was not a state of not-being, if we may use so paradoxical an expression. Jacob was going to his son; he was still his son; there is yet a tie between him and his father; he is still spoken of as a personality; he is still regarded as having a being somehow, and somewhere. Compare 2Sa. 12:23, I am going to him, but he shall not return to me. The him and the me in this case, like the I and the my son in Genesis, are alike personal. In the earliest language, where all is hearty, such use of the pronoun could have been no unmeaning figure. The being of the one who has disappeared is no less real than that of the one who remains still seen, still found, to use the Shemitic term for existence, or out-being, as a known and visible state. . . . It was not to his son in his grave, for Joseph had no grave. His body was supposed to be lying somewhere in the desert, or carried off, by the wild beasts (Gen. 37:33). To resolve it all into figurative expressions for the grave would be simply carrying our meaningless modern rhetoric into ancient forms of speech employed, in their first use, not for the reflex painting, but for the very utterance of emotional conceptions. However indefinite they may be, they are too mournfully real to admit of any such explanations. Looking at it steadily from this primitive standpoint, we are compelled to say, that an undoubting conviction of personal extinction at death, leaving nothing but a dismembered, decomposing body, now belonging to no one, would never have given rise to such language. The mere conception of the grave, as a place of burial, is too narrow for it. It, alone, would have destroyed the idea of its germ, rather than have given origin or expansion to it. The fact, too, that they had a well-known word for the grave, as a confined place of deposit for the body (see Gen. 23:9 for a possession, or property, of the grave) shows that this other name, and this other conception, were not dependent upon it, nor derived from it. . . . There is reference also to the German holle, or the general term of the northern nations (Gothic- Scandinavian, Saxon), denoting hole, or cavity, though this is the very question, whether the northern conception is not a secondary one, connected with that later thought of penal confinement which was never separable from the Saxon hella sense-limitation, in fact, of the more indefinite and more spiritual notion presented primarily by the Greek Hades, and which furnishes the true parallel to the early Hebrew Sheol. . . . That Sheol, in its primary sense, did not mean the grave, and in fact had no etymological association with it, is shown by the fact already mentioned, that there was a distinct word for the latter, of still earlier occurrence in the Scriptures, common in all the Shemitic languages, and presenting the definite primary conception of digging, or excavating. There was no room here for expansion into the greater thought. . . . Had Joseph been lying by the side of his mother in the field near Bethlehem Ephratah, or with Abraham and Sarah, and Isaac and Rebekah, in the cave of Machpelah, or in some Egyptian sarcophagus, embalmed with costliest spices and wrapped in aromatic linen, the idea of his unbroken personality would have been no more vivid, Joseph himself (the very ipse) would have been no nearer, or more real, to the mourning father, than as he thought of his body lying mangled in the wilderness, or borne by rapacious birds to the supposed four corners of the earth. I will go to my son mourning Sheol-wardon the way to the unknown land. . . . This view of Sheol is strongly corroborated by the parallel etymology, and the parallel connection of ideas we find in the origin and use of the Greek Hades. . . . Hades, like Sheol, had its two conceptual stages, first of state, afterwards of locality. To the Greek word, however, there was added a third idea. It came to denote also a power; and so was used for the supposed king of the dead (Iliad, 20:61). This personification appears again in the later Scriptures, 1Co. 15:55, O Hades, where is thy victory? and in Rev. 6:8; Rev. 20:13-14, where Hades becomes limited to Gehenna, and its general power, as keeper of souls, is abolished In Lange, 586, 587).

Again: See a very remarkable passage, Diodorus Siculus, lib. 1, ch. 51, respecting the belief of the very ancient Egyptians: The habitations of the living they call inns, or lodging-places, since we dwell in them so short a time, but those of the dead they style everlasting abodes, as residing in them forever. Why should not Jacob have had the idea as well as these most ancient Egyptians? That his thought was more indefinite, that it had less of circumstance and locality, less imagery every way, than the Greek and Egyptian fancy gave it, only proves its higher purity as a divine hope, a sublime act of faith, rather than a poetical picturing, or a speculative dogma. The less it assumed to know, or even to imagine, showed its stronger trust in the unseen world as an assured reality, but dependent solely for its clearer revelation on the unseen God. The faith was all the stronger, the less the aid it received from the sense or the imagination, It was grounded on the surer rock of the everlasting covenant made with the fathers, though in it not a word was said directly of a future life. The days of the years of my pilgrimage, says Jacob. He was a sojourner upon the earth as his fathers before him. The language has no meaning except as pointing to a home, an eternal habitation, whether in Sheol, or through Sheol, was not known. It was enough that it was a return unto God, his peoples dwelling-place in all generations (Psa. 90:1). It was, in some way, a living unto him, however they might disappear from earth and time; for he is not the God of the dead. His covenant was an assurance of the continued being of those with whom it was made, Because he lived they should live also. Art thou not from everlasting, Jehovah, my God, my Holy One? we shall not (wholly) die. Thou wilt lay us up in Sheol; thou wilt call and we will answer; thou wilt have regard to the work of thy hands. The pure doctrine of a personal God, and a belief in human extinction, have never since been found conjoined. Can we believe it of the lofty theism of the patriarchal age? (T. Lewis, ibid., 587). (Cf. Gen. 47:9, Heb. 11:8 ff., Mat. 22:32, Joh. 14:19, Hab. 1:12, etc. Cf. also Psa. 16:8-10, Act. 2:27 : in these passages the reference is specifically to the redemption of the body, the last phase of redemption, known also as the putting on of immortality (Rom. 8:23; Rom. 1:5-7; Rom. 8:11, Php. 3:20-21, 1Co. 15:35-58; 2Co. 5:1-10 : note here the phrase, that what is mortal may be swallowed up of life, Gen. 37:4).

A final word here, in re. Gen. 37:35 : Jacob will wear the mourners garb till his death, so that in the underworld his son may know how deep his grief has been (Gunkel). The shade was believed to appear in Sheol in the condition in which it left the world (Skinner, ICCG, 449).

After all, Jacobs inconsolable grief was in a sense a just retribution: cf. Gal. 6:7-8. Jacobs experience reflects some fulfilment of the dictum that as a man sows so shall he also reap. Himself a deceiver who stole Esaus blessing and bought his birthright, he is now cruelly deceived by his own sons. Twenty years later the deceiving sons are to experience the anguish of guilty consciences as they see themselves threatened with retribution (Cf. Gen. 42:21) (HSB, 61).

Of the wickedness of Jacobs sons, there is much to be said. Lord, what is man? Behold the sons of Jacob hating a brother who had done them no evil, envying a brother because God portended him good, murdering a brother in purpose, and preparing to break a fathers heart with sorrow. Yet, in the midst of all, they sat down to eat bread! But passion blinds the eyes, hardens the heart, and sears the conscience. The deeds of men differ in comparative enormity; but every heart is desperately wicked till its evil is mortified, Rom. 8:13, and its nature renewed, Rom. 12:2, by the Spirit of God (SIBG, 275).

Imagine Joseph advancing in all the unsuspecting openness of brotherly affection. How astonished and terrified must he have been at the cold reception, the ferocious aspect, the rough usage of his unnatural assailants! A vivid picture of his state of agony and despair was afterwards drawn by themselves (cf. ch. Gen. 42:21). They sat down to eat bread. What a view does this exhibit of those hardened profligates! Their common share in this conspiracy is not the only dismal feature in the story. The rapidity, the almost instantaneous manner in which the proposal was followed by their joint resolution, and the cool indifference, or rather the fiendish satisfaction, with which they sat down to regale themselves, is astonishing; it is impossible that mere envy at his dreams, his gaudy dress, or the doting partiality of their common father, could have goaded them on to such a pitch of frenzied resentment, or confirmed them in such consummate wickedness. Their hatred of Joseph must have had a far deeper seatmust have been produced by dislike of his piety and other excellences, which made his character and conduct a constant censure upon theirs, and on account of which they found they could never be at ease till they had rid themselves of his hated presence. This was the true solution of the mystery, just as it was in the case of Cain (1Jn. 3:12) (Jamieson, CECG, 232). How true it is always that evil hates true piety and becomes enraged in the very presence of it.

FOR MEDITATION AND SERMONIZING

Analogies: Joseph and Christ

(Gen. 37:1-28)

We often wonder why incidents occurred as they did in the lives of the patriarchs; why the ark was builded by Noah, of gopher wood throughout, three stories high, with one door, and with one window in the top; why Isaac was born out of due season, figuratively offered and resurrected on Moriah; why Jacob went into a far country and labored for his bride; why Joseph was hated of his brethren and sold into Egyptian slavery; and so on. But when we find the answer in the fact that God, in these various happenings, was setting up types of Christ and the Church; and that the minutest of details often had a typical significance, we exclaim with Paul. O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!, Rom. 11:33-36. We will find many typical references, in the life of Joseph, to the life of Christ.

1.

Joseph was much beloved by his father, Gen. 37:3-4.

1.

Jesus was the beloved Son of the Heavenly Father, Mat. 3:17; Mat. 17:5, 2Pe. 1:17-18, Joh. 3:16. This is brought out by the intimate relationship between the Father and Son, Joh. 10:29-30; Joh. 17:1-5.

2.

Joseph was sent unto his brethren, who hated and rejected him, Gen. 37:12-22, Gen. 37:4.

2.

Jesus was sent unto His people, but was hated, and rejected by them, Mat. 10:5-7, Joh. 1:10-11, Mat. 23:37-39, Act. 2:33-36; Act. 4:11.

3.

Sold to the enemy for twenty pieces of silver, Gen. 37:23-28, by his brethren.

3.

Sold by one of His apostles, to his enemies, for thirty pieces of silver, Zec. 11:13, Mat. 26:14-15; Mat. 26:47-49; Mat. 27:3-5.

4.

Joseph wore a coat of many colors. After his betrayal, this coat was dipped in the blood of a kid, and returned to his father, Gen. 37:31-35.

4.

Jesus bore the sins of many upon His own body, upon the tree, Heb. 9:28, 1Pe. 2:21-24. On Calvary, the sins of many were dipped in His own precious blood, or whatever was lost by the first Adam was unconditionally regained by the second, Rom. 3:24-25, Gen. 37:18, 1Jn. 1:7; 1Jn. 2:2, Heb. 10:11-12. We meet this blood in the grave of water, Joh. 19:34, Eph. 5:26, Tit. 3:5. The outward washing of the body in water is a figure of the inward cleansing of the soul by His blood according to divine appointment, Mar. 16:16, Act. 2:38.

5.

Joseph was condemned and numbered among transgressors for no sin of his own, Genesis 39. His humiliation.

5.

Jesus was condemned with two malefactors of the civil law, although without personal sin, Isa. 53:12, Mar. 15:25-28, Joh. 8:46, Heb. 4:15; Heb. 7:26-28, 1Pe. 2:22, 1Jn. 3:5. A man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, Isa. 53:1-5, Luk. 22:44, Joh. 11:33-35, Heb. 2:10.

6.

Joseph raised from his humiliation to exaltation, to a position of great advantage to his people, Gen. 41:41, especially Gen. 45:4-8.

6.

Christ rose in his exaltation to the right hand of His Majesty on high, where He is today, acting as our Great High Priest, the Mediator between His people and the Father, Act. 2:36, Php. 2:5-11, Heb. 1:1-4; Heb. 8:1-2; Heb. 4:14-16, Rev. 19:16.

At this point, the typical relationship between Joseph and Christ is apparently lost. We can see the hand of God in the life story of Joseph. The Messianic hope, indeed the worlds salvation, was tied up in the children of Israel, the chosen people of God. And at this time a famine drove Jacob and his sons into Egypt until such time as they were able to reoccupy their land. How clearly the divine hand is seen in making possible Josephs exaltation, that his brethren might not perish, and his people might not be exterminated!

Again, there is something beautifully suggestive of the spirit of Christ in Josephs forgiveness of his brethren, and their subsequent reconciliation! Although, in envy and hate, they had sold him into slavery, he lived to comfort them in Gods providence. Said he to them, God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance, Gen. 14:7. Does not this breathe the spirit of Him who prayed, even for His enemies who were crucifying him in jealous rage, Father, forgive them, they know not what they do? Luk. 23:34. From the Cross, O sinner, He pleads with you to come and be washed in His own precious blood.

REVIEW QUESTIONS

See Gen. 41:46 to Gen. 47:31.

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

XXXVII.

(1) And Jacob . . . This verse is not the beginning of a new section, but the conclusion of the Tldth Esau. In Gen. 36:6, we read that Esau went into a land away from Jacob. Upon this follows in Gen. 37:8, And Esau dwelt in Mount Seir; and now the necessary information concerning the other brother is given to us, And Jacob dwelt in the land . . . of Canaan. In the Hebrew the conjunctions are the same.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

1. In the land wherein his father was a stranger Rather, in the land of the sojournings of his father . This verse serves to acquaint us with the location of Jacob at this period of his history . It marks the transition between the generations of Esau and Jacob . Esau had now departed (according to Gen 36:6) to the land which was to become known as the land of Edom, and Jacob is recognised as the true successor in the inheritance of his father .

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘And Jacob dwelt in the land of his father’s sojournings, in the land of Canaan.’

In contrast with Esau Jacob remains in the promised land. This is the crucially important statement that keeps Jacob firmly established as the inheritor of the promises. He remains where God purposes are being outworked.

This verse could well in the original tablet have immediately followed Gen 35:29 with Genesis 36 inserted by the compiler to explain what happened to Esau before carrying on the Jacob story. Alternately it could be the conclusion to Genesis 36, for it is of similar import to Gen 36:8. This would then make the chapter part of ‘the family history of Jacob’ (Gen 37:2 a). Jacob may well have been responsible for the tablet that recorded the Esau story as the elder brother and head of the family once Esau had died, just as Esau could have been responsible for the tablet that told the Jacob story (Gen 36:1) because he was the elder brother and head of the family at the time. But the important fact as far as we are concerned is the fact that colophons to tablets are indicated.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

God’s Divine Call to Jacob (Joseph’s Dreams) – Gen 11:27 to Gen 50:26 will place emphasis upon the second phase of God’s plan of redemption for mankind. His divine calling for mankind to fulfill His purpose of multiplying and filling the earth with righteousness. God will implement phase two of His divine plan of redemption by calling one man named Abraham to depart unto the Promised Land (Gen 12:1-3), and this calling was fulfilled by this first patriarch. Isaac’s calling can also be found at the beginning of his genealogy, where God commands him to dwell in the Promised Land (Gen 26:1-6), and this calling was fulfilled by the patriarch Isaac. Jacob’s calling was fulfilled as he bore twelve sons and took them into Egypt where they multiplied into a nation. The opening passage of Jacob’s genealogy reveals that his destiny would be fulfilled through the dream of his son Joseph (Gen 37:1-11), which took place in the land of Egypt. Perhaps Jacob did not receive such a clear calling as Abraham and Isaac because his early life was one of deceit, rather than of righteousness obedience to God; so the Lord had to reveal His plan for Jacob through his righteous son Joseph. In a similar way, God spoke to righteous kings of Israel, and was silent to those who did not serve Him. Thus, the three patriarchs of Israel received a divine calling, which they fulfilled in order for the nation of Israel to become established in the land of Egypt. Perhaps the reason the Lord sent the Jacob and the seventy souls into Egypt to multiply rather than leaving them in the Promised Land is that the Israelites would have intermarried with the cultic nations around them and failed to produce a nation of righteousness. God’s ways are always perfect.

Joseph’s Two Dreams – Joseph dreamed two dreams about the same event. The Lord speaks in multiple dreams to me when He wants to reveal something very important. This is because a matter is confirmed in the mouth of two or three witnesses (2Co 13:1). The first dream involved Joseph and his eleven brothers. He saw twelve sheaves. This dream was told to his eleven brothers. The second dream added Joseph’s father and mother. This dream was told to his eleven brothers as well as his father.

2Co 13:1, “This is the third time I am coming to you. In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.”

This dream was fulfilled in Gen 42:6, where Joseph first meets his brothers in Egypt.

Gen 42:6, “And Joseph was the governor over the land, and he it was that sold to all the people of the land: and Joseph’s brethren came, and bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the earth .”

These two dreams revealed Joseph’s destiny, which was to rule over Egypt and his family as their redeemer.

Gen 37:3 “and he made him a coat of many colours” Word Study on “a coat” Strong says the Hebrew word “coat” ( ) (H3801) literally means, “a shirt.” The Enhanced Strong says this Hebrew word is used 29 times in the Old Testament, being translated in the KJV as “coat 23, garment 5, robe 1.”

Word Study on “of (many) colors” Gesenius says the Hebrew word “colors” ( ) (H6446) properly means, “extremity,” and that it refers to “a tunic extending to the wrists and ankles, a long tunic with sleeves, worn by boys and girls of nobler rank.” Strong says it properly means, “the palm (of the hand) or sole (of the foot),” but refers to “a long and sleeved tunic,” or a “wide one,” because of its original root word meaning, “of many breaths.” Strong says it comes from the primitive root ( ) (H6461), which means, “to disperse, i.e., to disappear, cease.” HALOT says it means, “palm of the hand.” This word is used five times in the Old Testament, being translated in the KJV each tim as “of many colors.” ( Gen 37:3; Gen 37:23; Gen 37:32, 2 Samuel 13; 2 Samuel 18, 19) It is used to describe the beautiful garments of Joseph and Tamar.

Comments – The Hebrew meaning of the phrase “coat of many colors” suggests that this garment was not literally a multi-colored coat, but a tunic that reached down to his hands and feet. In this culture, it was a garment worn by wealthy people, by princes and person of nobility. Smith tells us that ancient Egyptian pictures depict the people of Palestine and Syria wearing long, linen dresses, partly colored, generally with a stripe around the skirts and on the borders of the sleeves. [247] In East Africa, it is not uncommon for an elderly man to wear just such a long, white tunic as a sign of nobility or respect.

[247] Reginald S. Poole, “Joseph,” in Dr. William Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, vol. 2, ed. H. B. Hackett and Ezra Abbot (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1889), 1463.

Psa 45:14, “In many-colored robes she is led to the king, with her virgin companions following behind her.” ( ESV)

Comments – This coat of many colors that Jacob made for his son Joseph not only revealed his favour towards his son Joseph, but it sent a message that Joseph would be heir of Jacob’s blessings and possessions. Remember how Abraham sent away all of his children and kept Isaac as the sole heir. The brothers of Jacob probably felt that this was the message behind this beautiful tunic.

Comments – The garments of Joseph will play an important role in the life of this servant. He will remove the garments of a youth and put on a coat of many colors, which symbolizes a prince. When this garment is taken from him by his brothers, he will put on the garments of a slave. Then these garments will be taken from him by Potiphar’s wife and he will put on the garments of a prisoner. Finally, he will be clothed with the garments of the Prime Minister of Egypt. Each time his garments were taken he had to forgive and forget. He did not long for the past, but looked to God to make a way for him in the future. Eventually, he realized that each time it was divine providence that caused his garments to be changed, and he became content wearing the garments and the ministry that God had placed him into.

Gen 37:4 Comments – The story of Joseph and his brothers serves as an excellent illustration of jealousy in human nature.

Gen 37:7 Comments – In Gen 37:7 Joseph tells of his dream about sheaves of wheat. Note that as head of Egypt years later Joseph gathered wheat for the world, and his brothers would one day bow down over the issue of wheat.

Gen 37:9 Comments – We know that God spoke to Abraham and compared his seed to the stars in heaven for multitude. So, on two occasions in the Scriptures the stars serve to symbolize people.

Gen 37:11 Comments – Gen 37:11 illustrates two different reactions to Joseph’s two dreams. This reveals their hearts. His brothers envied him. Jacob pondered these things in his heart as Mary, Jesus’ mother, did on many occasions.

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Ten Genealogies (Calling) – The Genealogies of Righteous Men and their Divine Callings (To Be Fruitful and Multiply) – The ten genealogies found within the book of Genesis are structured in a way that traces the seed of righteousness from Adam to Noah to Shem to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob and the seventy souls that followed him down into Egypt. The book of Genesis closes with the story of the preservation of these seventy souls, leading us into the book of Exodus where we see the creation of the nation of Israel while in Egyptian bondage, which nation of righteousness God will use to be a witness to all nations on earth in His plan of redemption. Thus, we see how the book of Genesis concludes with the origin of the nation of Israel while its first eleven chapters reveal that the God of Israel is in fact that God of all nations and all creation.

The genealogies of the six righteous men in Genesis (Adam, Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob) are the emphasis in this first book of the Old Testament, with each of their narrative stories opening with a divine commission from God to these men, and closing with the fulfillment of prophetic words concerning the divine commissions. This structure suggests that the author of the book of Genesis wrote under the office of the prophet in that a prophecy is given and fulfilled within each of the genealogies of these six primary patriarchs. Furthermore, all the books of the Old Testament were written by men of God who moved in the office of the prophet, which includes the book of Genesis. We find a reference to the fulfillment of these divine commissions by the patriarchs in Heb 11:1-40. The underlying theme of the Holy Scriptures is God’s plan of redemption for mankind. Thus, the book of Genesis places emphasis upon these men of righteousness because of the role that they play in this divine plan as they fulfilled their divine commissions. This explains why the genealogies of Ishmael (Gen 25:12-18) and of Esau (Gen 36:1-43) are relatively brief, because God does not discuss the destinies of these two men in the book of Genesis. These two men were not men of righteousness, for they missed their destinies because of sin. Ishmael persecuted Isaac and Esau sold his birthright. However, it helps us to understand that God has blessed Ishmael and Esau because of Abraham although the seed of the Messiah and our redemption does not pass through their lineage. Prophecies were given to Ishmael and Esau by their fathers, and their genealogies testify to the fulfillment of these prophecies. There were six righteous men did fulfill their destinies in order to preserve a righteous seed so that God could create a righteous nation from the fruit of their loins. Illustration As a young schoolchild learning to read, I would check out biographies of famous men from the library, take them home and read them as a part of class assignments. The lives of these men stirred me up and placed a desire within me to accomplish something great for mankind as did these men. In like manner, the patriarchs of the genealogies in Genesis are designed to stir up our faith in God and encourage us to walk in their footsteps in obedience to God.

The first five genealogies in the book of Genesis bring redemptive history to the place of identifying seventy nations listed in the Table of Nations. The next five genealogies focus upon the origin of the nation of Israel and its patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

There is much more history and events that took place surrounding these individuals emphasized in the book of Genesis, which can be found in other ancient Jewish writings, such as The Book of Jubilees. However, the Holy Scriptures and the book of Genesis focus upon the particular events that shaped God’s plan of redemption through the procreation of men of righteousness. Thus, it was unnecessary to include many of these historical events that were irrelevant to God’s plan of redemption.

In addition, if we see that the ten genealogies contained within the book of Genesis show to us the seed of righteousness that God has preserved in order to fulfill His promise that the “seed of woman” would bruise the serpent’s head in Gen 3:15, then we must understand that each of these men of righteousness had a particular calling, destiny, and purpose for their lives. We can find within each of these genealogies the destiny of each of these men of God, for each one of them fulfilled their destiny. These individual destinies are mentioned at the beginning of each of their genealogies.

It is important for us to search these passages of Scripture and learn how each of these men fulfilled their destiny in order that we can better understand that God has a destiny and a purpose for each of His children as He continues to work out His divine plan of redemption among the children of men. This means that He has a destiny for you and me. Thus, these stories will show us how other men fulfilled their destinies and help us learn how to fulfill our destiny. The fact that there are ten callings in the book of Genesis, and since the number “10” represents the concept of countless, many, or numerous, we should understand that God calls out men in each subsequent generation until God’s plan of redemption is complete.

We can even examine the meanings of each of their names in order to determine their destiny, which was determined for them from a child. Adam’s name means “ruddy, i.e. a human being” ( Strong), for it was his destiny to begin the human race. Noah’s name means, “rest” ( Strong). His destiny was to build the ark and save a remnant of mankind so that God could restore peace and rest to the fallen human race. God changed Abram’s name to Abraham, meaning, “father of a multitude” ( Strong), because his destiny was to live in the land of Canaan and believe God for a son of promise so that his seed would become fruitful and multiply and take dominion over the earth. Isaac’s name means, “laughter” ( Strong) because he was the child of promise. His destiny was to father two nations, believing that the elder would serve the younger. Isaac overcame the obstacles that hindered the possession of the land, such as barrenness and the threat of his enemies in order to father two nations, Israel and Esau. Jacob’s name was changed to Israel, which means “he will rule as God” ( Strong), because of his ability to prevail over his brother Esau and receive his father’s blessings, and because he prevailed over the angel in order to preserve his posterity, which was the procreation of twelve sons who later multiplied into the twelve tribes of Israel. Thus, his ability to prevail against all odds and father twelve righteous seeds earned him his name as one who prevailed with God’s plan of being fruitful and multiplying seeds of righteousness.

In order for God’s plan to be fulfilled in each of the lives of these patriarchs, they were commanded to be fruitful and multiply. It was God’s plan that the fruit of each man was to be a godly seed, a seed of righteousness. It was because of the Fall that unrighteous seed was produced. This ungodly offspring was not then nor is it today God’s plan for mankind.

Outline Here is a proposed outline:

1. The Generation of the Heavens and the Earth Gen 2:4 to Gen 4:26

a) The Creation of Man Gen 2:4-25

b) The Fall Gen 3:1-24

c) Cain and Abel Gen 4:1-26

2. The Generation of Adam Gen 5:1 to Gen 6:8

3. The Generation of Noah Gen 6:9 to Gen 9:29

4. The Generation of the Sons of Noah Gen 10:1 to Gen 11:9

5. The Generation of Shem Gen 11:10-26

6. The Generation of Terah (& Abraham) Gen 11:27 to Gen 25:11

7. The Generation Ishmael Gen 25:12-18

8. The Generation of Isaac Gen 25:19 to Gen 35:29

9. The Generation of Esau Gen 36:1-43

10. The Generation of Jacob Gen 37:1 to Gen 50:26

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

The Calling of the Patriarchs of Israel We can find two major divisions within the book of Genesis that reveal God’s foreknowledge in designing a plan of redemption to establish a righteous people upon earth. Paul reveals this four-fold plan in Rom 8:29-30: predestination, calling, justification, and glorification.

Rom 8:29-30, “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.”

The book of Genesis will reflect the first two phase of redemption, which are predestination and calling. We find in the first division in Gen 1:1 to Gen 2:3 emphasizing predestination. The Creation Story gives us God’s predestined plan for mankind, which is to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth with righteous offspring. The second major division is found in Gen 2:4 to Gen 50:25, which gives us ten genealogies, in which God calls men of righteousness to play a role in His divine plan of redemption.

The foundational theme of Gen 2:4 to Gen 11:26 is the divine calling for mankind to be fruitful and multiply, which commission was given to Adam prior to the Flood (Gen 1:28-29), and to Noah after the Flood (Gen 9:1). The establishment of the seventy nations prepares us for the calling out of Abraham and his sons, which story fills the rest of the book of Genesis. Thus, God’s calling through His divine foreknowledge (Gen 11:27 to Gen 50:26) will focus the calling of Abraham and his descendants to establish the nation of Israel. God will call the patriarchs to fulfill the original purpose and intent of creation, which is to multiply into a righteous nation, for which mankind was originally predestined to fulfill.

The generations of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob take up a large portion of the book of Genesis. These genealogies have a common structure in that they all begin with God revealing Himself to a patriarch and giving him a divine commission, and they close with God fulfilling His promise to each of them because of their faith in His promise. God promised Abraham a son through Sarah his wife that would multiply into a nation, and Abraham demonstrated his faith in this promise on Mount Moriah. God promised Isaac two sons, with the younger receiving the first-born blessing, and this was fulfilled when Jacob deceived his father and received the blessing above his brother Esau. Jacob’s son Joseph received two dreams of ruling over his brothers, and Jacob testified to his faith in this promise by following Joseph into the land of Egypt. Thus, these three genealogies emphasize God’s call and commission to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their response of faith in seeing God fulfill His word to each of them.

1. The Generations of Terah (& Abraham) Gen 11:27 to Gen 25:11

2. The Generations Ishmael Gen 25:12-18

3. The Generations of Isaac Gen 25:19 to Gen 35:29

4. The Generations of Esau Gen 36:1-43

5. The Generations of Jacob Gen 37:1 to Gen 50:26

The Origin of the Nation of Israel After Gen 1:1 to Gen 9:29 takes us through the origin of the heavens and the earth as we know them today, and Gen 10:1 to Gen 11:26 explains the origin of the seventy nations (Gen 10:1 to Gen 11:26), we see that the rest of the book of Genesis focuses upon the origin of the nation of Israel (Gen 11:27 to Gen 50:26). Thus, each of these major divisions serves as a foundation upon which the next division is built.

Paul the apostle reveals the four phases of God the Father’s plan of redemption for mankind through His divine foreknowledge of all things in Rom 8:29-30, “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.” Predestination – Gen 1:1 to Gen 11:26 emphasizes the theme of God the Father’s predestined purpose of the earth, which was to serve mankind, and of mankind, which was to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth with righteousness. Calling – Gen 11:27 to Gen 50:26 will place emphasis upon the second phase of God’s plan of redemption for mankind, which is His divine calling to fulfill His purpose of multiplying and filling the earth with righteousness. (The additional two phases of Justification and Glorification will unfold within the rest of the books of the Pentateuch.) This second section of Genesis can be divided into five genealogies. The three genealogies of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob begin with a divine calling to a patriarch. The two shorter genealogies of Ishmael and Esau are given simply because they inherit a measure of divine blessings as descendants of Abraham, but they will not play a central role in God’s redemptive plan for mankind. God will implement phase two of His divine plan of redemption by calling one man named Abraham to depart unto the Promised Land (Gen 12:1-3), and this calling was fulfilled by the patriarch. Isaac’s calling can also be found at the beginning of his genealogy, where God commands him to dwell in the Promised Land (Gen 26:1-6), and this calling was fulfilled by the patriarch Isaac. Jacob’s calling was fulfilled as he bore twelve sons and took them into Egypt where they multiplied into a nation. The opening passage of Jacob’s genealogy reveals that his destiny would be fulfilled through the dream of his son Joseph (Gen 37:1-11), which took place in the land of Egypt. Perhaps Jacob did not receive such a clear calling as Abraham and Isaac because his early life was one of deceit, rather than of righteousness obedience to God; so the Lord had to reveal His plan for Jacob through his righteous son Joseph. In a similar way, God spoke to righteous kings of Israel, and was silent to those who did not serve Him. Thus, the three patriarchs of Israel received a divine calling, which they fulfilled in order for the nation of Israel to become established in the land of Egypt. Perhaps the reason the Lord sent the Jacob and the seventy souls into Egypt to multiply rather than leaving them in the Promised Land is that the Israelites would have intermarried the cultic nations around them and failed to produce a nation of righteousness. God’s ways are always perfect.

1. The Generations of Terah (& Abraham) Gen 11:27 to Gen 25:11

2. The Generations Ishmael Gen 25:12-18

3. The Generations of Isaac Gen 25:19 to Gen 35:29

4. The Generations of Esau Gen 36:1-43

5. The Generations of Jacob Gen 37:1 to Gen 50:26

Divine Miracles It is important to note that up until now the Scriptures record no miracles in the lives of men. Thus, we will observe that divine miracles begin with Abraham and the children of Israel. Testimonies reveal today that the Jews are still recipients of God’s miracles as He divinely intervenes in this nation to fulfill His purpose and plan for His people. Yes, God is working miracles through His New Testament Church, but miracles had their beginning with the nation of Israel.

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

The Genealogy of Jacob The genealogies of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have a common structure in that they open with God speaking to a patriarch and giving him a commission and a promise in which to believe. In each of these genealogies, the patriarch’s calling is to believe God’s promise, while this passage of Scripture serves as a witness to God’s faithfulness in fulfilling each promise. Only then does the genealogy come to a close.

Gen 37:1 to Gen 50:26 gives the account of the genealogy of Jacob, Isaac’s son. Heb 11:21-22 reveals the central message in this genealogy that stirs our faith in God when Jacob and Joseph gave redemptive prophecies, saying, “By faith Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff. By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel; and gave commandment concerning his bones.” As Abraham’s genealogy begins with a divine commission when God told him to leave Ur and to go Canaan (Gen 12:1), and Isaac’s genealogy begin with a divine commission predicting him as the father of two nations (Gen 25:23), so does Jacob’s genealogy begin with a divine encounter in the form of his son Joseph’s two dreams. These dreams make it clear that Jacob’s divine commission was to bring his clan of seventy souls into Egypt through Joseph for four hundred years while the people multiply into the nation of Israel. This genealogy closes with the fulfillment of Joseph’s dreams. Jacob’s name was changed to Israel, which means “prince of God,” because his destiny was to father a multitude of godly seed. He fathered the twelve sons, or “princes,” who multiplied into the twelve tribes of Israel. His ability to father twelve righteous seeds earned him his name as a prince of God, as a man who ruled over a multitude of godly seed. The Scriptures testify to Jacob’s faith in God’s promise that Joseph would rule over his brethren by the fact that he followed his son into Egypt (Gen 49:22-26), and he blessed the two sons of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh (Heb 11:21-22). The fact that Jacob died in a ripe old age testifies that he fulfilled his destiny as did his fathers, Abraham and Isaac.

The Story of Joseph The last story in the origin of the nation of Israel that is recorded in the book of Genesis is the story of Joseph. Perhaps there is no other Old Testament story so moving as when he reveals himself to his brothers. There are many truths that are taught to us in this great Bible story. We learn that if we will serve the Lord amidst persecutions, God will always bring someone into our lives to bless us. Joseph had the favour and blessings of his father as a young man in the midst of his brothers’ persecutions. He then had the blessings of Potipher as a young man in Egypt. He found the favour of Pharaoh as an adult.

God gave Jeremiah some friends who stood by him and blessed him during the most difficult times in his ministry. God gave Daniel three friends in his Babylonian captivity. God gave to Paul men like Timothy and Luke to stand by him during times of persecution and even imprisonment. But for Joseph, he often stood alone, totally trusting in God.

The Chronology of the Life of Joseph – Jacob was one hundred thirty (130) years old when he went to Egypt.

Gen 47:9, “And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.”

Jacob died at the age of 147.

Gen 47:28, “And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years: so the whole age of Jacob was an hundred forty and seven years.”

Joseph became ruler in Egypt at the age of 30.

Gen 41:46, “And Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh, and went throughout all the land of Egypt.”

Joseph had two sons by the age of 37.

Gen 41:50, “And unto Joseph were born two sons before the years of famine came, which Asenath the daughter of Potipherah priest of On bare unto him.”

Joseph was 39 when his family comes to Egypt.

Gen 45:11, “And there will I nourish thee; for yet there are five years of famine; lest thou, and thy household, and all that thou hast, come to poverty.”

Therefore, Jacob was 91 when Joseph was born.

Also, Joseph died at the age of 110 (Gen 50:22; Gen 50:26)

Gen 50:22, “And Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he, and his father’s house: and Joseph lived an hundred and ten years.”

Gen 50:26, “So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.”

Joseph as a Type and Figure of Christ Jesus In many ways we can see Joseph as a type and figure of the Lord Jesus Christ. Note some comparisons:

1. Joseph was Jacob’s beloved son, just as Jesus was the Heavenly Father’s beloved son.

Mat 3:17, “And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

2. Joseph was given a coat of many colours, which was similar to the seamless robe worn by Jesus Christ, of which the Roman soldiers cast lots (Joh 19:23-24).

Joh 19:23-24, “Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also his coat: now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said therefore among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be: that the scripture might be fulfilled, which saith, They parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture they did cast lots. These things therefore the soldiers did.”

3. Joseph took bread to his brothers, just like Jesus was sent as the bread of life to His people.

Mat 15:24-26, “But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.”

4. Joseph was rejected by his brothers like Jesus was rejected by His people, the Jews.

5. Joseph was thrown in the pit in Gen 37:24. This is like Jesus’ death on the cross (Psa 16:10)

Gen 37:24, “And they took him, and cast him into a pit: and the pit was empty, there was no water in it.”

Psa 16:10, “For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.”

6. When Joseph was betrayed by his brethren and sold as a servant. Jesus was betrayed by Judas Iscariot for thirty pieces of sliver.

7. Joseph became a servant in the house of Potiphar, just like Jesus Christ took form of a servant (Php 2:7) and (Psa 105:17).

Gen 37:36, “And the Midianites sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh’s, and captain of the guard.”

Gen 39:1, “And Joseph was brought down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him of the hands of the Ishmeelites, which had brought him down thither.”

Psa 105:17, “He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant:”

Php 2:7, “But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:”

8. Joseph was sent to Egypt to deliver the house of Jacob (Israel) (Gen 45:7-8) like Jesus was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel to deliver them.

Gen 45:7-8, “And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.”

Mat 15:24, “But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

9. Joseph was lifted up by Potiphar, then brought down into prison, then raised up by Pharaoh at his right hand. This is like Jesus being brought down to the grave, and then being raised to the right hand of the Father.

10. Joseph was exalted as ruler under Pharaoh, like Christians at the right hand of the Father in heaven today.

11. Some scholars suggest that Joseph’s marriage to the Egyptian is a type of Christ’s marriage to the church (especially to the Gentile church). He had two sons, which symbolizes the salvation of the Gentiles as well as the Jews.

12. Joseph’s brothers bowed down to Joseph during the famine (Gen 42:6) like Israel will bow down to Jesus one day (Rom 11:26). Israel shall be saved through the Deliverer.

Gen 42:6, “And Joseph was the governor over the land, and he it was that sold to all the people of the land: and Joseph’s brethren came, and bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the earth.”

Rom 11:26, “And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:”

13. Joseph revealed himself to his brothers on their third trip to Egypt. The ten brothers finally coming to Joseph and recognising him and receiving an inheritance is like Israel turning to and recognising Jesus and all being saved.

Rom 11:26, “And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:”

Jesus will reveal Himself to the Jews after the Church is raptured at His Second Return, thus, a third return.

14. All nations came and bowed down to Joseph, as all nations will someday come and bow down at the throne of the Lord Jesus.

15. Joseph was ruler over Egypt and the whole world, just as Jesus will reign in Zion as king of kings over the earth.

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Joseph Hated by his Brothers

v. 1. And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan. He had now entered upon the inheritance of his father, he was the bearer of the patriarchal blessing; although a stranger in the land of Canaan, he knew that eventually the entire country would belong to his children.

v. 2. These are the generations of Jacob; the remainder of the book is devoted to the history of Jacob and his family. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren; having reached this age, he was considered strong enough to serve, with the rest, as a shepherd-boy. And the lad was with the sons of Bilhah and with the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives, since the sons of his mother’s hand-maid and those of Leah’s servant stood nearer to him than the sons of Leah. And Joseph brought unto his father their evil report. He was not an idle, conceited tale-bearer, but he did his duty in informing his father when, evil reports concerning his brothers became persistent, when they had given offense to him and to others by their wickedness.

v. 3. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age. With the exception of Benjamin, who was then still in his infancy, Joseph had been his last son, and Rachel’s son at that. And he made him a coat of many colors, a fine tunic, or mantel-like garment, with long sleeves, such as was worn by rich people and members of the nobility.

v. 4. 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. They believed that Jacob’s preference for Joseph indicated that the right of the first-born was to be conferred upon him. As a result, their envy and hatred grew to the point that they were no longer able to greet him kindly nor to talk with him frankly and peaceably. Envy very often grows into hatred and results in manifold sins.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

10. THE GENERATIONS OF ESAU (CH. 36:1-37:1).

EXPOSITION

Gen 36:1

Now these are the generations (cf. Gen 2:4; Gen 5:1, &c.) of Esau,Hairy (vide Gen 25:25)which is EdomRed (vide Gen 25:30).

Gen 36:2, Gen 36:3

Esau took his wives of the daughters of Canaan;i.e. who were of the daughters of Canaan (vide Gen 26:34)Adah“Ornament,” “Beauty” (Gesenius); the name also of one of Lamech’s wives (cf. Gen 4:19)the daughter of Elon“Oak” (Gesenius)the Hittite, and Aholibamah“Tent of the High Place” (Gesenius)the daughter of Anah“Answering” (Gesenius)the daughteri.e. the grand-daughter, though, after the LXX. and the Samaritan, some read the son, as in Gen 36:24 (Gesenius, Kalisch, Furst, et alii)of Zibeon“Colored” (Gesenius); “Wild,” “Robber” (Furst)the Hivite; and Bashemath“Sweet-smelling” (Gesenius)Ishmael’s daughter, sister of Nebajoth“High Place” (Gesenius). The difference between this account and that previously given (Gen 26:34; Gen 28:9) will appear at a glance by setting the two lists of wives in parallel columns:

1. Judith, daughter of Beeri the Hittite.

1. Aholibamah, daughter of Anah, daughter of Zibeon the Hivite.

2. Bashemath, daughter of Elon the Hittite.

2. Adah, daughter of Elon the Hittite.

3. Mahalath, daughter of Ishmael, sister of Nebajoth.

3. Bashemath, Ishmael’s daughter, sister of Nebajoth.

The two lists agree in saying

(1) that Esau had three wives,

(2) that one of them was the daughter of Elon the Hittite,

(3) that another of them was Ishmael’s daughter, the sister of Nebajoth, and

(4) that the name of one of them was Bashemath.

The discrepancy between the two is greatest in respect of the first wife, who appears with a different name and a different parentage in the two lists; while with reference to the second and the third wives, it is only the difference of name that requires to be accounted for. Now since the two lists belong to the so-called Elohistic document (Tuch, Bleak, Stahelin, Davidson, et alii), the hypothesis must be discarded “that the Hebrew text, though containing several important coincidences, evidently embodies two accounts irreconcilably different” (Kalisch)a conclusion which can only be maintained by ascribing to the author the most absolute literary incompetence. Equally the conjecture must be set aside that the two lists refer to different persons, the second three being names of wives which Esau took on the decease of the first. The solutions that appear most entitled to acceptance, though all are more or less conjectural, proceed upon the supposition that Esau had only three wives, or at most four.

1. On the hypothesis that Esau had not more than three wives, it is only needful to presume that each of them had two names, a not unusual circumstance in Oriental countries (Rosenmller, Havernick)one of them, probably that contained in the present list, bestowed on the occasion of marriage; and that Anah, the father of Aholibamah, was the same person with Beeri, or the Well-Man, who received that cognomen from the incident related in verse 24, viz; that he discovered certain hot springs while feeding his father’s asses (Hengstenberg, Keil, Kurtz)the peculiarity that in one place (Gen 26:34) he is styled a Hittite, in another (Gen 36:2) a Hivite, and in a third (Gen 36:20) a Horite, being explained by the conjecture that the first was the generic term for the race, the second the specific designation of the tribe, and the third the particular name for the inhabitants of the district to which he belonged (Keil, Lange, ‘Speaker’s Commentary).

2. Another solution gives to Esau four wives, by supposing Judith to have died without issue (Murphy, Jacobus), or, in consequence of being childless, though still living, to have been passed over in silence in the former genealogical register (Quarry), and Aholibamah to have been the fourth partner whom Esau espoused. The Samaritan version reads Mahalath for Bashemath in the second list, which it regards as an error of transcription (W. L. Alexander in Kitto’s ‘ Cyclopedia’); while others think that Adah has been written by inadvertence for Bashemath (Inglis)’; but such conjectures are as unnecessary as they are manifestly arbitrary.

Gen 36:4, Gen 36:5

And Adah bare to Esau Eliphas;”The Strength of God” (Gesenius); afterwards the name of one of Job’s friends (Job 2:11; Job 4:1; Job 15:1)and Bashemath bare Reuel;”The Friend of God” (Gesenius); the name of Moses’ father-in-law (Exo 2:18)and Aholibamah bare Jeush,”Collector” (Furst, Lange); “whom God hastens” (Gesenius); afterwards the name of a son of Rehoboam (2Ch 11:19)and Jaalam,”whom God hides” (Gesenius); “Ascender of the Mountains” (Furst)and Korah:“Baldness” (Furst, Gesenius); the name of a family of Levites and singers in the time of David to whom ten of the psalms are ascribedthese are the sons of Esau, which wore born unto him in the land of Canaannot necessarily implying’ that other sons were born to him in Edom, but rather intimating that all his family were born before he left the Holy Land.

Gen 36:6

And Esau took his wives, and his sons, and his daughters, and all the persons (literally, souls) of his house, and his cattle (mikneh), and all his beasts (behemah), and all his substance (literally, all his acquisitions), which he had got in the land of Canaan; and went into the countryliterally, into a land; not (LXX.), or in alteram regionem (Vulgate), but either into the land, so. of Seir (Keil), or, taking the next as a qualifying clause, into a land apart (Murphy, Lange)from the face ofor, on account of (Rosenmller, Kalisch)his brother Jacob.

Gen 36:7

For their riches were more than that they might dwell together; and the land wherein they were strangersliterally, of their wanderings (cf. Gen 28:4; Gen 37:1)could not bear them because of their cattle. This does not necessarily imply that Jacob was established in Canaan before Esau removed. Esau may have recognized the impossibility of two so rich and powerful chieftains as himself and his brother occupying Canaan, and may have retired Before Jacob actually took possession (Keil, Inglis).

Gen 36:8

Thus dwelt Esau in mount Seir (Gen 32:3; Deu 2:5; Jos 24:4): Esau is Edom (vide Gen 25:30). The obvious continuation of this verse m to be found in Gen 37:1, so that Gen 37:9 -40 are parenthetical in their character; but whether originally written by Moses, or inserted by a late redactor, as some maintain, may legitimately be regarded as an open question.

Gen 36:9

And these are the generations of Esau“the repetition of this clause shows that it does not necessarily indicate diversity of authorship, or a very distinct piece of composition” (Murphy)the father of the Edomites (i.e. the founder of the Edomitish nation) in mount Seir.

Gen 36:10-12

These are the names of Esau’s sons; Eliphaz the son of Adah the wife of Esau, Reuel the son of Bashemath the wife of Esau (vide Gen 36:4). And the sons of Eliphaz were Teman,the name was afterwards given to a district of Idumea (Jer 49:20), and borne by one of Job’s friends (Job 2:11)Omar,”Eloquent” (Gesenius), “Mountain-dweller” (Furst)Zepho,”Watch-tower” (Gesenius); called Zephi in 1Ch 1:36and Gatam,”their touch” (Gesenius), “dried up” (Furst)and Kenaz“Hunting” (Gesenius). And Timna“Restraint” (Gesenius, Furst, Murphy)was concubinepilgash, (vide Gen 16:3; Gen 25:6)to Eliphaz Esau’s son; perhaps given to him by Adah, so that her children were reckoned Adah’s (Hughes) and she bare to Eliphaz Amalek“Inhabitant of the Valley,” or “Warrior” (Furst); “a nation of head-breakers” (Lunge); “Laboring” (Gesenius, Murphy). It is probable that this was the founder of the Amalekite nation who attacked Israel at Horeb (Keil, Kalisch, Murphy), though by others (Gesenius, Michaelis, Furst) these have been regarded as a primitive people, chiefly on the grounds that Amalek is mentioned in Gen 14:7 as having existed in the days of Abraham, and that Balaam calls Amalek the first of nations (Num 24:20); but the first may simply be a prolepsis (Hengstenberg), while the second alludes not to the antiquity of the nation, but either to its power (Kalisch), or to the circumstance that it was the first heathen tribe to attack Israel (Keil). These (including Eliphaz for the reason ,specified above) were the sons of Adah Esau’s wife.

Gen 36:13

And these are the sons of Reuel; Nahath,Nachath, “Going down”and Zerah,or Zerach, “Rising”Shammah,Wasting (Gesenius, Murphy); “Fame, “Renown” (Furst)and Mizzah:”Trepidation” (Gesenius); “Fear,” “Sprinkling” (Murphy); if from mazaz, “Fear, if from nazah, “Joy” (Furst)these were the sons of Bashemath Esau’s wife.

Gen 36:14

And these were the sons of Aholibamah, the daughter of Allah the daughter of Zibeon, Esau’s wife (vide Gen 36:2): and she bare to Esau Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah (vide Gen 36:5).

Gen 36:15, Gen 36:16

These were dukes of the sons of Esau. The , derived probably from , to be familiar, whence to join together, or associate, were Edomite and Horite phylarchs or tribe-leaders, , (LXX.), chieftains of a thousand men (Gerlach). At a later period the term came to be applied to the Jewish chiefs or governors of the Restoration (Zec 9:7; Zec 12:5). The sons of Eliphaz the firstborn son of Esau; duke Teman, duke Omar, duke Zepho, duke Kemaz (vide on Gen 36:11), duke Korah,inserted here probably by clerical error from Gen 36:18 (Kennicott, Tuch, Knobel, Delitzsch, Keil, Murphy, Quarry), and accordingly omitted in the Samaritan Pentateuch and Version, though still retained by Onkelos and the LXX; and on the hypothesis of its genuineness explained by some as the name of a nephew of Eliphaz (Junius); of a son by another mother (Ainsworth); of a son of Korah (Gen 36:18) by the widow of Timua (1Ch 1:36), who, having died without issue, left his wife to his brother (Michaelis); of some descendant of Eliphaz by intermarriage who subsequently rose to be the head of a clan (Kalisch),duke Gatam (vide Gen 36:11), and duke Amalek (vide Gen 36:12): these are the dukes that came of Eliphaz in the land of Edom; these were the sons of Adah.

Gen 36:17

And these are the sons of Reuel Esau’s son; duke Nahath, duke Zerah, duke Shammah, duke Minah: these are the dukes that came of Reuel in the land of Edom; these are the sons of Bashemath Esau’s wife (vide on Gen 36:13).

Gen 36:18

And these are the sons of Aholi-bamah Esau’s wife; duke Jeush, duke Jaalam, duke Korah: these were the dukes that came of Aholibamah the daughter of Allah, Esau’s wife. In the two previous instances it is the grandsons of Esau that become the alluphim or heads of tribes, while in this it is the sons, which Havernick regards as a mark of authenticity (vide ‘Introd.,’ 20).

Gen 36:19

These are the sons of Esau, who is Edom, and these are their dukes.

Gen 36:20, Gen 36:21

These are the sons of Seir the Horite, who inhabited the land. The primitive inhabitants of Idumea were Horites (vide Gen 14:6), of whom the ancestor, Seir (“Rugged”), either gave his name to, or took his name from, the district in which he lived. Though ultimately driven out by the Edomites (Deu 2:12), they were probably only gradually dispossessed, and not until a portion of them had coalesced with their conquerors, as Esau himself had a Horite wife, Aholibamah, and his son Eliphaz a Horite concubine of the name of Thuna. They were, as the name Horite, from chor, a hole or cavern, imports a race of troglodytes or cavemen, who dwelt in the sandstone and limestone eaves with which the land of Edom abounds. The cave palaces, temples, and tombs that have been excavated in Mount Seir are still astonishing in their grandeur. Lotan,”Wrapping up” (Gesenius)and Shobal,”Flowing” (Gesenius)and Zibeon, and Anah (this Anah was the uncle of the Anah mentioned in Gen 36:25), and Dishan,”Gazelle” (Gesenius, Furst)and Eser,”Treasure” (Gesenius)and Dishan:same as Dishon (Gesenius, Furst); “Threshing” (Murphy)these are the dukes of, the Horites, the children of Seir in the land of Edom.

Gen 36:22

And the children of Lotan were Horithe name of the tribe (Gen 36:20)and Hemam:or, Homam (1Ch 1:39); “Destruction” (Gesenius), “Commotion” (Furst, Murphy)and Lotan’s sister was Timnaprobably the concubine of Eliphaz (Gen 36:12).

Gen 36:23

And the children of Shobal were these; Alvan,or Alian (1Ch 1:40); “Unjust” (Gesenius), “Lofty” (Furst, Murphy)and Manahath,“Rest” (Gesenius)and Ebal,”Stripped of leaves” (Gesenius, Murphy); “Bare Mountain” (Furst)Shepho,or Shephi (1Ch 1:40);” Nakedness” (Gesenius)and Onam“Strong” (Gesenius).

Gen 36:24

And these are the children of Zibeon; both Ajah,“Screamer” (Gesenius)and Anah:the father-in-law of Esau (Gen 36:2)this was that Anah that found the mules in the wilderness,neither invented the procreation of mules (Aben Ezra, Kimchi, Luther, Calvin, Willet, Clarke, Ainsworth, &c.), since does not signify to invent, but to light upon or discover (Keil), and there were no horses at that time in those regions (Michaelis), and it is not said that Anah was feeding his father’s horses and asses, but only asses (Rosenmller); nor overcame the giants (Onkelos, Samaritan, Bochart),which would have required (Gen 14:5; Deu 2:11); nor found out salt water (Oleaster, Percrius), a useful herb (Mais), or as a proper name (LXX.); but discovered the warm springs, the , , being now generally taken to mean aquce callidae (Vulgate, Dathius, Gesenius, Rosenmller, Hengstenberg, Keil, Kalisch, Murphy), of which there were venous in the vicinity, as, e.g; the springs of Callirrhoe in the Wady Zerka Maein, and those, in the Wady-el-Ahsa to the south-east of the Dead Sea, and those in the Wady Hamad between Kerek and the Dead Seaas he fed (literally, in his feeding) the asses of Zibeon his father. “The whirlpool of Karlsbad is said to have been discovered through a hound of Charles IV. which pursued a stag into a hot spring, and attracted the huntsmen to the spot by its howling” (Keil in loco; cf. Tacitus, ‘Hist,,’ Gen 5:3).

Gen 36:25

And the children of Anahthe brother of Zibeon (Gen 36:20)were these; Dishon,named after his uncle (Gen 36:21) and Aholibamah the daughter of Anah. This Aholibamah was not Esau’s wife, but the cousin of Esau’s wife’s father.

Gen 36:26

And these are the children of Dishon;the son of Seir (Gen 36:21)Hemdan,or Amrara (1 Citron. 1.41); “Pleasant” (Gesenius)and Eshban,or Heshbon; “Reason,” “Understanding” (Gesenius); “Intelligent,” “Hero” (Furst)and Ithran,the same as Jethro and Jithron; “the Superior or Excellent One” (Gesenius, Furst, Murphy, Lange)and Cheran“Harp” (Gesenius), “Companion” (Furst).

Gen 36:27

The children of Ezer are these; Bilhan,”Modest” (Gesenius), “Tender” (Furst)and Zaavan,”Disturbed “(Gesenius)and AkanJakan (1Ch 1:42); “Twisting” (Gesenius, Murphy).

Gen 36:28

The children of Dishan are these; Uz,”Sandy” (Gesenius, Furst)and Aran“Wild Goat” (Gesenius); “Power,” “Strength” (Furst).

Gen 36:29, Gen 36:30

These are the dukes that came of the Horites; duke Lotan, duke Shobal, duke Zibeon, duke Anah, duke Dishon, duke Eser, duke Dishan: these are the dukes that came of Hori, among (rather, according to) their dukes in the land of Seir.

Gen 36:31

And these (which follow) are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any (literally, before the reigning of a) king over (or, to) the children of Israel.

1. The reference to Israelitish kings in this place has been explained as an evidence of post-Mosaic authorship (Le Clerc, Bleek, Ewald, Bohlen, et alii), or at least as a later interpolation from 1Ch 1:43 (Kennicott, A. Clarke, Lange), but is sufficiently accounted for by remembering that in Gen 35:11 kings had been promised to Jacob, while the blessing pronounced on Esau (Gen 27:40) implied that in his line also should arise governors, the historian being understood to say that though the promised kings had not yet arisen in the line of Jacob, the house of Esau had attained at a somewhat early period to political importance (Calvin, Michaelis, Rosenmller, Keil, Kalisch, Gerlach, Havernick, and others).

2. The difficulty of finding room for the dukes (seven, four and three, all grandsons of Esau, Gen 35:15-19), the kings (eight in number, verses 32-39), and again the dukes (in all eleven, verses 40-43), that intervened between Esau and Moses disappears if the kings and dukes existed contemporaneously, of which Exo 15:15, as compared with Num 20:14, affords probable evidence.

3. As to the character of the Edomitish kings, it is apparent that it was not a hereditary monarchy, since in no case does the son succeed the father, but an elective sovereignty, the kings being chosen by the dukes, alluphim, or phylarchs (Keil, Hengstenberg, Kalisch, Gerlach), though the idea of successive usurpations (Lange) is not without a measure of probability.

Gen 36:32

And Bela the son of Beor (cf. Gen 14:2, where Bela is the name for Zoar; and Num 22:5, where Balaam’s father is called Beer, whence the LXX. has here ) reigned in Edom (as the first sore-reign): and the name of his city was Dinha-bah“Concealment,” or “Little Place” (Furst); a place of plunder (Gesenius), the situation of which has not been identified.

Gen 36:33

And Bela died, and Jobabprobably meaning “Desert,” or “Shout” (Gesenius); identified with Joban opinion which Michaelis declares to be insinis error, nec, historicus solum, sed et grammaticus, Jobab being derived from the root ; the name of a region of the Joktanite Arabs (Gen 10:29)the son of Zerah of Bozrah“Fort” (Gesenius); afterwards an important city of the Edomites (Isa 34:6; Isa 63:1; Jer 49:13); still to be traced in El-Busaireh, a village and castle in Arabia Petraea, about twenty-five miles south by east of the Dead Seareigned in his steadliterally, under him, i.e. in succession to him.

Gen 36:34

And Jobab died, and HushamHushai; “Haste” (Gesenius)of the land of Temani (a province in Northern Idumea, with a city Teman which has not yet been discovered) reigned in his stead.

Gen 36:35

And Husham died, and Hadad“Shouting,” e.g. for joy (Gesenius); whence “Conqueror” (Furst)the son of Bedad,”Separation” (Gesenius)who smote Midian (vide Gen 25:2) in the field of Moab (vide Gen 19:37), reigned in his stead: and the name of his city was Avith“Ruins” (Gesenius), “Twisting” (Murphy), “Hut-Village” (Furst). An attempt has been made (Bohlen) to identify this monarch with the Edomite of the same name who rose against Solomon (1Ki 11:14); but

(1) this Hadad was not of royal blood, while Solomon’s contemporary was;

(2) this Hadad was a king, while Solomon’s adversary was only a pretender;

(3) this Hadad was a conqueror of the Midianites, while in Solomon’s time the Midianites had vanished from history; and

(4) this Hadad lived and reigned before Israel had any kings (vide Hengstenberg, ‘On the Genuineness of the Pentateuch,’ vol. 2. dissert. 6; and cf. Havernick’s ‘Introd.,’ 20, and Keil in loco).

Gen 36:36

And Hadad died, and Samlah“Covering,” “Garment,” (Gesenius, Furst, Murphy)of Masrekah“Vineyard” (Gesenius)reigned in his stead.

Gen 36:37

And Samlah died, and Saul “Asked” (Gesenius)of Rehoboth by the riverRehoboth (literally, wide spaces) of the River is so called to distinguish it from the Asshurite settlement of the same name in Gen 10:11 (Rosenmller), though by some it is identified with Rehoboth Ir (Ainsworth). If the river spoken of be the Euphrates (Onkelos, Keil, Kalisch), then it is probably to be sought for in the Errachabi or Rachabeh near the mouth of the Chaboras (Keil), though the river may be some small nahar in Idumea (Lange), in which case the site will be uncertainreigned in his stead.

Gen 36:38

And Saul died, and Baal-hanan“Lord of Benignity” (Gesenius)the son of Achbor“Mouse” (Gesenius)reigned in his stead.

Gen 36:39

And Baal-hanan the son of Achbor died, and HadarHadad (1Ch 1:50)reigned in his stead: and the name of his city was Pau;Pal (1Ch 1:50); “Bleating” (Gesenius), “Yawning” (Furst), with which accords (LXX.)and his wife’s name was Mehetabel,“Whom God benefits” (Gesenius)the daughter of Marred,”Pushing” (Gesenius)the daughter of Mezahab“Water of Gold” (Gesenius). That the death of this king, which a later chronicler records (1Ch 1:51), is not here mentioned by the historian is commonly regarded (Rosenmller, Havernick, Hengstenberg, Keil, Kalisch, et alii) as a proof that he was then alive, and that in fact he was the king of Edom to whom Moses sent ambassadors requesting permission to pass through the land (Num 20:14).

Gen 36:40-43

And these are the names of the dukes that came of Esau, according to their families, after their places, by their names. It is now generally agreed that this and the ensuing verses contain not a second list of dukes who rose to power on the overthrow of the preceding monarchical institutions (Bertheau, Ainsworth, Patrick), or a continuation of the preceding list of dukes, which had simply been interrupted by a parenthesis about the kings (Bush); but either an enumeration of the hereditary phylarchs who were contemporaneous with Hadar, and in all probability formed, his council (Murphy), or a territorial catalogue of the districts in which the original alluphim who sprang from Esau (Gen 36:15-19) exercised their sovereignty (Keil, Kalisch, Lange, ‘Speaker’s Commentary’). Duke Timnah,according to the explanation just given this should perhaps be read duke of Timnah = Amalek, whose mother was Timna (Lange), but this is conjecturalduke Alvah,or of Alvah, or Allah, closely allied to Alvan (Gen 36:23)duke (of) Jetheth,”Nail” (Gesenius), “Subjugation” (Furst)duke (of) Aholiba-mah,vide Gen 36:2; perhaps Esau’s wife as well as Eliphaz’s concubine gave her name to the district over which her son ruledduke Elah,”Strength” (Furst), “Tere-binth” (Murphy)duke Pinon,probably equal to Pimon, dark (Gesenius)duke Kenaz (vide Gen 36:11), duke Teman (Gen 36:15), duke Mibzar,”Fortress,” “Strong City” (Gesenius)duke Magdiel,”Prince of God” (Gesenius)duke Iram:“Citizen” (Gesenius)these be the dukes of Edom, according to their habitations (i.e. their capitals, or districts) in the land of their possessions. The word seems to indicate an independent sovereignty within their respective provinces or principalities. He is Esau the father of the Edomites. The clause is equivalent to saying, This Esau (already referred to) was the ancestor of these Edomites.

Gen 37:1

EXPOSITION

Gen 37:1

And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger (literally, in the land of the sojourning,’s of his father), in the land of Canaan. This verse is not the commencement of the ensuing (Keil, Kalisch, Lange, &c.), but the concluding sentence of the present, section, the adversative particle , corresponding to the of the LXX; introducing a contrast between Esau, who dwelt in Mount Seir, and Jacob, who dwelt in the land of Canaan, and the following verse beginning the next division of the book with the customary formula, “These are the generations”. Rosenmller less happily connects the present verse with Gen 35:29; the Vulgate begins the next section with Gen 35:3. A similar division of verses to that proposed will be found in Gen 25:11.

HOMILETICS

Gen 37:1

The last of the house of Esau.

I. THE REMOVAL OF ESAU‘S HOUSE FROM CANAAN.

1. A complete removal. “Esau took his wives, and his sons, and his daughters, and all the persons of his house, and his cattle, and all his beasts, and all his substance, which he had got in the land of Canaan; and went into a land apart from the face of his brother.”

2. A necessary removal. Two things rendered the withdrawal of Esau from Canaan imperative

(1) that which was patent to Esau’s sense, viz; that the land of Canaan was too strait to afford accommodation to two so powerful chieftains as his brother and himself; and

(2) that which appears to have been accepted by Esau’s faith, viz; that the decision of Divine providence was against him, and that the land belonged to Jacob. Hence for this twofold reason his retirement from Canaan is said to have taken place on account of his brother.

3. A peaceful removal. Though in one sense compulsory, in another aspect of it Esau’s departure was voluntary. Instead of disputing possession of the land with his brother, which, humanly speaking, he might have done with some considerable hope of success, he quietly ceded what perhaps he saw he could not ultimately retain. Still it was to his credit that, instead of wrangling with Jacob about its present occupation, he peacefully withdrew to the wild mountain region of Seir. A permanent removal. Esau established his settlements altogether outside the limits of the Holy Land, and never again appeared as a claimant for its possession, leaving it finally in the free and undisputed ownership of Jacob. Hence, while it is said that “Esau dwelt in Mount Seir,” it is appropriately added by the historian, in concluding the present section, “And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan.”

II. THE DEVELOPMENT OF ESAU‘S HOUSE IN EDOM.

1. A numerous race. Though Esau’s sons were not so many as those of Jacob, yet his descendants developed into a people much more rapidly than did those of Jacob. This may have been partly due to the circumstance that they were

2. A mixed race, having obviously incorporated amongst themselves a portion at least of the original Horites, whose land they appropriated, and whose political life they appear to have adopted. Then it is apparent that they were

3. An aristocratic race. At the time of their invasion by the Esahites, the cave-dwellers of Mount Seir had attained to something like a settled government by means of alluphim, phylarchs, or tribe princes, each of whom enjoyed a sort of independent sovereignty; and, as has often happened since, though obliged to retire before the more powerful Canaanitish tribe, they succeeded in imposing on their conquerors their own political institutions. No fewer than fourteen of Esau’s grandsons became reigning dukes in the country. Still further, it may be inferred that they were

4. A progressive race. The impulse towards a national life thus communicated by the Seirites does not appear to have exhausted itself by simply the formation of small independent principalities, which, as civilization advances, are always felt to be a source of weakness rather than strength to the country whose social and political unity is thus broken up, and which eventually call for the reverse process of a unification of the different fragments, whether by free confederation or by imperial subordination. In the case of the Edomites the phylarchs were succeeded by kings, whether elective monarchs or foreign usurpers cannot be determined, though the preponderance of sentiment among interpreters is in favor of the former hypothesis. And then, finally, they were

5. An exiled race; that is to say, though sprung from the soil of Canaan, they developed outside its limits-Jacob’s family alone, as the Heaven-appointed heirs, remaining within the borders of the Holy Land.

Learn

1. That God is able to bring about his purposes in peaceful ways when he so desireth.

2. That natural men often exemplify great virtues in their conduct.

3. That abundance of wealth is frequently a cause of separation among friends.

4. That political greatness is much more easily attained, by nations as well as individuals, than spiritual pre-eminence.

5. That a nation’s advancement in civilization is no certain guarantee of its continuance.

6. That in nature, as well as grace, the first is often last, and the last first.

7. That the heirs of the covenant are certain in the long run to obtain the inheritance.

HOMILIES BY J.F. MONTGOMERY

Gen 37:8

Esau separates from Jacob.

I. GOD REQUIRES ENTIRE DEVOTEDNESS AND FAITH. Edom is allied to the true kingdom, but is not one with it. We may keep in mind the relationship between the descendants of the two brothers, that we may learn the more clearly to distinguish the true heirs of the blessing.

II. THE TRUE BELIEVERS SET APART BY SPECIAL GRACE. The rest of the Book of Genesis follows the course of the one family in whose midst the ark of the covenant, as it were, was already resting, where was

(1) the revelation of God and

(2) the special manifestation of his favor, and out of which should come forth

(3) the people among the peoples, the kingdom among the kingdoms, the Goshen in the Egypt, the seed of life in the world of death.R.

Gen 37:31

Delay in fulfillment of God’s promises.

Between two stages of the history of the covenant family stands the genealogy of Esau’s descendants. The text suggests a contrast between their course and that of the family of Jacob. On the death of Isaac Esau departed from Canaan with family and possessions (cf. Gen 27:40). The desert and the valleys of Seir were more attractive than quietness of Canaan. Prosperity, such as he cared for, attended him. Among his family we read of dukes, or heads of tribes, and of kings. And what of the line of promise?kings foretold to them (Gen 17:6; Gen 35:11). Yet while kings were reigning in Edom, Israelites were slaves in Egypt or wanderers in the desert. Is God slack to fulfill his word? (1Pe 3:4). This is often a trial to believers (Psa 73:3). But God’s promises are sure, though the time may seem long. The fulfillment of promises of great blessings has almost always been slow, as we count it. Abraham waited long (Gen 12:2). It was long ere the kingdom of Israel arose; far longer ere the promise of a Savior fulfilled (Gen 3:15; Gal 4:4); and still we wait for the Lord’s return. The same truth appears in nature. Great and precious things are of slow growth.

Doctrinal lessons:

1. Delay serves for the trial and strengthening of faith. Faith grows by enduring trial. Mark how often the faith of eminent saints has been tried. Without faith we cannot please God; for faith believes God’s truth and love, and embraces his will. Unbelief charges God with untruth (Gen 3:4; 1Jn 5:10). Even in believers a leaven of unbelief may be at work. Trials are sent to cause faith to develop into other graces (Jas 1:3).

2. What springs up quietly is apt to fade quickly (cf. Exo 3:11 with Hag 1:2). Danger lest what seems to be faith be merely feeling.

3. The time that seems so long is not mere delay, but preparation. While the seed lies in the earth a process is going on, though unseen, without which the perfect plant could not be formed. Compare the expression, “the fullness of time” (Gal 4:4), and the way in which all previous history prepared the way for the coming of Christ. These lessons apply equally to God’s dealings with the world and with individuals.

Practical lessons:

1. Encouragement if disheartened by slow progress of Christ’s kingdom: much labor among the heathen with little apparent result; or many efforts at home, yet ungodliness not checked. We have promises (Isa 55:11; 1Co 15:58). In his own time God will make them good.

2. In like manner if our own striving for personal holiness, or for good of others, seems to have little success. We require the training of disappointment to check pride (2Co 12:7), and God will see to the result (Gal 6:9).

3. To bear in mind that we are but instruments in the Lord’s hand (1Co 3:6). Every work to be performed “looking unto Jesus” (2Co 12:10).M.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

Gen 37:1. His father was a stranger i.e.. A sojourner, not one of the original inhabitants and possessors of the land: the Hebrew, in the margin of our Bibles, in the land of his father’s sojourning, is perhaps the most proper. The LXX have it, in which his father dwelt.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

THIRD PERIOD

The Genesis of the People of israel in egypt from the twelve branches of israel, or the history of joseph and his brethren. joseph the patriarch of the faith-dispensation through humiliation and exaltation.Gen 37:1-36

FIRST SECTION

Jacobs inconsiderate fondness for Joseph. Josephs dreams. His brothers envy. Joseph sold into Egypt.

Gen 37:1-36

1And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan. 2These 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 fathers wives: and Joseph brought unto his father their evil report.1 3Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age2; and he made him a coat of many colors3 [a beautiful robe, Gen 27:15]. 4And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him. 5And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it to his brethren: and they hated him yet the more. 6And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed: 7For, 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. 8And his brethren said unto 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. 9And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it to his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance unto me. 10And 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? 11And his brethren envied him; but his father observed [kept, preserved] the saying. 12And his brethren went to feed their fathers flock in Shechem. 13And Israel said unto Joseph, Do not thy brethren feed the flock in Shechem? come, and I will send thee unto them. 14And he said to him, Here am I. 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. 15And a certain man found him, and, behold, he was wandering in the field: and the man asked him, saying, What seekest thou? 16And he said, I seek my brethren: tell me, I pray thee, where they feed their flocks. 17And the man said, They are departed hence; for I heard them say, Let us go to Dothan [the two wells]. And Joseph went after his brethren, and found them in Dothan. 18And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him. 19And they said one 20to another, Behold, this dreamer [man of dreams] 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 will see what will become of his dreams. 21And Reuben heard it, and he delivered him [sought to deliver] out of their hands; and he said, Let us not kill him. 22And 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. 23And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stripped Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colors that was on him. 24And they took him, and cast him into a pit: and the pit was empty, there was no water in it. 25And they sat down to eat bread: and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a company of Ishmaelites [a caravan] came from Gilead, with their camels bearing spices [tragakanth-gum], and balm, and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt. 26And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit is it if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood? 27Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother, and our flesh. And his brethren were content. 28Then there passed by Midianites, merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver: and they brought Joseph unto Egypt. 29And Reuben returned unto the pit; and, behold, Joseph was not in the pit: and he rent his clothes. 30And he returned unto his brethren, and said, The child is not; and I, whither shall I go? 31And they took Josephs coat, and killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the coat in the blood. 32And they sent the coat of many colors and they brought it to their father; and said, This have we found; know now whether it be thy sons coat or no. 33And he knew it, and said, It is my sons coat; an evil beast hath devoured him; Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces. 34And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days. 35And 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 [sheol]4 unto my son mourning. Thus his father wept for him. 36And the Midianites sold him into Egypt, unto Potiphar [Septuagint: , belonging to the sun], an officer of Pharaohs [king; Lepsius: sun], and captain of the guard.

GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS

1. It is to be noted here, in the first place, that the history of Joseph is amplified beyond that of any of the patriarchs hitherto. This is explained by the contact which Josephs transportation gives rise to between the Hebrew spirit and the Egyptian culture and literature. A trace of this may be found in the history of Abraham; for after Abraham had been in Egypt, his history becomes more full. With the memorabilia of Joseph connects itself the account of Moses, who was educated in all the different branches of Egyptian learning, whilst this again points to Samuel and the schools of the prophets.
2. Knobel regards Josephs history as having grown out of the original Elohistic text connected with a later revision (p. 288). He supposes, however, in this case, two halves, which, taken separately, have no significance. That Joseph was sold into Egypt, according to the supposed original text, can only be explained from the fact mentioned in the supposed additions, that he had incurred the hatred of his brethren by reason of his aspiring dreams. Reubens proposition to cast Joseph into the pit, and which aimed at his preservation, was not added until afterwards, it is said. Even Josephs later declaration: I was stolen from the country of the Hebrews, is regarded as making a difference. Delitzsch, too, adopts a combination of different elements, without, however, recognizing the contradictions raised by Knobel (p. 517). He presents, also, as a problem difficult of solution, the usage of the divine names in this last period of Genesis: In Genesis 37 no name of God occurs, but in Genesis 38, it is Jehovah that slays Judahs sons, as also, in Genesis 39, it is Jehovah that blesses Joseph in Potiphars house, and in person; as recognized by Potiphar himself. Only in Gen 37:9 we find Elohim,the name Jehovah not being here admissible. From Genesis 40 onward, the name Jehovah disappears. It occurs but once between Genesis 40, 50, as in Genesis 18, when Jacob uses it: I have waited for thy salvation, Jehovah. For different interpretations of this by Keil, Drechsler, Hengstenberg, Baumgarten, and Delitzsch, see Delitzsch, p. 515. The three last agree in this, that the author of Genesis, in the oft-repeated Elohim, wished here to mark more emphatically, by way of contrast, the later appearance of the Jehovah-period, Exo 3:6. This would, indeed, be a very artificial way of writing books. The riddle must find its solution in actual relations. The simple explanation is, that in the history of a Joseph, which stands entirely upon an Elohistic foundation, this name Elohim predominantly occurs. Joseph is the Solomon of the patriarchal times.

3. The generations of Jacob connect themselves with those of Esau. Delitzsch justly remarks, p. 511, that the representation which follows (Genesis 37 to Genesis 50), was intended to be, not a mere history of Joseph, but a history of Jacob in his sons. Otherwise Judahs history, Genesis 38, would appear as an interpolation. The twelve sons of Jacob constitute Israels new seed. The latter fact, of course, has the stronger emphasis. The generations of Jacob are the history and successions of his posteritythat is, his living on in his posterity, just as Adams tholedoth, Gen 5:1, represent the history of Adam, not personally, but historically, in his descendants.

4. Josephs history is considered in a triple relation: as the history of the genesis of the Israelitish people in Egypt; as an example of a special providence, such as often brings good out of evil, as ex-emplified in the book of Job; and as a type of the fundamental law of God in guiding the elect from suffering to joy, from humiliation to exaltationa law already indicated in the life of Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but which, henceforth, develops itself more and more (especially in the history of David), to terminate, at last, in the life of Jesus, as presenting the very sublimity of the antithesis. Hence the appearance, in our history, of individual types representing the New-Testament history of Jesus, such as the jealousy and hatred of Josephs brethren, the fact of his being sold, the fulfilment of Josephs prophetic dreams in the very efforts intended to prevent his exaltation, the turning of his brothers wicked plot to the salvation of many, even of themselves, and of the house of Jacob, the spiritual sentence pronounced on the treachery of the brethren, the victory of pardoning love, Judahs suretyship for Benjamin, his emulating Joseph in a spirit of redeeming resignation, Jacobs joyful reviving on hearing of the life and glory of his favorite son, whom he had believed to be dead.

Concerning Israels genesis in Egypt, Delitzsch remarks: According to a law of divine providences, to be found not only in the Old Testament, but also in the New (?), not the land of the promise, but a foreign country, is the place where the Church is born, and comes to maturity. This foreign country, to the Old-Testament Church, is the land of Egypt. To go before his people, to prepare a place for them, is Josephs high vocation. Sold into Egypt, he opens the way thither to the house of Jacob, and the same country where he matures to manhood, where he suffers in prison, and attains to glory, becomes, to his family, the land where it comes to the maturity of a nation,the land of its servitude, and of its redemption. Thus far Josephs history is the overture of Jacobs historya type of the way of the Church; not of Jehovah only, but of Christ in his progress from humiliation to exaltation, from subjection to freedom, from sufferings to glory. See Mat 2:15; Hos 11:1. Israels riches of election and endowment are to be developed by contact with different heathen nations, and especially with Egypt. Just as Christianity, the completed revelation of the new covenant, developed itself formally for the world, by its reciprocal intercourse with a Grco-Romanic culture, thus was it also with the faith of the old covenant in its reciprocal intercourse with the old Egyptian world-culture, as shown especially in the history of Joseph, Moses, and Solomon who became the son-in-law of one of the Pharaohs. More prominently does this appear, again, in the history of Alexandrian Judaism; in which, however, the interchange of influence with Egypt becomes, at the same time, one with that of the whole Orient, and of Greece.

The key of Josephs history, as a history of providence, is clearly found in the declaration made by him Gen 45:5-8, and Gen 50:20. The full explanation, however, of its significance, is found in the history of Christ as furnishing its perfect fulfilment. Permission of evil, counteraction and modification of evil, frustration of its tendency, its conversion into good, victory over evil, destruction of evil, and reconciliation of the evil themselves,these are the forces of a movement here represented in its most concrete and most powerful relations. The evil is conspiracy, treachery, and a murderous plot against their innocent brother. The conversion of it is of the noblest kind. The plot to destroy Joseph is the occasion of his greatest glorification. But as Gods sentence against the trembling conscious sinner is changed into grace, so also the triumph of pardoning love overcoming hatred becomes conspicuous as a glorious omen in Josephs life.

Inasmuch, says Delitzsch, as Israels history is a typical history of Christ, and Christs history the typical history of the Church, so is Joseph a type of Christ himself. What he suffered from his brethren, and which Gods decree turned to his own and his nations salvation, is a type of Christs sufferings, caused by his people, but which Gods decree turned to the salvation of the world, including, finally, the salvation of Israel itself. Says Pascal (Penses, ii. 9, 2): Jesus Christ is typified in Joseph, the beloved of his father, sent by his father to his brethren, the innocent one sold by his brethren for twenty pieces of silver, and then becoming their Lord, their Saviour, the saviour of those who were aliens to Israel, the saviour of the world,all which would not have been if they had not cherished the design of destroying himif they had not sold and rejected him. Joseph, the innocent one, in prison with two malefactorsJesus on the cross between two thieves; Joseph predicts favorably to the one, but death to the other; Jesus saves the one, whilst he leaves the other in condemnation. Thus has the Church ever regarded Josephs history. Already is this intimated in the Gospels. What Pascal here says, and as is also held by the fathers, e.g., Prosper Aquitanus, de Promissionibus et Praedictionibus Dei, is but a brief statement of the pious thoughts of all believers, in the contemplation of the history. It is this which imparts to the wonderful typical light here presented its irresistible charm.

When, however, Joseph is made the exclusive centre of our history, and the patriarchal type of Christ (Kurtz, History of the Old Testament, i. p. 343), Keil presents, in opposition, some most important considerations. It is, indeed, no ground of difference (as presented by him), that Joseph became formally naturalized in Egypt; for Christ, too, was delivered to the heathen, and died out of the camp. Nor does it make any important difference that Joseph received no special revelations of God at the court of Pharaoh, as Daniel did at the court of Nebuchadnezzar; the gift of interpreting dreams he also, like Daniel, referred back to God. Of greater importance is the remark that Joseph is nowhere, in the Scriptures themselves, presented as a type of Christ; yet we must distinguish between verbal references and real relations, such as might be indicated in Zec 11:12, and in Christs declaration that one of his disciples should betray him. There is, however, a verbal reference in Stephens speech, Act 7:9. There is no mistaking the fact that the Messianic traces in our narrative are shared both by Joseph and Judah. Judah appears great and noble throughout the history of Joseph; the instance, however, in which he is willing to sacrifice himself to an unlimited servitude for Benjamin, makes him of equal dignity with Joseph. So in Abrahams sacrifice, the Messianic typical is distributed between him and Isaac. Josephs glory is preminently of a prophetic kind; the weight of a priestly voluntary self-sacrifice inclines more to the side of Judah. Benjamin, too, has his Messianic ray; for it is especially on his account that the brethren may appear before Joseph in a reconciling light. On Hillers Typological Contemplation of Joseph, see Keil, p. 242. Meinertzhagen, in his Lectures on the Christology of the Old Testament (p. 204), treats of the typical significance of Joseph with great fulness. It is also to be noted that ever afterwards Benjamin appears theocratically and geographically connected with Judah.

5. The disposition of Josephs history, and the settlement of the Israelites in Egypt, as well as its relation to the Hyksos of whom Josephus speaks (contra Apion, i. 14), in an extract from Manethos history, presents a question of great historical interest (see Delitzsch, p. 518). The extract concerning the Hyksos has a mythical look. Still darker are other things which Josephus gives us from Manetho and Chremon (contra Ap., i. 26, 32). Different views: 1) The Hyksos and the Israelites are identical; so Manetho, Josephus, Hugo Grotius, Hofmann, Knobel (p. 301), and, in a modified form, Seyffarth, Uhlemann. 2) The Hyksos are distinct from the Israelites; they were another Shemitic tribeArabians, or Phnicians; so Cunaeus, Scaliger, etc. This view, says Delitzsch, is now the prevailing one. So also Ewald, Lepsius, Saalschtz, jut with different combinations. On these see Delitzsch, p. 521. 3) The Hyksos were Scythians; so Champollion, Rossellini. The first view is opposed by the fact that the Israelites founded no dynasties in Egypt, as did the Hyksos; nor did they exist there under shepherd-kings, as the name Hyksos has been interpreted. Against the second view Delitzsch insists that the people of Egypt, into whose servitude Israel fell, appear as a people foreign to them, and by no means as one connected with them. The Shemitic idea, however, is so extended, that we cannot always suppose a theocratic element along with it. The most we can say is, that the Hyksos, who, no doubt, were a roving band of conquerors, came from Syria, or the countries lying north and east beyond Palestine. In the Egyptian tradition, their memory seems to have been so mingled with that of the Israelites, that it would seem almost impossible to separate the historical element from such a mixture. Since, however, the Israelitish history seems more obscured by that of the Hyksos than contradicted, it may be regarded as more probable that the latter came latest. The pressure of the Israelites upon the Canaanites, from the east, may have driven them in part to the south; and the weakening of Egypt by the destruction of Pharaoh and his army, forty years before, might have favored a conquest. The chronological adjustment, however, must be left to itself. For a fuller treatment of this subject, see E. Bhmer, The First Book of the Thora (Halle, 1862); appendix, p. 205, etc. According to Lepsius, the appearance of the Hyksos in Egypt preceded the history of Joseph. At all events, this dim tradition bears testimony to the Israelitish history in many particulars (e.g., that they founded Jerusalem in Judea). On the full confirmation of Josephs history by Greek historians and by Egyptian monuments, compare Delitzsch, p. 524, etc.; Hengstenberg, The Pentateuch and Egypt, Berlin, 1841.

6. The history of Israels settlement in Egypt extends through the sections that follow: 1) The corruption in Jacobs house, the dispersion of his sons, the loss of Joseph (Genesis 38-39). 2) Josephs elevation, and the reconciliation and gathering of his brethren (Genesis 40-50). 3) Israels transplantation to Egypt (Gen 46:1 to Gen 47:26). 4) The keeping of the divine promise, and the longing of Israel to return home to Canaan (Gen 47:27ch. 50).

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Contents: The conspiracy of Jacobs sons against their brother Joseph, considered in its awful darkness, or the deep commotion and apparent destruction of Jacobs house: 1. The occasion (Gen 37:1-11); 2. the opportunity, and the plot of murder (Gen 37:12-20); 3. Reubens attempt to rescue; 4. Judahs effort to save, unknowingly crossing that of Reuben (Gen 37:25-27); 5. the crime, the beginning of mourning, the hiding of guilt (Gen 37:28-32); 6. Jacobs deep grief, and Joseph apparently lost (Gen 37:33-36).

1. The occasion (Gen 37:1-11).In the land of Canaan.It seems to have been made already his permanent home, but soon to assume a different appearance.The generations (see above).Joseph being seventeen years old.A statement very important in respect both to the present occurrence and the future history. In Gen 41:46, he is mentioned as thirty years old. His sufferings, therefore, lasted about thirteen years. At this age of seventeen he became a shepherd with his brethren. Jacob did not send his favorite son too early to the herds; yet, though the favorite, he was to begin to serve below the rest, as a shepherd-boy. At this age, however, Joseph had great naveness and simplicity. He therefore imprudently tells his dreams, like an innocent child. On the other hand, however, he was very sedate; he was not enticed, therefore, by the evil example of some of his brethren, but considered it his duty to inform his father.And the lad was with the sons of Bilhah.For the sons of Bilhah Rachels servant stood nearer to him, while those of Leah were most opposed. He brought to his father , translated by Keil, evil reports concerning them. A direct statement of their offences would doubtless have been differently expressed. They were an offence to those living in the vicinity. This determined him to inform his father, but it does not exclude a conviction of his own. It is inadmissible to refer this to definite sins (as, e.g., some have thought of unnatural sins). That the sons of the concubines surpassed the others in rude conduct, is easily understood. Josephs moral earnestness is, doubtless, the first stumbling-block to his brethren, whilst it strengthens his father in his good opinion. The beautiful robe was the second offence. It is called , an outer garment of ends, which extends, like a gown, to the hands and the ancles. The Septuagint, which Luthers translation follows, renders it a coat of many colors. Comp. 2Sa 13:18. The common tunic extended only to the knees, and was without arms. Already this preference, which seemed to indicate that Jacob intended to give him the right of the first-born, aroused the hatred of his brethren. One who hates cannot greet heartily the one who is hated, nor talk with him frankly and peaceably. In addition to this, Joseph, by his dreams and presages (though not yet a prudent interpreter), was pouring oil upon the flames. At all events, the (lo), as repeated in his narration, shows that he had a presentiment of something great. Both dreams are expressive of his future elevation. In Egypt he becomes the fortunate sheaf-binder whose sheaf stood up during the famine. The second dream confirms the first, whilst presenting the further thought: even the sun and moonthat is, according to Jacobs interpretation, even his father and his motherwere to bow before him. Rachel died some time before this. On this account the word mother has been referred to Bilhah, or to Benjamin as representing Rachel, or else to Leah. The brethren now hated him the more, not merely as recognizing in his dreams the suggestions of ambition, but with a mingled feeling, in which there was not wanting a presentiment of his possible exaltationas their declaration, Gen 37:20, betrays. In Jacobs rebuke we perceive also mingled feelings. There is dissent from Josephs apparently pretentious prospects, a fatherly regard toward the mortified brethren, yet, withal, a deeper presentiment, that caused him to keep these words of Joseph in his heart, as Mary did those of the shepherds. As the navete of the shepherd-boy was evidence of the truthfulness of these dreams, so the result testifies to the higher origin of a divine communication, conditioned, indeed, by the hopefully presageful life of Joseph. These dreams were probably intended to sustain Joseph during his thirteen years of wretchedness, and, at the same time, to prepare him to be an interpreter. The Zodiac, as here brought in by Knobel, has no significance, nor the custom of placing a number of sheaves together.

2. The opportunity and the plot of murder (Gen 37:12-20).In Shechem.There is no ground for supposing another Shechem, as some have done, on account of what had formerly occurred there. It is more likely that Jacobs sons courageously returned to the occupation of the parcel of land formerly acquired by them. This very circumstance, however, may have so excited the anxiety of the cautious parent that he sent Joseph after them. That Joseph could have lost his way at Shechem is easily explained, since he was so young when his father lived there.In DothanThe Septuagint has , Jdt 4:6; Jdt 7:3; Jdt 8:3; . 2Ki 6:13, Dothan. It was a place above Samaria, towards the plain of Jezreel, according to Josephus and Hieronymus. Thus it was found by Robinson and Smith in their journey of 1852, and also by Van de Velde, in the southeast part of the plain of Jabud, west of Genin. It is a beautiful green dell, always called Dothan, at whose south foot a fountain rises. Delitzsch. Through the plain of Tell-Dothan a highway passes from the northwest to Ramleh and Egypt.They conspired against him.That Reuben and Judah were not concerned in this, is plain from what follows.This dreamer cometh.Spoken contemptuouslymaster of dreams, dream-man. The word does not express contempt of itself, as is seen from Gen 24:65, the only other place in which it occurs. It denotes something unexpected and remarkable.Into some pit.Cisterns (see Winer: wells).And we shall see.They thought by their fratricide surely to frustrate his exaltationa proof that his dreams alarmed them; but by this very deed, as controlled by Gods providence, they bring it about.

3. Reubens artful attempt at saving (Gen 37:21-24). The text states directly that Reuben made his proposition in order to save Joseph. Knobel, by a frivolous criticism, would foist a contradiction upon the text, namely, that Reuben made the proposition in order to let him perish in the pit; since a bloodless destruction of life seems, to have been regarded as less criminal than a direct killing. But, then, the Reviser must have imparted to Reubens proposition a different interpretation, by means of an addition. Reuben, it is true, had to express himself in such a way that the brothers might infer his intention to let him perish in the pit; but this was the only way to gain their consent.They stripped Joseph out of his coat.The object of their jealousy and their wrath.And the pit was empty.So that he did not perish. His cries for mercy they remembered many years afterwards (Gen 41:21).

4. Judahs bold attempt to save him (Gen 37:25-27).And they sat down.Through this apparent insensibility their inward agony is betrayed; it appears in their agitated looking out, so that they espy the Ishmaelites already at a great distance.And behold, a company of Ishmaelites.A caravan, (Job 6:19). This caravan (as Robinsons description shows) had crossed the Jordan at Beisan, and followed the highway that led from Beisan and Zerin to Ramleh and Egypt, entering the plain of Dothan west of Genin. Delitzsch. In Gen 37:25; Gen 37:27-28, the merchants are called Ishmaelites, whilst in the first part of Gen 37:28 they are styled Midianites, and in Gen 37:36 Medanites. Knobel, of course, regards them as different traditions (p. 293). Gen 37:28, however, would seem to tell us that the Ishmaelites were the proprietors of the caravan, which was made up, for the most part, of Midianitish people. In a similar manner, probably, as Esau made a number of the Horites subject to him, so had the Ishmaelites also brought under them a number of the Midianites. One hundred and fifty years, the time that had elapsed since Ishmaels departure from Abraham, would give a sufficient increase for this (see Keil, p. 244). As merchants, they were transporting costly products of their country to Egypt. Gum-tragacanth is found in Syria; the balm of Gilead was especially renowned, and was sold to Phnicia and Egypt; ladanum (myrrh), or the fragrant rose of the cistus, is found in Arabia and Syria, as well as in Palestine (see Schubert, iii. p. 114 and 174). Concerning the cisterns, or the artificially prepared reservoirs of rain-water, see the Dictionaries and geographical works. They might be full of water, or have mire at the bottom, or be entirely dry. They were frequently used as prisons (see Jer 38:6; Jer 40:15). Schrder: On his way to Damascus, Robinson found Khn Jubb Jsuf (a kind of inn), the khan of Josephs pit, so called after a well connected with it, and which for a long time, both among Christians and Mohammedans, was regarded as the cistern into which Joseph was thrown.And Judah said.Then Judah began to use the language of a hypocritical self-interest, says Delitzsch. This, however, seems to be not at all justified by Judahs after-history. It must be presupposed that Judah was unacquainted with Reubens intention. The brethren were so much excited that Judah alone could not have hoped to rescue Joseph from their hand. The ferocity, especially, of Simeon and Levi, is known to us from former history. Judah, therefore, could think no otherwise than that Joseph must die from hunger in the pit. As in opposition to this, therefore, and not as a counteraction of Reubens attempt at deliverance, is his proposal to be judged. He lived still, though a slave. There was a possibility of his becoming free. He might make his escape by the caravan routes that passed south through his home. Reuben, in his tenderness, had made a subtle attempt to save him. In the bolder policy of Judah we see that subtle attempt crossed by one more daring. No doubt both had some ill-feeling towards Joseph, and were, therefore, not capable of a mutual and open understanding. That both, however, preserved a better conscience than the rest, is evident from the later history. The unity of our story is not disturbed by Knobels remark, that a further tradition is given, Euseb. Prp. Evang., ix. 23, to the effect that, in order to escape the snares of his brethren, Joseph besought Arabians, who were near, to take him along with them to Egypt; which they did; so that, in this way, are the patriarchs still more exculpated. What Joseph says of himself afterwards, that he was stolen out of the land of the Hebrews (Gen 40:15), does not contradict our narration. Was he to tell to the Egyptians the crime of his brethren?

5. Gen 37:28-32. The crime, the beginning of mourning, and the concealment of the guilt.Twenty pieces of silver.Comp. Gen 20:16. Twenty shekels of silver was the compensation that Moses appointed for a boy from five to twenty years old (Lev 27:5), whilst the average price of a slave was thirty shekels (Exo 21:32).And Reuben returned unto the pit.His absence may easily be accounted for: it was impossible for him to eat with his brethren in his then state of mind; and he probably resorted to solitude to think out a plan of deliveranceAnd he rent his clothes.The later custom (Mat 26:65) originally sprung from vivid emotions of sorrow,the rending as an expression of inward distraction. Afterwards came this rending of garments upon the others (Gen 44:13).And I, whither shall I go?Not only as the first-born was he especially responsible for the younger brother, but his tender feelings for him, and for the unhappy father, made him the bearer of the agony of the guilty confederacy; and this to such a degree that he knew not what to do.And they took Josephs coat.One transgression gives birth to another. With the consciousness that tried to conceal their guilt, there mingles the old grudge concerning the coat of many colors, which here turns itself even against the father. Doubtless, in some degree, they thought themselves justified in the thought that the father had given them cause of irritation by providing such a coat for Joseph. Reuben and Judah are, moreover, burdened by the ban of silence.

6. Jacobs deep grief, and Josephs apparent loss (Gen 37:33-36).It is my sons coat.Their deception succeeded. In his agony he does not discover the fraud; the sight of the blood-dyed garment led him to conclude: Surely an evil beast hath torn Joseph, and devoured him.Sackcloth.The sign of the deepest mourning (see Winer: Trauer-sack).And mourned for his son.Retaining also his garment of mourning.And all his sons.The criminals as comforters!And all his daughters.From this there arises the probability that Jacob had other daughters than Dinah, though the daughters-in-law may be so called.For I will go down.The is elliptical, implying, nothing can comfort me, for, etc.Mourning unto my son.There is, doubtless, something more here than grief merely for the loss; there is also self-reproach for having exposed the child to such danger.Into the grave (sheol).In this mournful mood of Jacob does this word sheol first occur. It was not the world beyond the grave considered as the gathering to the fathers, but the dark night of death and mourning. There are various derivations of this word. One that easily suggests itself is that which marks it from , to demandthat place which inexorably demands all men back (Pro 30:15; Isa 5:14; Heb 2:5). [See Excursus below, especially p. 586 sq.T. L.] Gen 37:36. The word , according to its original significance, denotes an eunuch; its later and more general interpretation is courtier.Captain of the guard.Literally a slayer, that is, an executioner (see 2Ki 25:8; Jer 39:9). For particulars, see Delitzsch, p. 531. On the chronology as connected with the remark that Joseph was sold when he was seventeen years old, see also Delitzsch, p. 532. Josephs history here suffers an interruption by the insertion of an incident in the life of Judah. Ch. 38 Delitzsch ascribes this to literary art on the part of the author, but of that we may doubt. It is, of itself, just the time that we should expect to learn something more about Judah.

[Note on Gen 37:35. The Primitive Conception of Sheol.This is the first place in which the word occurs, and it is very important to trace, as far as we can, the earliest conception, or rather emotion, out of which it arose. I will go down to my son mourning to Sheol,towards Sheol, or, on the way to Sheol,the reference being to the decline of life terminating in that unknown state, place, or condition of being, so called. One thing is clear: it was not a state of not-being, if we may use so paradoxical an expression. Jacob was going to his son; he was still his son; there is yet a tie between him and his father; he is still spoken of as a personality; he is still regarded as having a being somehow, and somewhere. Compare 2Sa 12:23, , I am going to him, but he shall not return to me. The him and the me in this case, like the I and the my son in Genesis, are alike personal. In the earliest language, where all is hearty, such use of the pronoun could have been no unmeaning figure. The being of the one who has disappeared is no less real than that of the one who remains still seen, still found,5 to use the Shemitic term for existence, or out-being, as a known and visible state (see note, p. 273). The LXX have rendered it here , into Hades; the Vulgate, ad filium meum in infernum. It was not to his son in his grave, for Joseph had no grave. His body was supposed to be lying somewhere in the desert, or torn in pieces, or carried off, by the wild beasts (see Gen 37:33). To resolve it all into figurative expressions for the grave would be simply carrying our meaningless modern rhetoric into ancient forms of speech employed, in their first use, not for the reflex painting, but for the very utterance of emotional conceptions. However indefinite they may be, they are too mournfully real to admit of any such explanations. Looking at it steadily from this primitive standpoint, we are compelled to say, that an undoubting conviction of personal extinction at death, leaving nothing but a dismembered, decomposing body, now belonging to no one, would never have given rise to such language. The mere conception of the grave, as a place of burial, is too narrow for it. It, alone, would have destroyed the idea in its germ, rather than have given origin and expansion to it. The fact, too, that they had a well-known word for the grave, as a confined place of deposit for the body ( , a possession, or property, of a grave, see Gen 23:9), shows that this other name, and this other conception, were not dependent upon it, nor derived from it.

The older lexicographers and commentators generally derived the word (Sheol) from (Sha–al), to ask, inquire, etc. This is a very easy derivation, so far as form is concerned; and why is it not correct? In any way the sense deduced will seem near, or far-fetched, according to our preconceptions in respect to that earliest view of extinct or continued being. Gesenius rejects it, maintaining that is for , and means cavity; hence a subterranean region, etc. He refers to , hollow of the hand, or fist, Isa 40:12; 1Ki 20:10; Eze 13:19; and , the name for fox or jackal, who digs holes in the earth,this being all that can be found of any other use of the supposed root from which comes this most ancient word, so full of some most solemn significance. There is a reference, also, to the German hlle, or the general term of the northern nations (Gothic, Scandinavian, Saxon), denoting hole, or cavity; though this is the very question, whether the northern conception is not a secondary one, connected with that later thought of penal confinement which was never separable from the Saxon hell,a sense-limitation, in fact, of the more indefinite and more spiritual notion primarily presented by the Greek Hades, and which furnishes the true parallel to the early Hebrew Sheol. Frst has the same view as Gesenius. To make and equivalents, etymologically, there is supposed to be an interchange of and , a thing quite common in the later Syriac, but rare in the Hebrew, especially the earlier writings, and which would be cited as a mark recentioris Hebraismi, if the rationalistic argument, at any time, required it. The has ever kept its place most tenaciously in the Arabic, as shown by Robinson in the numerous proper names of places in which it remains unchanged to this day. So it was, doubtless, in the most early Shemitic, though in the Syriac it became afterwards much weakened through the antipathetic Greek and Roman influence upon that language, and so, frequently passed into the more easily pronounced . It is improbable that this should have taken place in the most ancient stage of the language, or at the time of the first occurrence of this word in the biblical writings. Gesenius would give to , too, the supposititious primary sense of digging, to make it the ground of the secondary idea of search or inquiry; but this is not the primary or predominant conception of ; it is always that of interrogation, like the Greek , or of demand, like , ever implying speech, instead of the positive act of search, such as is denoted by the Hebrew , to explore. Subsequent lexicographers and commentators have generally followed Gesenius, who seems to pride himself upon this discovery (see Robinson: Lex. N. Test. on the word Hades). Of the older mode of derivation he says: Prior de etymo conjectura vix memoratu digna est. By some it would be regarded as betraying a deficiency in Hebrew learning to think of supporting an etymology so contemptuously rejected. And yet it has claims that should not be lightly given up, especially as they are so intimately connected with the important inquiry in respect to the first conception of those who first used the word. Was this, primarily, a thought of locality, however wide or narrow it may have been, or did the space-notion, which undoubtedly prevailed afterwards, come from an earlier thought, or state of soul rather, more closely allied to feeling than to any positive idea? This conception of locality in the earth came in very early; it grew naturally from something before it; but was it first of all? Lowth, Herder, etc., are, doubtless, correct in the representations they give of the Hebrew Sheol, as an imagined subterranean residence of the dead, and this is confirmed by later expressions we find in the Psalms and elsewhere, such as going down to the pit (compare and similar language, Psa 28:1; Psa 30:4; Psa 88:5; Isa 14:19; Isa 38:10, etc.); yet still there is the best of reasons for believing that what may be called the emotional or ejaculatory conception was earlier than this, and that the local was the form it took when it passed from an emotion to a speculative thought. From what source, then, in this earlier stage, could the name more naturally have come than from the primitive significance of that word , which, in the Arabic , and everywhere in the Shemitic family, has this one old sense of appealing interrogation,first, simple inquiry, secondly, the idea of demand? The error of the older etymologists, then, consisted, not in making it from , but in connecting it with this secondary idea, and so referring it to Sheol itself as demanding, instead of the mourning, sighing survivors asking after the dead. They supposed it was called Sheol from its rapacity, or unsatiableness, ever claiming its victims,a thought, indeed, common in the early language of mourning, but having too much of tropical artifice to be the very earliest. It belongs to that later stage in which language is employed, retroactively, to awaken or intensify emotion, instead of being its gushing, irrepressible utterance. In support of this view, the text constantly cited, as the standard one, was Pro 30:16, — , Sheol that is never satisfied, that never says, enough. See the old commentary of Martin Geier on the book of Proverbs. Corresponding to this is the manner in which Homer speaks of Hades, and its vast population:

.

So the dramatic poets represent it as rapacious, carrying off its victims like a ferocious animal (see the Medea of Euripides, 1108), inexorable, , pitiless, ever demanding, but hearing no prayer in return. Hence it had settled into the classical phrase rapax Orcus (see Catullus, ii. 28, 29). But this, whatever form might be given to it, was not the first thought that would arise in the mind respecting the state of the departed. Instead of such an objective attribute of Hades, or Sheol, as a place demanding to be filled, it was rather the subjective feeling of inquiring wonder at the phenomenon of death, at the thought of the one who had disappeared, and of that inexplicable state into which even the imagination failed to follow him. Shadowy as all such language is, it is only the stronger evidence of that feeling of continued being which holds on so firmly through it all, as though in spite of the positive appearances of sense testifying to the departure, or the negative testimony arising from the failure of the eye to pierce the darkness (whence the Greek Hades, the unseen), or of the ear to gather any report from the silence into which the dead had gone. See remarks in the note before referred to, p. 273, on the idea of death as a state, a state of being, the antithesis, not of being, but of the active life beneath the sun. Now the idea of extinction, of absolute not-being, of a total loss of individual personality, would have excluded all questioning; it would never have made such words as Hades, or Sheol, according to either conception, whether of inquiry or of locality, whether as denoting a state or a place, whether as demanding or as interrogated, whether as addressed to the unseen, or to the voiceless and unheard. The man was gone, but where? According to a most ancient and touching custom, they thrice most solemnly invoked his name, but no answer came back. Their belief in his continued being was shown by the voice that went after him, though no responding voice was returned to the living ear. (the infinitive used as a noun), to ask, to inquire anxiously; he had gone to the land thus denoted, that undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returned. The key-text here is Job 14:10 : Man dies, and wastes away; he giveth up the ghost ( , yighwah ha–adam, man sighs, or gasps for breath), and where is he? , weayyo, O, where is he? See Zec 1:5 : The fathers! , where are they? Compare also Job 7:21, and other places of a similar kind, all showing how natural is the connection between the wailing, questioning weayyo, and the word Sheol so immediately suggested by it.

The disappearance of Enoch from the earth was stranger than that of the ordinary death, but gave rise to the same feeling of inquiry, only in a more intensive degree. He was not found, , says the LXX, and this gives the real meaning of the Hebrew , not denoting non-existence, for that would be directly contrary to what follows, but that he was nowhere to be found on earth.

Thus regarded, it is easy to see how the idea of some locality would soon attach itself to the primitive emotional conception, and in time become so predominant that the older germ of thought, that was in the etymology, would almost wholly disappear. Still the spirit of the word, its geist or ghost, to use the more emphatic German or Saxon, long haunts it after the conception has changed so as to receive into it more of the local and definite. Trench has shown how tenacious is this root-sense of old words, preserving them, like some guardian genius, from misusage and misapplication, ages after it has ceased to be directly conceptual, or to be known at all, except to the antiquarian philologist. Thus, although the cavernous or subterranean idea had become prominent in the Psalms and elsewhere, this old spirit of the word still hovers about it in all such passages; we still seem to hear the sighing weayyo; there yet lingers in the car the plaintive sheolah, denoting the intense looking into the world unknown, the anxious listening to which no answering voice is returned.

That Sheol, in its primary sense, did not mean the grave, and in fact had no etymological association with it, is shown by the fact, already mentioned, that there was a distinct word for the latter, of still earlier occurrence in the Scriptures, common in all the Shemitic languages, and presenting the definite primary conception of digging, or excavation (, kbr, krb, ,, grb, grub, grav). There was no room here for expansion into the greater thought. The Egyptian embalming, too, to one who attentively considers it, will appear still less favorable. It was a dry and rigid memorial of death, far less suggestive of continued being, somehow and somewhere, than the flowing of the body into nature through decomposition in the grave, or its dispersion by fire into the prime elements of its organization. In the supposed case, however, of Josephs torn and dismembered corpse, there was nothing from any of these sources to aid the conception. Yet Jacob held on to it: I will go mourning to my son, , not , or for , on account of my son, as some would take it.6 Had Joseph been lying by the side of his mother in the field near Bethlehem Ephratah, or with Abraham and Sarah, and Isaac and Rebekah, in the cave of Machpelah, or in some Egyptian sarcophagus, embalmed with costliest spices and wrapped in aromatic linen, the idea of his unbroken personality would have been no more vivid, Joseph himself (his very ipse) would have been no nearer, or more real, to the mourning father, than as he thought of his body lying mangled in the wilderness, or borne by rapacious birds to the supposed four corners of the earth. I will go to my son mourning, sheolah (, with of direction), Sheol-ward,on the way to the unknown land.

This view of Sheol is strongly corroborated by the parallel etymology, and the parallel connection of ideas we find in the origin and use of the Greek Hades. Some would seek its primary meaning elsewhere, but it is clearly Greek, and no derivation is more obvious than the one given long ago, and which would make this word (Homeric , with the mild aspirate) from privative and to see. We have the very word as an adjective, with this meaning of invisible or unseen, Hesiod: Shield of Hercules, 477. It denotes, then, the unseen world, carrying the idea of disappearance, and yet of continued being in some state unknown. The analogy between it and the Hebrew word is perfect. So is the parallelism, all the more striking, we may say, from the fact that in the two languages the appeal is to two different senses. In the one, it is the eye peering into the dark; in the other, it is the ear intently listening to the silence. Both give rise to the same question: Where is he? whither has he gone? and both seem to imply with equal emphasis that the one unseen and unheard yet really is. Sometimes a derivative from the same root, and of the same combination, is joined with Hades to make the meaning intensive, as in the Ajax of Sophocles, Genesis 607:

The awful, unseen Hades.
From this use has come the adjective , rendered eternal, but having this meaning from the association of ideas (the Hadean, the everlasting), since it is not etymologically connected with (see Judges 6, , where the two conceptions seem to unite). In truth, there is a close connection between these two sets of words ( and , and ), one ever suggesting the other,the things that are seen are temporal (belong to time), the things that are unseen are eternal. Hence we have in Greek the same idiom, in respect to Hades, that we have in Hebrew in relation to Olam (), the counterpart of . Thus, in the former language we have the expressions, , etc., corresponding exactly to the Hebrew , the house of eternity, poorly rendered his long home, Ecc 12:5. Compare the , the house eternal, 2Co 5:1. Compare also XenophonsAgesilaus, at the close, where it is said of the Spartan king, , he was brought back, like one who had been away, to his eternal home. Sec, too, a very remarkable passage, Diodorus Siculus, lib. i. Gen 51, respecting the belief of the most ancient Egyptians: The habitations of the living they call inns, or lodging-places, , since we dwell in them so short a time, but those of the dead they style , everlasting abodes, as residing in them forever, . See also Pareau: De Jobi Notitiis, etc., on the early Arabian belief, p. 27.

Why should not Jacob have had the idea as well as these most ancient Egyptians? That his thought was more indefinite, that it had less of circumstance and locality, less imagery every way, than the Greek and Egyptian fancy gave it, only proves its higher purity as a divine hope, a sublime act of faith, rather than a poetical picturing, or a speculative dogma. The less it assumed to know, or even to imagine, showed its stronger trust in the unseen world as an assured reality, but dependent solely for its clearer revelation on the unseen God. The faith was all the stronger, the less the aid it received from the sense or the imagination. It was grounded on the surer rock of the everlasting covenant made with the fathers, though in it not a word was said directly of a future life. The days of the years of my pil grimage, says Jacob. He was a sojourner upon earth as his fathers before him. The language has no meaning except as pointing to a home, an , an eternal habitation; whether in Sheol, or through Sheol, was not known. It was enough that it was a return unto God, his peoples dwelling-place ( , see Psa 90:1) in all generations. It was, in some way, a living unto him, however they might disappear from earth and time; for he is not the God of the dead. His covenant was an assurance of the continued being of those with whom it was made. Because he lived they should, live also. Art thou not from everlasting, Jehovah, my God, my Holy One? we shall not (wholly) die. Thou wilt lay us up in Sheol; thou wilt call and we will answer; thou wilt have regard to the work of thy hands. The pure doctrine of a personal God, and a belief in human extinction, have never since been found conjoined. Can we believe it of the lofty theism of the patriarchal ages?

Hades, like Sheol, had its two conceptual stages, first of state, and afterwards of locality. To the Greek word, however, there was added a third idea. It came to denote, also, a power; and so was used for the supposed king of the dead, , , , (Iliad, 20:61); and this personification appears again in the later Scripture, 1Co 15:55, O Hades, where is thy victory? and in Rev 6:8; Rev 20:13-14, where Hades becomes limited to Gehenna, and its general power, as keeper of souls, is abolished.T. L.]

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. Jacobs fondness for the younger son forms the other extreme to Isaacs predilection for the first-born. He had, it is true, better reasons than Isaac; for Joseph is not only the son of his beloved Rachel, but also the Nazarite (the consecrated or separate one) among his brethren,a fact to which he testifies upon his death-bed (see Gen 49:22). But then he began to see clearly that Judah surpassed Joseph in what pertained to the future. The struggle between his predilection and his love of justice appears in more than one instance. Joseph must enter service as a shepherds boy; nevertheless, his father provides for him a showy garment, and keeps him at home longer than the others. He ventures his favorite upon a distant and dangerous mission, and this is a reason why he refuses to be comforted at his loss. He rebukes him for his apparently presumptuous dream, but feels compelled to keep the presaging omens in his vaticinating heart.

2. The Scriptures make no palliation of the sins of the twelve patriarchsthe fathers of the very people to whom they are sent. This shows their super-earthly origin.
3. By his dreams Joseph gets into misery, and by their interpretations he is delivered from it. The first fact would give him occasion to think closely on the ground-laws that regulate the symbolic language of dreams; and both he, and the New-Testament Joseph, are witnesses to the fact that there is a significance in them. Elsewhere have we shown the circumstances favorable to this that were possessed by both.
4. The simplicity with which Joseph relates his dreams, reminds us of Isaacs nave question on the way to Mount Moriah: but where is the lamb? It stands in beautiful contrast with that moral earnestness which had already, in early age, made him self-reliant in presence of his brethren.
5. Here, too, in the history of Josephs brethren, is there an example showing how envy passes over to animosity, animosity to fixed hatred, and hatred to a scheme of murder, just as in the history of Cain, and in that of Christ. The allegorical significance of our history, as typical of that of Christ, appears in the most diversified traits.
6. As the murderous scheme was prevented by Reubens plan of deliverance, and modified by Judahs proposal, so, in the life of our Lord, the scheme of the Sanhedrin was changed more than once by arresting circumstances. Thus providence turned the destructive plots to a beneficent end. It was the chief tendency of these schemes to promote the highest glory of the hated one, whose glory they aimed to destroy.
7. Concerning the way in which these plans of Reuben and Judah cross each other, see the Exegetical and Critical. We have no right to suppose that Reuben behaved as he did in this case in order to appease his father for the wrong done in the case of Bilhah. The weakness, which, according to Gen 49:4, was the great reproach of his character, had also its good side. Equally false is the supposition that Judah maliciously frustrated Reubens good intentions. Both remind us of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, who did not consent to the sentence of the Sanhedrin; but they were less inclined to the right, and their half-measures remind us of Pilates attempt to save, though they had not, like him, the power in their hands; since being implicated by their former animosity towards Joseph, they could only weakly oppose their angry brethren.

8. The coat of many colors dipped in blood, reminds us of the deception that Jacob, in Esaus raiment, practised upon his father. Yet it must not be overlooked, that Jacob became reconciled at Peniel. Had he been sanctified, indeed, as well as reconciled, he would not, after such bitter experience, have repeated his fathers error of an arbitrary preference of one son to another. And, in this respect, he even now atoned for a sin which had been already pardoned.
9. Jacobs mourning shows how deeply his peace was shaken. The self-examination occasioned in pious souls, in consequence of the loss or sufferings of dear ones, especially of children, becomes a grievous self-condemnation. From this there arises a longing after death. But here, too, there must be an unconditional surrender to Gods grace. We see here, also, how the congregation of the fathers beyond the grave becomes a Sheol to the pre-Christian consciousness through the feeling it gives of death, of his power, of the effect of mourning as extending even to the other world. Luther has frequently translated Sheol by Hell (we find it also thus in Apost. Symb.); but a careful distinction should be made between Sheol and Gehenna.

10. These Ishmaelitish-Midianitish merchantmen are the first Ishmaelites with whom we become acquainted. They remind us of the caravan of Mohammed, that most renowned of all Ishmaelitish merchants. They testify to the outward increase and spiritual decrease of the descendants of Ishmael. They are witnesses to a heart-rending scene, but coolly pay their twenty pieces of silver, reminding us of the thirty paid by Judas, then go their way with the poor lad, who passes his home without hope of deliverance, and is for a long time, like Moses, David, and Christ, reckoned among the lost.
11. Jacobs house shaken, burdened with a curse, given over, apparently, to destruction, and yet wonderfully saved by Gods grace and human placability (see Genesis 50).

12. Josephs character. Presageful of the future, like a prophet; simple as a child; the extraordinarily prudent son of the prudent Rachel and the prudent Jacob, yet noble-minded, and so generous that he becomes a type of New-Testament love for enemies,God-fearing in a distant land, and yet so liberal in his universalism that he can reconcile himself to Egyptian culture, holding himself free, even to bitterness, in respect to home remembrances (see the name he gave his son Manasseh (make to forget, oblivioni tradens), and yet, at last, homesick after Canaan,renowned for chastity, and yet not without ambition, full of high-minded and proud anticipations, and yet prepared to endure all humiliations by which Jehovah might aim to purify him. Calumniated by many, by others hastily canonized as a saint. A man of spirit and a man of action in the highest sense.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

The whole chapter. Joseph sold. The sins of men and the providence of God. The character of our narrative. The chain of circumstances. The significance often of things apparently small. 1. Of Jacobs weakness (in the case of the coat); 2. of Josephs dreams; 3. of his thoughtlessness; 4. of Reubens absence; 5. of the appearing of the Ishmaelites.Man proposes, God disposes.My thoughts are not your thoughts, etc. The sublimity of the divine decrees as compared with human schemes.

Section First. (Gen 37:1-12.) Starke: Although Jacob had his reasons for specially loving Joseph, yet he did not act prudently in allowing it to become noticed. Parents should guard against it. Ambrose: Jungat liberos equalis gratia quos junxit (qualis natura. Envy is a diabolical vice (Wis 2:24).7Hall: Suffering is the road to honor.The same: When we are loved by our Heavenly Father, and weep over our sins, we will be hated by our brethren in the flesh (1Pe 4:4).Bibl. Tub.: Do not unnecessarily tell your enemy what may be for your advantage.Calwer Handbuch: Gen 37:2. No malicious information was it, but coming from an innocent free-heartedness and a dutiful abhorrence of evil.Lisco, on the contrary: A child-like and injudicious tale-telling.Gerlach: As a spoiled child, he accuses his brethren to his father. [The boundary between the malicious and the dutiful here may be drawn with difficulty; yet it is to be observed, that Joseph told the father what was already spoken of by the people, that is, when it had already become an ill-fame.]Schrder: Luther says, that Joseph narrated his dreams like a child, not from malice, but in simplicity and innocence.Richter: Mark it; young Joseph saw in his dreams only his exaltation, not the humiliation that preceded it.Heim (Bible Studies): The difference between the two dreams. In the first there could be only ten sheaves besides Josephs, since Benjamin was not present, and Joseph said to his brethren, Your sheaves. In the second, however, he beholds definitely eleven stars, therefore himself as the twelfth included.

Section Second. (Gen 37:12-20.) Starke: Gen 37:15. Joseph enters upon his journey in the simplicity of his heart, expecting no evil; and thus God lets him run into the net against which he could have easily warned him. Gods ways, however, are secret. Whom he wishes to exalt he first tries, purifies, tempts, and humbles. [The Rabbins and one of the Targums tell us that this man, who directed Joseph in the field, was the angel Gabriel in the form of a man.]Hall: Gods decree precedes and is fulfilled, whilst we have no thought about it, yea, even fight against it. Though a Christian does not always prosper, though difficulties beset his way, he must not be confounded, but ever continue firm and steadfast in his calling. Gen 37:18. Here Moses shows what kind of ancestors the Jews had (comp. Act 7:9, etc.). Thus they fell from one sin into another. Perhaps Simeon was the ringleader; since he afterwards was bound as hostage for his brethren.Schrder: Joseph goes in search of his brethren, and finds sworn enemies, bloodthirsty murderers.Heim (Bible Studies): Shechem is about twenty-five leagues from Hebron. Josephs mission to this remote and dangerous country is a proof, at the same time, that Jacob did not treat him with too much indulgence, and that he did not keep him home from any feelings of tenderness. Josephs willing obedience, too, and his going alone, an inexperienced youth, upon such a dangerous journey, is a proof that he was accustomed to obey cheerfullya habit not acquired in an effeminate bringing-up.

Section Third (Gen 37:21-24). Starke: So goes the world. Pious people ponder the welfare of the godless, whilst the latter are conspiring for their destruction (1Sa 19:5). God can raise up, even among enemies, helpers of the persecuted. Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of vanity and sin, as it were with a cart-rope (Isa 5:18).

Section Fourth (Gen 37:25-27). Starke: Luther: They take their seats as though they had well done their work. Conscience is secure; sin is asleep; yet God sees all.Schrder: [Unfavorable judgment of Judah.] Luther: O, Judah, thou art not yet purified. In Calwer Handbuch Judah is even compared to Judas, who sold the Lord. But it is allegorising merely, when we are determined in our judgment by mere outward resemblances. See the Exegetical and Critical. Judahs proposition arose from the alternative: He must either starve to death in the pit, or he must be sold as a slave.

Section Fifth (Gen 37:28-32). Starke: No matter what hindrances Josephs brethren might put in the way of the dreams fulfilment, against their will were they made to promote it (Psa 55:10).Bibl. Tub.: Thus, there is yet a spark of good in nature. If only man would not suppress this small light, he would be preserved from the greatest sins.The same: Joseph is a type of Christ in his exaltation, in his humiliation, and especially in his being sold for thirty [twenty] pieces of silver. Gen 37:29. Josephus thinks that Reuben came by night so as not to be detected. [One of the Targums adds, that Reuben, on account of the incest committed, had been fasting among the mountains, and, in order to find grace before his father, had intended to bring Joseph again to him.] Gen 37:32. Thus Josephs brothers add sin to sin.

Section Sixth (Gen 37:33-36). Starke: This was a punishment of God. Jacob had deceived his father Isaac by putting around his neck and hands the skin of a kid; he is himself now deceived by Josephs coat dipped in the blood of a kid.Hall: One sin is made to cover another; godless men, it is true, ever try to conceal their malignity, but it comes to light at last, and is punished.Osiander: Seldom does misfortune come alone. It is but a short time since Jacob was deprived of Rachel; now he has lost Joseph. In such a concealment of guilt they pass twenty-two years. And his father wept for him. [Luther: This was Isaac, Josephs grandfather, who lived still twelve years after this event.] He himself (Jacob) had several things to reproach him in his conscience: Why did he let the boy go alone on such a journey? Why did he send him into a country abounding in wild beasts?Bibl. Wirt.: In grief we are inclined to overdo.Osiander: Pious parents often blame themselves when things go badly with their children, even when there is the least ground for it.Calwer Handbuch: After the crime, comes the lie; after the lie, a hypocritical comforting of the father.Schrder: Luther: During all this time, the brethren were unable to pray to God with a good conscience.Observe, each one of the three patriarchs was to sacrifice his dearest son.

To the whole chapter. Taube: The selling of Joseph by his brethren: 1. From what sources this horrible deed arose; 2. how the divine mouth remains silent, whilst the divine hand so much the more strongly holds; 3. the types that lie concealed.

Footnotes:

[1][Gen 37:2. . LXX., ; Vulgate, more strongly, accusavit fratres suos apud patrem crimine pessimo. From , an onomatope (dababdabdabble), denoting a light, oft-repeated sound (tap–tap), or motion, like the Arabic leniter incessit, reptavit. In either way the noun would come to mean, a rumor whispered, or creeping round. It does not mean that Joseph made accusations against them, as the Vulgate has it, but that, in boyish simplicity, he repeated what he had heard about them. The root occurs only Son 7:10, where Gesenius gives it the sense of lightly flowing, which hardly seems consistent with the radical idea of repetition. The light motion of the lips, like one muttering, or faintly attempting to speak in sleep, as our translators have given it, is more in accordance with the nature of the root.T. L.]

[2][Gen 37:3. . Rendered, son of his old age, . But, as Maimonides well remarks, this could not have been the case with Joseph in a degree much exceeding the relation to the father of Issachar and Zebulon. He thinks, therefore, that he was so called, not because he was late born, but because he stayed at home, and thus became his fathers principal stay and supportas is the custom of old men to retain one son, in this manner, whether the youngest or not that is, be to him or , as the Greeks called it. In this view the plural form would be intensive, denoting extreme old age, to which the other places where the form occurs would well agree, Gen 21:2; Gen 44:20. After Joseph, Benjamin performed this duty. The Targum of Onkelos seems to have had something of this kind in view, when it renders it , his wise sonhis careful son, who provided for him.T. L.]

[3][Gen 37:3. , coat of many colors,rather, coat of pieces. The context shows that it was something beautiful and luxurious; the other passage where it occurs, 2Sa 13:18, shows that it may denote a garment for either sex, and the plural form indicates variety of construction or material. The primary sense of the root, , is diminution, not diffusion, as Gesenius says (see ). This is inferred from the use of for something small, as the end or extremity of anything, and the parallelism of the verb, Psa 12:2,a garment distinguished for small spots, stripes, or fringes.T. L.]

[4][Gen 37:35.On the etymology of see Excursus, p. 585 sqq.T. L.]

[5][Compare the Hebrew , as used Psa 46:1, from which comes the frequent rabbinical use of the term for existence as that which is somehow present. Comp. also the Arab. and = , entia. Lit., things to be found.T. L.]

[6][In proof that may have the sense of , Rosenmller refers to 1Ki 14:5; and Rashi to 2Sa 21:1; 1Sa 4:21. But these do not bear out the inference. The sense of direction, so clear everywhere else in the hundreds of cases where this preposition occurs, is not lost even in these. Gone is the glory of Israel (the glory that was). It is broken, impassioned language, and we may suppose an ellipsis: she said this (looking) to the taking of the ark, etc. So, in the chief case cited, it is most vividly rendered by taking it ellipticallyto the house of Saul, 2Sa 21:1that is, look not to me for the cause, says the oracle, but to Saul and his bloody house. At the utmost, these very few doubtful cases cannot invalidate the clear sense that the common rendering makes here.T. L.]

[7] [ , through envy of the devil death entered into the world. There is something very peculiar about this sin of envy, fully justifying the epithet diabolical. In the first place, it is preeminently spiritual. It is a pure soul-sin, having least connection with the material or animal nature, and for which there is the least palliation in appetite, or in any extrinsic temptation. Its seat and origin is wholly supercarnal, except as the term carnal is taken, as it sometimes is by the Apostle, for all that is evil in humanity. A man may be most intellectual, most free from every vulgar appetite of the flesh; he may be a philosopher, he may dwell speculatively in the region of the abstract and the ideal, and yet his soul be full of this corroding malice, which the author of the book of Proverbs, describing it in its effect rather than its origin, calls rottenness in the bones (Pro 14:30), presenting it as the opposite of that sound heart which is the life of the flesh. In the second place, it is the most purely evil. Almost every other passion, even acknowledged to be sinful, has in it somewhat of good, or appearance of good. Revenge assumes to have, at its foundation, some sense of wrong, that allies it to justice. Nemesis claims relationship to Themis. Anger makes a similar plea, and, with some show of reason, lays part, at least, of the blame upon the nervous irritability. These, and other human passions, trace a connection, in their spiritual genealogy, between themselves and pure affections that might have belonged to mans psychical or sensitive nature before the fall. But envy, or hatred of a man for the good that is in him, or in any way pertains to him, is evil unalloyed. To use the imagery of John Bunyan, its descent is simply Diabolonian, without any cross or mixture with anything that might allege a title to citizenship in Mansoul before it revolted from king Shaddai. Neither can it be laid, where we are so fond of charging our sins, upon the poor body. It would seem to have no natural growth from Mansouls material corporation, ruined as it is. It is the breath of the old serpent. It is pure devil, as it is, also, purely spiritual. It needs no body, no concupiscent organization, no appetites or fleshly motions, no nerves even, for the exercise of its devilish energies. It is a soul-poison, yet acting fearfully upon the body itself, bringing more death into it than seemingly stronger and more tumultuous passions that have their nearer seat in the fleshly nature. It is rottenness in the bones. We may compare this proverb of Solomon with a terrific description of envy by schylus, Agamem., Genesis 833:

,

,

,

.

Envy at others good is evermore
Malignant poison sitting on the soul;
A double woe to him infected with it.
Of inward pain the heavy load he bears,

At sight of joy without, he ever mourns.

What inspired the Greek poets in such truthful description of the most intense evils of the soul? All bad passions are painful, but envy has a double barb to sting itself.T. L.]

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

CONTENTS

The interesting history of the Patriarch Joseph, the son of Israel, begins at this Chapter. And as he is in many instances a most striking type of the LORD JESUS, it merits our attention the more. Here therefore I beg the Reader to call to mind the motto with which I opened our comment on this book of Genesis: Moses wrote of CHRIST. This Chapter hath for its contents the commencement of Joseph’s history at the 17th year of his age: the partiality of his father for him: the envy of his brethren: their conspiracy against him: their selling him for a slave: and the distress of Jacob in consequence of the loss of Joseph

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

From the review of Esau’s splendid race of dukes and kings, we are here introduced among the humble children of Jacob, who are shepherds and husbandmen.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Joseph and His Brethren

Gen 37

With the story of Joseph we come to the last division of Genesis. The development and progress of the household of Jacob, until at length it became a nation in Egypt, had Joseph as a pioneer. The fullness of the narrative is worthy of consideration. There is a fourfold value and importance in the record of Joseph’s life. (1) It gives the explanation of the development of the Hebrews. (2) It is a remarkable proof of the quiet operation of Divine Providence overruling evil, and leading at length to the complete victory of truth and righteousness. (3) It affords a splendid example of personal character. (4) It provides a striking series of typical illustrations of Christ. Joseph exemplifies the testing and triumph of faith.

I. Joseph’s Home Life. Joseph was the child of Jacob’s later life, and escaped all the sad experiences associated with the earlier years at Haran. His companions were his half-brothers, the grown-up sons of Bilhab and Zilpah. From all that we have hitherto seen of them they must have been utterly unfit companions for such a youth. The difference between the elder brethren and Joseph was accentuated by the fact that ‘Joseph brought unto his father the evil report of his brethren’. It is sometimes thought that Joseph is blameworthy for telling tales, but there does not seem any warrant for regarding him as a mere spy. There was, however, something much more than this to account for the differences between Joseph and his brethren. The gift of a coat of many colours (or pieces), or rather the ‘tunic with sleeves,’ was about the most significant act that Jacob could have shown to Joseph. It was a mark of distinction that carried its own meaning, for it implied that exemption from labour which was the peculiar privilege of the heir or prince of the Eastern clan. And so when his brethren saw these marks of special favour, ‘they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him’.

II. Joseph’s Dreams. The hatred of the brothers was soon intensified through the dreams that Joseph narrated to them. They were natural in form as distinct from any Divine vision, and yet they were clearly prophetic of Joseph’s future glory.

III. In the Course of their Work as Shepherds Jacob’s Elder Sons went to Shechem. It is not surprising that Israel wished to know how it fared with his sons and with his flocks. He therefore commands Joseph to take the journey of inquiry. The promptness and thoroughness of obedience on the part of Joseph is very characteristic of him. It has often and truly been pointed out that Joseph seems to have combined all the best qualities of his ancestors the capacity of Abraham, the quietness of Isaac, the ability of Jacob.

IV. Joseph’s Brethren. The conspiracy was all very simply but quite cleverly concocted, every point was met, the wild beast and the ready explanation. They shrank from slaying but not from enslaving their brother.

V. The Outcome. Reuben seems to have been away when the proposal to sell Joseph was made and carried out. People are often away when they are most needed. They carried out their ideas with great thoroughness. Jacob refused to be consoled. We cannot fail to note the unutterable grief of the aged patriarch. There was no expression of submission to the will of God, and no allusion to the new name Israel in the narrative.

W. H. Griffith Thomas, A Devotional Commentary, p. 3.

References. XXXVII. F. W. Robertson, Notes on Genesis, p. 135. XXXVII. 1-11. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Genesis, p. 234. XXXVII. 3. J. Vaughan, Sermons to Children (4th Series), p. 317.

Third Sunday in Lent

Gen 37:18

We will divide this subject into two parts. First of all, let us consider it from the point of view of the brethren, and then as it concerns Joseph.

I. The Attitude of the Brothers. 1. A distinction without a difference. First of all, notice the distinction these men draw between actual murder and casting him into this pit and letting him die there. Do you know, we are sometimes inclined to draw the same distinction in our conduct towards people? Are there not a great many men and women who would rather cut off their right hand than take the life of another, though they will make the life of that other a living death? Put forth their hand to slay a brother? Not so; but by their words day by day, and by their conduct day by day, they will make the life of that friend, that one who perhaps should be very near and dear to them, a misery by unkind words and insinuations and suggestions, by unkind, thoughtless, careless conduct. And what of our relation to our Lord? There are many people who will not boldly throw Him over by joining the ranks of the atheists, who yet bring grief and sorrow and pain to His loving heart day after day.

2. Willing to receive gifts. Notice also that these brethren were quite willing to receive the gifts brought by their brother Joseph, and yet cast him into the pit. Can you find anywhere a scene of greater callousness and cruelty than this scene? Again let us take care lest we do the same.

3. Evil minds find evil everywhere. And then, while thinking of the brethren, notice how evil minds will always find evil, noisome, pestilent food wherever they come. What possible temptation to any man could be a caravan of merchantmen on their way down to traffic? and yet here are these brethren with minds bent on evil, falling under the temptation to wrongdoing found in such an innocent thing as a caravan of men going down to Egypt.

II. Lessons from Joseph. Now let us turn our thoughts for a few minutes to Joseph; we may learn three very useful lessons from this incident.

1. Life is not easy. First notice that life is not a very easy thing after all. Here is Joseph, no doubt as bright and beautiful a specimen of a boy as you would wish to see anywhere, full of good resolutions, full of high ideals, realizing God’s blessing within him, realizing God’s gifts and power working and expanding and growing within him. I suppose he thought that he was going to sweep away all difficulty, and then suddenly there comes this terrible thing, this awful difficulty. I suppose we all start more or less like Joseph started, thinking that we are going to make something of life, and that we are going, whatever happens to other people, straight ahead. But disillusionment comes before very long. There comes an awakening, and we find that life is a way beset with briars and thorns, that there are difficulties and dangers.

2. Difficulties meant to strengthen. Here we learn that all these difficulties and trials of life are not sent to destroy but to strengthen. They are sent in the way of attainment. Joseph had a great life-work before him. He was to become ruler of a mighty nation, to save the life of a nation. He must be prepared for that work by the suffering, the toil, and the trial. Let us lay hold of that thought for our comfort. God wants you to do some great work in the world, not great perhaps as the world counts greatness, but some great and good work for Him. He wants your life to be a useful, noble, and true life, and the way he fits it is by trial, difficulty, danger, that you may be taught where strength is to be found, how truly to make life noble and successful.

S. No true life except by death. We learn finally that there is no true life except by death. Joseph had to learn many bitter lessons in the dark and slimy pit. He had to learn that good resolutions and high resolves are not sufficient. God requires that you and I should die to ourselves and live unto Him.

References. XXXVII. 19. H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Sunday Lessons, vol. i. p. 249. XXXVII. 23-36. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Genesis, p. 240. XXXVII. 26. A. G. Mortimer, The Church’s Lessons, vol. ii. p. 269. XXXVII. 28. J. Banstead, Practical Sermons, vol. i. p. 32. XXXIX. 2. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvii. No. 1610. M. Biggs, Practical Sermons on Old Testament Subjects, p. 74. XXXIX. 8,9. J. T. Bramston, Sermons to Boys, p. 109.

Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson

Joseph’s Dream

Gen 37:19

We learn from this verse how prejudice shuts us up to one particular view of a man the view which is most distasteful to us, and upon which we persuade ourselves, we can remark with the justice of injury and anger. Joseph was the child of his father’s old age, the idol of the old man’s heart, the light of the household, and yet his brethren had got one view of him to which they could never close their eyes. He was nothing to them but a dreamer of unpalatable dreams, a seer of visions which more or less impaired their own dignity and clouded their own prospects. It is the same today. Envy never changes. Prejudice never modifies into a virtue. To-day we do not like the dreamers who have seen visions which involve us more or less in decay and inferiority. It is not easy to forgive a man who has dreamed an unpleasant dream concerning us. We cannot easily forgive a man who has founded an obnoxious institution. If a man has written a book which is distasteful to us, it is no matter, though he should do ten thousand acts which ought to excite our admiration and confirm our confidence; we will go back and back upon the obnoxious publication, and whensoever that man’s name is mentioned that book will always come up in association with it. Is this right? Ought we to be confined in our view of human character to single points, and those points always of a kind to excite unpleasant, indignant, perhaps vindictive, feelings? The world’s dreamers have never had an easy lot. Do not let us imagine that Joseph was called to a very easy and comfortable position when he was called to see the visions of Providence in the time of his slumber. God speaks to men by dream and by vision, by strange scene and unexpected sight, and we who are prosaic groundlings are apt to imagine that those men who live in transcendental regions, who are privileged occasionally to see the invisible, have all the good fortune of life, and we ourselves are but servants of dust and hirelings ill-paid. No: the poets have their own pains, the dreamers have their own peculiar sorrows. Men of double sight often have double difficulties in life. Do not let us suppose that we are all true dreamers. Let us distinguish between the nightmare of dyspepsia and the dreams of inspiration. It is not because a man has had a dream that he is to be hearkened unto. It is because the dream is a Parable of Heaven that we ought to ask him to speak freely and fully to us concerning his wondrous vision, that we may see farther into the truth and beauty of God’s way concerning man

“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” ( Gen 37:20 ).

After this profound scheme no doubt there would follow a chuckle of triumph. The thing was so lucky in its plan, in its seasonableness, in its practicability; it seemed to meet every point of the case; it made an end of the whole difficulty; it turned over a new leaf in the history of the family. Let us understand that our plans are not good simply because they happen to be easy. Let us understand that a policy is not necessarily sound because it is necessarily final. In the case before us we see both the power and weakness of men. Let us slay, there is the power; and we will see what will become of his dreams, there is the weakness. You can slay the dreamer, but you cannot touch the dream. You can poison the preacher, but what power have you over his wonderful doctrine? Can you trace it? Where are its footprints? Ten or twelve men have power to take one lad, seventeen years of age, to double him up, and throve him, a dead carcase, into a pit. Wonderful power! What then? “And we will see what will become of his dreams.” A word which perhaps was spoken in scorn or derision, or under a conviction that his dreams would go along with him. Still, underlying all the derision is the fact that, though the dreamer has been slain, the dream remains untouched. The principle applies very widely. You may disestablish an institution externally, politically, financially; but if the institution be founded upon truth, the Highest himself will establish her. If we suppose that by putting out our puny arms and clustering in eager crowds round the ark of God, we are the only defenders of the faith and conservers of the Church then be it known unto us that our power is a limited ability, that God himself is the life, the strength, the defence, and the hope of his own kingdom. The principle, then, has a double application; an application to those who would injure truth, and an application to those who would avail themselves of forbidden facilities to maintain the empire of God amongst men.

“And we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him.” It is convenient in life to have even a beast that you can lay the blame upon. Life would be to some of us very insipid if we could not blame somebody for every evil word we say, and every evil thing we do. “Some evil beast hath devoured him.” We are unkind to beasts. No beast can be so bad as a bad man. There is no tiger in the forest that can be so savage as a pitiless mother. There is no wolf that ever came down upon a fold that can be so awful in passion, in malignity, and in evil deed, as a man who has lost self-control, and is carried away by his lawless passions.

“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” ( Gen 37:22 ).

We must not be harsh upon Reuben in this connection; although the Reubens of society are often difficult men to deal with. Instead of coming right to the front and speaking the decisive word, they avail themselves of some intermediate course, so that their very virtue becomes diluted into a kind of vice. When a man has not the courage of his convictions, his convictions may even become a temptation and a stumbling-block to society. Reuben’s intention was good, and let all due credit be given to every man who has a good intention: a merciful object in view. No one of us has a word to say against such a man. But there are times when everything depends upon tone, precision, definiteness, emphasis. I am not sure that Reuben could not have turned the whole company. There are times when one man can rule a thousand. A little one can put ten thousand to flight. Why? Because wickedness is weakness. There is more craven-heartedness among bad men than ever you can find among men who are soundly, livingly good. Is that a hard message to some of you? You know a very bold wicked man. Well, so you do; but that man is a coward. One day the shaking of a feather will cause him to become pale, and to tremble and turn round suspiciously, and timidly, as if every leaf in the forest had an indictment against him, and all the elements in the universe had conspired to destroy him.

Here is a call to us, most assuredly. We are placed in critical circumstances. Sometimes eight or nine men upon a board of directors have said that their plan will take this or that particular course. We believe that the plan is corrupt; we believe that it is wicked; displeasing to God, mischievous to man. What is our duty under circumstances such as these? To modify, to pare away, to dilute sound principle and intense conviction, to speak whisperingly, timidly, apologetically? I think not. But to meet the proposition with the definiteness of sound principle, and to be in that minority which is in the long run omnipotent the minority of God. It is not easy to do this. Far be it from me to say that if I had been in Reuben’s place I should have taken a more emphatic course. We are not called upon, in preaching God’s truth, to say what we should have done under such circumstances; but to put out that which is ideal, absolute, final, and then to exhort one another, to endeavour, by God’s tender, mighty grace, to press towards its attainment.

“And they sat down to eat bread: and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a company of Ishmeelites came from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt” ( Gen 37:25 ).

There are times when circumstances seem to favour bad men. Some of us are accustomed to teach that circumstances are the voice of Divine Providence. There is a sense a profound sense in which that is perfectly true. God speaks by combinations of events, by the complications of history, by unexpected occurrences. Most undoubtedly so. We have marked this. In many cases we have seen their moral meaning, and have been attracted to them as the cloudy pillar in the daytime and the fire by night. At the same time there is another side to that doctrine. Here in the text we find circumstances evidently combining in favour of the bad men who had agreed to part with their brother. They sat down to eat bread, perfectly tranquil, social amongst themselves, a rough hospitality prevailing. Just as they sat down to enjoy themselves with their bread, they lifted up their eyes, and at that very moment a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead with their camels. What could be more providential? They came in the very nick of time. The brethren had not to go up and down hawking their brother, knocking at door after door to ask if anybody could take him off their hands; but at the very moment when the discussion was pending, and anxiety was at white heat, circumstances so combined and converged as to point out the way of Providence and the path of right. Then we ought to look at circumstances with a critical eye. We ought first to look at moral principles, and then at circumstances. If the morality is right, the eventuality may be taken as an element worthy of consideration in the debate and strife of the hour. But if the principles at the very base are wrong, we are not to sec circumstances as Divine providences, but rather as casual ways to the realisation of a nefarious intent. Let us be still more particular about this. I do not deny that these Ishmaelites came providentially at that identical moment. I believe that the Ishmaelites were sent by Almighty God at that very crisis, and that they were intended by him to offer the solution of the difficult problem. But it is one thing for us to debase circumstances to our own use and convenience, and another to view them from God’s altitude and to accept them in God’s spirit

“And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit is it if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood?” ( Gen 37:26 ).

The very brightest and luckiest idea of all. He touched human nature to the very quick when he said, What profit is it? And instantly they seemed to convict themselves of a kind of thick-headedness, and said one to another “Ah, to be sure; why, no profit at all. Here is an opportunity of selling him, and that will turn to the account of us all. Sell is as short a word as slay. Sell! that will get clear of him. Let us sell. Sell! we shall have no blood upon our hands. Then we shall, perhaps, have a couple of shekels a-piece, and throwing them up in the air an inch or so, and catching them again, hear their pleasant chink. This is the plan, to be sure. This is the way out of the difficulty. We are sorry we ever thought of shedding blood; we shake ourselves from all such imputations. Let us sell the lad, and there will be an end of the difficulty.” Selling does not always take a man out of difficulty. Bargain-making is not always satisfactory. There is a gain that is loss; there is a loss that is gain. There is a separation that takes the hated object from our eyes, yet that object is an element in society and in life working, penetrating, developing and it will come back again upon us some day with greater power, with intensified poignancy; and the man that was driven away from us a beggar and a slave may one day rise up in our path, terrible as an avenger, irresistible as a judgment of God. Well, his brethren were content. Men even say that they enjoy a very great peace, and therefore, if circumstances are tolerably favourable, they say that, on the whole, they feel in a good state of mind. Therefore they conclude that they have not been doing anything very wrong. Let us understand that vice may have a soporific effect upon the conscience and judgment; that we may work ourselves into such a state of mind as to place ourselves under circumstances that are factitious, unsound in their moral bearing, however enjoyable may be their immediate influence upon the mind.

I am struck by this circumstance, in reading the account which is before me, namely, how possible it is to fall from a rough kind of vice, such as “Let us slay our brother,” into a milder form of iniquity, such as “Let us sell our brother,” and to think that we have now actually come into a state of virtue. That is to say, selling as contrasted with slaying seems so moderate and amiable a thing, as actually to amount to a kind of virtue. Am I understood upon this point? We are not to compare one act with another and say, Comparatively speaking this act is good. Virtue is not a quantity to be compared. Virtue is a non-declinable quantity. Comparing themselves thus they became wise. This kind of comparison has given place to the proverb that there is “honour among thieves.” That is impossible. The thievish man will have a thievish honour. It is true still, and will ever remain true, that unless we can set our motives, purposes, intentions, in the full blaze of God’s holiness, we shall become the victims of phrases, and be deluded by appearances. We debase circumstances into teachers of God’s providences, which were meant to be warnings, threatenings, and judgments. Against comparative morality and comparative virtue, we are called upon to protest. I know how easy it is, when some very startling proposition has been before the mind, to accept a modified form of the proposition, which in itself is morally corrupt; and yet to imagine, by the very descent from the other point, that we have come into a region of virtue. When men say, “Let us slay our brother,” there is a little shuddering in society. We don’t want to slay our brother. “Well, then,” says an acute man, “let us sell him.” And, instantly, amiable Christian people say, “Ay, ay, this is a very different thing; yes, let us sell him.” Observe, the morality is not changed, only the point in the scale has been lowered. When God comes to judge he will not say, Is this virtue and water? is this diluted vice? but, Is this right? is this wrong? The standard of judgment will be the holiness of God.

Now the brethren had to account for what they had done. They had to make out a case, and case-making is a very difficult business, where the morality is wrong. There is a good deal of stuccoing and veneering, angling and patching, and stitching and arranging to be done. We shall say some evil beast hath devoured him, we will dip his coat in the blood of a goat and say, Judge whether this be thy son’s or no. Yes, men will one day have to account for the things which make up their life. “We will say,” there is the point. Bad men have to argue upon what they were going to say. Bad men could never afford to be inconsistent and discrepant in their statements. Bad men have to get together, and rub off corners, and rectify angles, and agree upon methods of transition from this point to that point. Twelve honest men have never to get together that they may agree upon this statement and the next plan. They may go one after another and be judged alone, and each tell his own story. And when the twelve statements have been made, there will be little discrepancies, or points of inconsistency, yet all these admit of being wrought up into an impressive consistency, because the basis is true, and the intention of each witness is good. Forty or fifty bad men would never have written such a Bible as we have. It would have been a smoother Bible; there would not have been any apparent discrepancies and inconsistencies; it would have been an easy-flowing and consistent narrative. Observe, there is a consistency which is suspicious. There is a disagreement which is only the outcome of a healthy, loving, true, devout nature.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

XXIX

JACOB, JOSEPH, AND OTHERS

Genesis 35-41

This will be a running comment commencing at the thirty-fifth chapter and extending through the forty-first. Our last discussion showed the great disturbance of mind on Jacob’s part at the cruelty of Simeon and Levi in destroying the Shechemites. At this time God told Jacob to leave that place and go to Bethel. In removing, Jacob determined to purify his household from idols; if he was to have the enmity of the people, he was determined not to have the disfavor of God. So be commanded all his household to put away their strange gods and to change their garments. They also gave up the rings in their ears and noses. It is not fashionable with us now to wear rings that way, but many do. After this purification God protected them by causing a fear to fall upon the inhabitants of the land, or else Jacob’s crowd would have been annihilated on account of what Simeon and Levi bad done.

At Bethel he builds an altar and worships God, and God reappears to him and gives him a renewed assurance of his protection. He then leaves Bethel for what is now called Bethlehem, or Ephrath. At that place occurred the death of Rachel in giving birth to Benjamin. She was not buried in the cave of Machpelah, like the rest of the family, but for hundreds of years her tomb was standing and visible; they show it to you now, but not with certainty may you accept the tradition. In Gen 35:8 , we find an account of the death of Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse. That is the only hint as to the death of Rebekah. We infer from the fact that the old nurse had come to live with Jacob that Rebekah was dead. I may have an examination question on that point. The rest of the chapter is devoted to the names of Jacob’s sons by his several wives, which I will bring out in an examination question. The chapter closes with the death of Isaac. Jacob comes to Mamre, or Hebron, now the head of the tribe. Esau and Jacob unite to bury their father. The thirty-sixth chapter gives a genealogy of the descendants of Esau. Nothing is particular in that except the generations of Seir, father of the Horites. I will give this examination question: Why in the generations of Esau, are the generations of the Horites included? The answer is that Esau’s people moved to the country occupied by the Horites and intermarried with them. You will note that the Horites, or cave dwellers, are not prehistoric men.

The thirty-seventh chapter is devoted to the youth of Joseph, a very particular section. We find here the development of the murderous envy and hate of Joseph’s brethren toward him. An examination question will be: State what caused the envy and hatred of Joseph’s brethren toward him. The answer is: Joseph brought an evil report concerning the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, and they counted that tattling. If he had been one of the sons at work, and had reported on the others, that would have been a tell-tale business. If one in college should be appointed as a representative of the faculty, he could make a report without being justly amenable to the charge of tattling. Joseph was sent by his father to make a report. Next, Israel loved Joseph above all his other sons. I think the circumstances make it certain that he loved him justly. He was the oldest son of the only woman Jacob ever loved. He was intensely lovable, more so than any of the other boys. It is a fact, however, that there never was a case where a parent loved one child more than the others that it did not cause ill will in the family. The third reason is given here: “And he made him a full length garment.” King James Version, “a coat of many colours.” When a parent distinguishes between his children in dress he is sure to bring on a row. There Jacob made a mistake. Fourth, Joseph dreamed a dream and told it to his brothers, and they hated him yet the more. “I dreamed that we were binding sheaves, and behold, my sheaf arose and stood upright, and your sheaves stood around and bowed down to my sheaf.” If that dream originated with Joseph it shows that he was already imagining superiority over his brethren. But if it did not originate with Joseph, which it did not, as it came from God it showed a lack of wisdom in Joseph to tell the other boys. The dream was literally fulfilled in afterlife, and so must have been from God. He dreamed another dream: “Behold, I dreamed yet again, and behold the sun and moon and eleven stars bowed down to me.” The sun is papa, and the moon is mamma, and the stars are the eleven brothers, the whole family bowed down. He ought never to have told that dream to those boys. He told it to his father also. To show how quickly his father understood it, he said, “Shall we indeed, thy mother and thy father and thy brethren, bow down to thee?” His brothers envied him because his father kept that saying. He knew that meant something for his boy, and he was proud of the glory the boy would attain. Here are five things, and envy can get very fat on five things.

I once delivered an address on that subject before the Wake Forest College, entitled the “Ambitious Dreams of Youth.” There do come into bright minds forecasts of future greatness, great elation and swelling of the heart in thinking about it, that cannot be doubted. Sometimes these ambitious dreams do not come from God but from the heart of the student. I told those Wake Forest boys of a young fellow out in the mountains. When he started off to school a dream ran through his mind: “I will go to Wake Forest and make the brightest record ever made in that school. I will get through the four years’ course in three. I will get up my recitations so that the faculty will be talking about the most brilliant student in the institution. I will get the class honors. When I shall have delivered the valedictory and go home, all along the way people will say, ‘There is the boy who delivered the valedictory address.’ When I get home the family and all the servants will come out in a double row, and a band will play, ‘See the conquering hero come.’ ” Then I turned to the president and said, “Mr. President, what are you going to do with these ambitious boys who see the other boys bow down and their parents bowing down before them? Those boys think they have the world in a sling.” But one thing ‘is sure, no one ever became really great who did not aspire to be great. There is an honest ambition to excel, but where the faculty of imagination is wanting and it takes that to be a dreamer that man can be successful in a matter-of-fact way, but he certainly can never be successful as an artist, sculptor, painter, or as an orator or statesman. There is a creative power in the imagination. Woe to the one who expects to be great and has it not. It is characteristic of the Spirit’s day, as foretold by Joel and expounded by Peter, “Your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.” Sometimes men who have not the Spirit, and who find it easier to win in fancy than in fact, indulge in air castles which need to be ridiculed. There is a story in the old “Blue Back Speller” of a maiden who, walking alone with a pail of milk upon her head, fell into the following train of reflections: “The money for which I shall sell this milk will enable me to increase my stock of eggs to three hundred. These eggs, allowing for what may prove addle, and what may be destroyed by vermin, will produce at least two hundred and fifty chickens. The chickens will be fit to carry to market about Christmas, when poultry always brings a good price; so that by May Day I cannot fail of having enough money to purchase a new gown. Green! , let me consider, yes, green becomes my complexion best, and green it shall be. In this dress I will go to the fair, where all the young fellows will strive to have me for a partner; but I shall perhaps refuse every one of them, and, with an air of disdain, toss from them.” Transported with this triumphant thought she could not forbear acting with her head what thus passed in her imagination, when down came the pail of milk, and with it all her imaginary happiness. Dr. Wayland, one of the greatest educators in the United States, has a lecture on the “Evils of the Imagination,” that every schoolboy ought to read. Even barefoot boys, fishing in the creek, will weave stories of companies of which they are captains, and they will kill 1,000 buffaloes and 1,500 Indians. When I was canvassing for the Education Commission in Northeast Texas, I had to go about eleven miles out into the country. A lad of about twelve asked the privilege of taking me. I wondered why, but when we got out of town he turned around and said, “Dr. Carroll, I asked the privilege of taking you to this place because I wanted to talk to you. I heard your address on education, and do you know, I am going to be governor of Texas someday?” I smiled and said, “Tell me about it,” and he unfolded himself. That boy had already drawn out his own horoscope and filled out all the details of his future. He was brilliant. He had stood at the head of his classes. Instead of rebuking him I simply cautioned him and at the same time encouraged him because he had this record. He did not tell lies. He was never absent from his classes. He was never guilty of what you call schoolboy follies. He was intense in his application, and up to that time he had accomplished all that he had ever undertaken. So it would not surprise me if that boy yet becomes governor. I am waiting to see, however. One of the most instructive parts of the Bible is this that relates to the early life of Joseph and his premonitions of future greatness. Not long ago I read an account of a brilliant girl about thirteen years old. Her parents, uncles, and aunts were all trying to restrain her from following a certain line of education. She met it all by saying, “It is in me to do that. I know I can win on it. I dream about it. It fills my vision. I am irresistibly drawn to it.” And she did win on it, a country girl that became famous before the great audiences in European capitals.

This envy that had five roots, after awhile will come to a head when opportunity presents itself. A great many people carry envy and hate in their hearts and it eats like a cancer and burns like a hidden fire and no opportunity ever comes to gratify it, and the world knows nothing about it. “Gray’s Elegy” tells, in referring to the lowly graves, about “some mute, inglorious Milton” that never had a chance to follow the promptings of his muse. Not only that, but the lowly graves hold many a heart which had burned with hatred and envy and petulance that never had an opportunity to express itself in “Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country’s blood.” They say that everything comes to him who waits, and so this crowd waited, and here is their chance. Joseph’s brethren left Hebron, and went to Shechem, where they had massacred the Shechemites. They were looking for territory to pasture their immense herds. The father tells Joseph to go and see if it is well with the brothers and their flocks. It is a long way from home. When the boys see him coming they say, “Behold the dreamer cometh; let us slay him and cast him into a pit.” There were ten brothers in the meeting; eight were of one mind, but two had dissenting views. Reuben, the oldest, said, “Let us not kill him. Let us cast him into the pit.” The record says that Reuben intended to carry him back to Jacob. So he stands guiltless. The other one is Judah. We find when they bind him and strip off his coat that he pleads with them, ten great strong men, binding a boy, their own brother, and he weeping. Later they saw a caravan coming called Ishmaelites in one place and Midianites in another. Midian was a descendant of Esau, whose territory bordered on Ishmael’s, and the two tribes intermingled. Now Judah said, “Let us not kill him, but sell him to this caravan to take to Egypt.” In a speech I once delivered in the chapel of Baylor University, I told of a proposition about selling a man that would scorch the paper it was written on. The high court of state plotted it, the leading preacher instigated it, and the man they proposed to sell was one of the most illustrious on the roll of fame in the United States. So they sold Joseph. Then they took his coat and dipped it in the blood of a kid, and carried it to the father to make the impression that Joseph bad been torn to pieces by wild beasts. That was the heaviest stroke that Jacob ever received. He rent his garments, put on sackcloth, mourned many days and refused to be comforted. “I am going down to my son mourning to the underworld.” We will leave him there and look at one or two other matters.

The thirty-eighth chapter is devoted entirely to some rather scaly incidents in the life of Judah. The chapter is of such a character that it forbids discussion in a public address. Read it and gather your own lessons. It commences with Judah’s sin in marrying a Canaanite woman. Two of the sons born of this marriage God killed for their wickedness. This wife became an ancestress of our Lord. He derives his descent from four women not Jewesses. Rahab, the harlot; Tamar, the Canaanite; Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, whom David took; Ruth, the Moabitess.

The next three chapters give an account of Joseph in Egypt. When the caravan reached Egypt they sold him to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh. Potiphar finds his trustworthiness, purity and truthfulness and attention to business, and promotes this slave to the head of the house. When sold into slavery the brave heart ought not to despair. But the beauty of his person, great personality, evident kindly manhood, attracted Potiphar’s wife, and she fell in love with him, as some married women do. Joseph refused to Join her in this unlawful love. Whereupon, as “love unrequited and scorned turns to hate,” she accused him of the very offense which he refused to consider. So Potiphar puts him in prison. Now, though a prisoner, this man begins to work his way to the front. He is faithful to every duty. Finally he is put at the head of all the criminals in the jail. How can you put down a good man, true to God and himself? This position brings him into contact with other dreams besides his own. There are two that the birds snatched the bread of Pharaoh’s table out of fellow prisoners, the chief baker and butler of Pharaoh. Both are troubled. God sent those dreams. For a man to dream the basket on his head is a very singular thing. Joseph interpreted that to mean that he would gain his liberty but that Pharaoh would put him to death. It happened just that way. The butler dreamed about a cluster of grapes, well formed, sweet flavored, and luscious, and that he squeezed it into a goblet and handed the new wine to Pharaoh. Joseph tells him that means that he shall be restored and promoted to his old place, and says, “When you are promoted, remember me.” The butler promised well enough, but forgot. It is easy to forget the unfortunate. But after awhile God sends more dreams. This time Pharaoh has a double dream. He dreams that he sees seven stalks of grain come up in the Nile Valley, full eared and heavy headed. Right after them come up seven thin) shrivelled, parched stalks and they devour the others. He dreamed he saw seven fat beef cattle, and seven lean, ill favored, gaunt, starved specimens that ate the fat ones up. Nobody could tell Pharaoh what the dream meant. But finally the butler remembered Joseph and said, “When I was in prison there was a Hebrew lad who told us our dreams and they came out just like he said.” Pharaoh sent for Joseph, and we see him step out of the prison to stand before the monarch to explain dreams, as Daniel did later. He says each dream means the same thing, that there were going to be seven years of great plenty in which the earth would be burdened with its crops. It reminds me of what a man on the Brazos River said. Leaving out part of his language, which was very emphatic, I quote the other: “I tell you, I will have to build a wall around my field and call it a crib: there is so much corn in it.” He did make eighty bushels to the acre, and showed me a number of stalks with three full cars, standing only a foot apart and twenty feet high. Joseph said, “These seven years will be followed by seven years of drought and famine in which nothing will be made. God sent me here to provide. You ought to husband the resources of these fruitful years so that they can be spread out over the famine years.” Pharaoh was wonderfully impressed, and instantly promoted Joseph to the position of prime minister and made him next to himself. Just exactly as Joseph predicted, the thing happened. Great storage places, perfect reservoirs for holding wheat, and treasure houses were built. At the end of the first year people wanted bread to eat. Under advice of Pharaoh Joseph sold to them, taking their money, jewels, stock, land, then themselves. At the end of the seven years Pharaoh had the whole country, and Egypt was the granary of the world. “And all countries come into Egypt to Joseph to buy corn.”

That is the history of Joseph up to the time we come in touch with Jacob again.

QUESTIONS 1. Where did God tell Jacob to go from Shechem?

2. What important step did he take before going, and why?

3. How did God intervene to save Jacob from the inhabitants of the land?

4. What events happened at Bethel?

5. When did Rebekah die and what is the evidence?

6. Where did Jacob go from Bethel and what the events by the way?

7. Name the sons of Jacob by each of his wives and handmaids.

8. Where were they born?

9. Where does Jacob go from Ephrath, or Bethlehem, and what important event occurred there?

10. To what is the thirty-sixth chapter devoted, and why the genealogy of the Horites in this connection?

11. Whose is the most flawless character in history i Ana.: Joseph’s.

12. As a child, what could he say of his father and mother?

13. State in order the several causes or occasions of the hatred of his brothers.

14. What mistake did Joseph make in this?

15. What is the importance of dreams of greatness? Illustrate.

16. What is the difference between dreams of true greatness and building air castles? Illustrate.

17. What is the nature of ungratified envy and hate?

18. Cite passages from “Gray’s Elegy” to illustrate this point.

19. What was the culmination of the hatred of Joseph’s brothers? Can you find a parallel to this in the New Testament?

20. How was Reuben’s attitude toward the hostility against Joseph distinguished from that of his brothers?

21. How was Judah’s?

22. Who took Joseph out of the pit and sold him? (Gen 37:27-28 .)

23. Explain the confusion of the names of the Midianites and the Ishmaelites.

24. Compare the dejection of Jacob with that of Elijah, and show wherein both were mistaken.

25. To what is the thirty-eighth chapter devoted?

26. What was Judah’s beginning in this downward course of sin?

27. What four Gentile women became ancestress of our Lord?

28. Who became Joseph’s master in Egypt, what of his promotion and misfortune in this house?

29. How did he get out of prison and what six dreams touched his life?

30. Who was the author of those dreams?

31. To what position was he promoted in the kingdom?

32. What of Egypt at the close of the seven years of famine?

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Gen 37:1 And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan.

Ver. 1. In the land of his father’s sojournings (Marg.).] The dukes of Edom had habitations in the land of their possessions. Gen 36:43 But Jacob, with his father Isaac, were pilgrims in the land of Canaan; content to dwell in tents here, that they might dwell with God for ever. Justin Martyr saith of the Christians of his time: They dwell in their own countries but as strangers; have fight to all, as citizens; but suffer hardship, as foreigners, &c. a

a P , ” , &c. – Epist. ad Diognetum.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Genesis

THE TRIALS AND VISIONS OF DEVOUT YOUTH

Gen 37:1 – Gen 37:11 .

‘The generations of Jacob’ are mainly occupied with the history of Joseph, because through him mainly was the divine purpose carried on. Jacob is now the head of the chosen family, since Isaac’s death Gen 35:29, and therefore the narrative is continued under that new heading. There may possibly be intended a contrast in ‘dwelt’ and ‘sojourned’ in Gen 37:1 , the former implying a more complete settling down.

There are two principal points in this narrative,-the sad insight that it gives into the state of the household in which so much of the world’s history and hopes was wrapped up, and the preludings of Joseph’s future in his dreams.

As to the former, the account of it is introduced by the statement that Joseph, at seventeen years of age, was set to work, according to the wholesome Eastern usage, and so was thrown into the company of the sons of the two slave-women, Bilhah and Zilpah. Delitzsch understands ‘lad’ in Gen 37:2 in the sense in which we use ‘boy,’ as meaning an attendant. Joseph was, then, told off to be subordinate to these two sets of his rough brothers. The relationship was enough to rouse hatred in such coarse souls. And, indeed, the history of Jacob’s household strikingly illustrates the miserable evils of polygamy, which makes families within the family, and turns brothers into enemies. Bilhah’s and Zilpah’s sons reflected in their hatred of Rachel’s their mothers’ envy of the true wife of Jacob’s heart. The sons of the bondwoman were sure to hate the sons of the free.

If Joseph had been like his brothers, they would have forgiven him his mother. But he was horrified at his first glimpse of unrestrained young passions, and, in the excitement of disgust and surprise, ‘told their evil report.’ No doubt, his brothers had been unwilling enough to be embarrassed by his presence, for there is nothing that wild young men dislike more than the constraint put on them by the presence of an innocent youth; and when they found out that this ‘milk-sop’ of a brother was a spy and a telltale, their wrath blazed up. So Joseph had early experience of the shock which meets all young men who have been brought up in godly households when they come into contact with sin in fellow-clerks, servants, students, or the like. It is a sharp test of what a young man is made of, to come forth from the shelter of a father’s care and a mother’s love, and to be forced into witnessing and hearing such things as go on wherever a number of young men are thrown together. Be not ‘partaker of other men’s sins.’ And the trial is doubly great when the tempters are elder brothers, and the only way to escape their unkindness is to do as they do. Joseph had an early experience of the need of resistance; and, as long as the world is a world, love to God will mean hatred from its worst elements. If we are ‘sons of the day,’ we cannot but rebuke the darkness.

It is an invidious office to tell other people’s evil-doing, and he who brings evil reports of others generally and deservedly gets one for himself. But there are circumstances in which to do so is plain duty, and only a mistaken sense of honour keeps silence. But there must be no exaggeration, malice, or personal ends in the informer. Classmates in school or college, fellow-servants, employees in great businesses, and the like, have not only a duty of loyalty to one another, but of loyalty to their superior. We are sometimes bound to be blind to, and dumb about, our associates’ evil deeds, but sometimes silence makes us accomplices.

Jacob had a right to know, and Joseph would have been wrong if he had not told him, the truth about his brothers. Their hatred shows that his purity had made their doing wrong more difficult. It is a grand thing when a young man’s presence deprives the Devil of elbow-room for his tricks. How much restraining influence such a one may exert!

Jacob’s somewhat foolish love, and still more foolish way of showing it, made matters worse. There were many excuses for him. He naturally clung to the son of his lost but never-forgotten first love, and as naturally found, in Joseph’s freedom from the vices of his other sons, a solace and joy. It has been suggested that the ‘long garment with sleeves,’ in which he decked the lad, indicated an intention of transferring the rights of the first-born to him, but in any case it meant distinguishing affection; and the father or mother who is weak enough to show partiality in the treatment of children need not wonder if their unwise love creates bitter heart-burnings. Perhaps, if Bilhah’s and Zilpah’s sons had had a little more sunshine of a father’s love, they would have borne brighter flowers and sweeter fruit. It is fatal when a child begins to suspect that a parent is not fair.

So these surly brothers, who could not even say ‘Peace be to thee!’ the common salutation when they came across Joseph, had a good deal to say for themselves. It is a sad picture of the internal feuds of the house from which all nations were to be blessed. The Bible does not idealise its characters, but lets us see the seamy side of the tapestry, that we may the more plainly recognise the Mercy which forgives, and the mighty Providence which works through, such imperfect men. But the great lesson for all young people from the picture of Joseph’s early days, when his whiteness rebuked the soiled lives of his brothers, as new-fallen snow the grimy cake, hardened and soiled on the streets, is, ‘My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.’ Never mind a world’s hatred, if you have a father’s love. There is one Father who can draw His obedient children into the deepest secrets of His heart without withholding their portion from the most prodigal.

Joseph’s dreams are the other principal point in the narrative. The chief incidents of his life turn on dreams,-his own, his fellow-prisoners’, Pharaoh’s. The narrative recognises them as divinely sent, and no higher form of divine communication appears to have been made to Joseph, He received no new revelations of religious truth. His mission was, not to bring fresh messages from heaven, but to effect the transference of the nation to Egypt. Hence the lower form of the communications made to him.

The meaning of both dreams is the same, but the second goes beyond the first in the grandeur of the emblems, and in the inclusion of the parents in the act of obeisance. Both sets of symbols were drawn from familiar sights. The homeliness of the ‘sheaves’ is in striking contrast with the grandeur of the ‘sun, moon, and stars.’ The interpretation of the first is ready to hand, because the sheaves were ‘your sheaves’ and ‘my sheaf.’ There was no similar key included in the second, and his brothers do not appear to have caught its meaning. It was Jacob who read it. Probably Rachel was dead when the dream came, but that need not make a difficulty.

Note that Joseph did not tell his dreams with elation, or with a notion that they meant anything particular. It is plainly the singularity of them that makes him repeat them, as is clearly indicated by the repeated ‘behold’ in his two reports. With perfect innocence of intention, and as he would have told any other strange dream, the lad repeats them. The commentary was the work of his brothers, who were ready to find proofs of his being put above them, and of his wish to humiliate them, in anything he said or did. They were wiser than he was. Perhaps they suspected that Jacob meant to set him at the head of the clan on his decease, and that the dreams were trumped up and told to them to prepare them for the decision which the special costume may have already hinted.

At all events, hatred is very suspicious, and ready to prick up its ears at every syllable that seems to speak of the advancement of its object.

There is a world of contempt, rage, and fear in the questions, ‘Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us?’ The conviction that Joseph was marked out by God for a high position seems to have entered these rough souls, and to have been fuel to fire. Hatred and envy make a perilous mixture. Any sin can come from a heart drenched with these. Jacob seems to have been wise enough to make light of the dreams to the lad, though much of them in his heart. Youthful visions of coming greatness are often best discouraged. The surest way to secure their fulfilment is to fill the present with strenuous, humble work. ‘Do the duty that is nearest thee.’ ‘The true apprenticeship for a ruler is to serve.’ ‘Act, act, in the living present.’ The sheaves may come to bow down some day, but ‘my sheaf’ has to be cut and bound first, and the sooner the sickle is among the corn, the better.

But yet, on the other hand, let young hearts be true to their early visions, whether they say much about them or not. Probably it will be wisest to keep silence. But there shine out to many young men and women, at their start in life, bright possibilities of no ignoble sort, and rising higher than personal ambition, which it is the misery and sin of many to see ‘fade away into the light of common day,’ or into the darkness of night. Be not ‘disobedient to the heavenly vision’; for the dreams of youth are often the prophecies of what God means and makes it possible for the dreamer to be, if he wakes to work towards that fair thing which shone on him from afar.

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Gen 37:1-2 a

1Now Jacob lived in the land where his father had sojourned, in the land of Canaan. 2These are the records of the generations of Jacob.

Gen 37:1 Because of the phrase found in Gen 37:2 a, which seems to be the author of Genesis’s way of dividing his book, most commentators believe that Gen 37:1 should go with chapter 36. Gen 37:1 really forms a twin to the geographical settlement of Jacob versus Esau.

“in the land where his father had sojourned” This was part of the Abrahamic promise (Genesis 12, 15, 17; Gen 28:4). The nomadic lifestyle and a promised destination were acts of faith.

Gen 37:2 “These are the records of the generations of Jacob” This is a recurring phrase which marks the divisions in the book by Moses (cf. Gen 2:4; Gen 5:1; Gen 6:9; Gen 10:1; Gen 11:10; Gen 11:27; Gen 25:12; Gen 25:19; Gen 36:1; Gen 36:9; and Gen 37:2). It is uncertain if this phrase (or colophon) points forward or backward.

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

The whole chapter, Figure of speech Hysterologia. App-6. The last of the eleven Toledoth

Jacob. See notes on Gen 32:28; Gen 43:8; Gen 45:26, Gen 45:28.

Wherein = of his father’s sojournings. S Bilhah. i.e. Dan and Naphtali, Gen 30:6-8.

Zilpah. i.e. Gad and Asher, Gen 30:10-13.

his. Hebrew their.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Genesis chapter thirty-seven. And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan. And these are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brothers; and the lad was with the sons of Bilhah, and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives: and Joseph brought unto his father their evil report ( Gen 37:1-2 ). So there is now developing a strained relationship between Joseph and his brothers. Because of Jacob and his love for Rachel, when Joseph was born he almost became immediately a favored son kind of a status. And no doubt Jacob indicated his favoritism towards Joseph all the way along. And now Joseph is seventeen years old and he’s out as all of the boys were engaged in the industry of shepherding, but his brothers had been goofing off and Joseph is the tattletale. He comes and he tells his dad what his brothers are doing which, of course, never endears you with your brothers. It’s always hard to have a brother who is a nark. And so that’s just thrown in there, it just-the scripture, verse two, is just thrown in there. I think to just give us a little bit of the insight why his brothers really began to resent him and hate him. He was Mister Good Guy and they were bad guys and he was telling on them. And he was bringing their evil report to his dad. He was reporting on them to their dad, and so that is surely going to bring resentment against Joseph, which of course it did. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all of his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours ( Gen 37:3 ). Now in the Hebrew, this particular phrase they didn’t know quite how to translate it and this idea of coat of many colors pretty much came from Martin Luther and his endeavor to translate the Hebrew phrase. But since that time of the King James translation and the discovery of more ancient records, it is now believed that this should have been translated “made him a sleeveless coat.” And that would seem to be a more accurate translation of this particular difficult Hebrew phrase. Now the connotation of a sleeveless coat was that of rulership. The rulers wore sleeveless, kind of; or rather a coat with sleeves is what it should be. And I’ll get there in a minute. The sleeveless coats were worn by the laborers and the rulers wore the coats with sleeves, because the coat with sleeves you really couldn’t do much work in those. And so it indicated more of an aristocracy, a rulership class. Not a workly, working class to have a coat with sleeves. The sleeveless coat was the worker’s coat, and so when his dad made him a coat with sleeves it was giving a definite message to his brothers of Jacob’s intention of making Joseph the ruler. And that was the intention of Jacob. It really did not come about by Jacob’s devices but later did come about by God’s devices. But Jacob in the forty-ninth chapter, which is a classic chapter, gives the reasons why the other brothers of Joseph really did not inherit the place of blessing, as did Joseph. When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all of his other brothers, they hated him, and they could not speak peaceably unto him ( Gen 37:4 ). Real problems arose there in the family of sibling rivalry, of hatred, and their inability now to even say a kind word to him. So Joseph no doubt was suffering much from the attitude and the actions of his older brothers. Can you imagine having ten older brothers that were sort of jealous of you because of your position? Our daughter Cheryl had two older brothers and barely survived because they thought that she had a favored position, which she probably has had, I wouldn’t doubt or deny that totally. But she suffered much at the hands of her brothers because of their supposed, at least favored position that they thought that she had within the family, just because she rules it. But at any rate, Joseph had to go through with ten older brothers, all of them feeling resentment towards him. None of them able to really speak a kind word to him. And you can imagine all of the things that they did to antagonize him and to torment him. You know, tripping him and giving him an elbow now and then and all of those things that just really made life quite miserable for Joseph. But even to compound the problems, Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told his brothers: and they hated him even more. For he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream that I have dreamed: For, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and stood up straight; and, behold, all of your sheaves stood round about, and did obeisance [they bowed down] to my sheaf. And his brothers said unto him, Shall thou indeed reign over us? or shall thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet more for his dreams, and for his words ( Gen 37:5-8 ). Very sharp contention there. He dreamed yet another dream, and he told his brothers, and said, Behold, I have dreamed another dream; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars bowed down to me. And then he told it to his father, and to his brothers: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brothers indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth? And his brothers envied him; but his father observed the saying ( Gen 37:9-11 ). Jacob tucked it away in the back of his mind. Probably wondering just what is going to happen? What significance is there to this? This particular dream of Joseph helps us in the understanding of the book of Revelation. For in the book of Revelation it goes into an allegorical type of references in the twelfth chapter of the book of Revelation. Where John saw a woman clothed with the sun and the moon and the twelve stars who was about ready to bring forth a child. The woman of the twelfth chapter of the book of Revelation is identified by this dream to be the nation Israel. To try to give to the woman any other identity is to speculate only and it’s unscriptural speculation. There are many today who, in order to try to prove that the church is going to get through the Great Tribulation, identify the woman as the church. But there is no scriptural kind of foundation to try to make the woman the church, because nowhere is the church described as having the sun and the moon and the twelve stars surrounding it. And they make the man child that comes forth from the woman sort of a supersaint who are caught up during the midst of the Great Tribulation period, but that is surely a straining of the text and not a natural scriptural flowing. The woman of chapter twelve, because of the identification, must be the nation Israel. And as I have pointed out in the book of Revelation, if the woman is the church, she’s in serious trouble because she’s pregnant and just about ready to have a child. And Paul speaks of the church as a chaste virgin and he wanted to present the church as a chaste virgin unto Christ, certainly not as a pregnant mother. So it strains the interpretation of the church that much trying to make the woman in Revelation the church; it strains it that much more. But here gives cause to identify, and surely the Bible is the best commentary on the Bible and the Bible is an amazing commentary on the Bible. It’s amazing how many of the things in Genesis are explained further in the Scriptures or how even amplified further in the Scriptures. So the best commentary you can ever buy on the Bible is just the Bible itself, comparing scripture with scripture. So his brothers went to feed their father’s flock in Shechem ( Gen 37:12 ). They probably figured, “We’re getting out of here. He’s nuts with his dreams” and all and can’t stand him. “We’ll head for Shechem”, which was about sixty-seven miles away from where they were staying there in the area of Hebron. And Israel said to Joseph, Do not your brethren feed the flock in Shechem? come, and I will send thee unto them. And he said unto him, Here am I. And he said to him, Go, I pray thee, and see whether it is well with your brothers, and well with their flocks; and bring me word again. So he sent him out of the valley of Hebron, and he came to Shechem. And a certain man found him, and, behold, he was wandering in the field: and the man asked him, saying, Who are you looking for? And he said, I’m looking for my brothers; tell me, I pray thee, where are they feeding their flocks. And the man said, They are departed from here; for I heard them say, Let us go to Dothan. And Joseph went after his brothers, and found them in Dothan. And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him. And they said one to another, Hey, here comes the dreamer ( Gen 37:13-19 ). So surely Joseph nor his father had any idea that the brothers’ hatred had grown to this extent; else his father would have never sent him. And Joseph probably would have been reluctant in going. But coming to Dothan, or coming to Shechem and not finding them, he was just sort of roaming in the field. I would imagine that he was looking for evidences. Probably trying to find a trail, looking for the footprints of the flocks and so forth and just going back and forth through the field trying to find the trail, trying to find out which direction they may have gone. And as he was just sort of wandering in the field, looking for evidences of where they might be, this man said, “Who are you looking for?” He said, “Do you happen to know where my brothers have gone with their flock?” And he said, “Yeah, I heard one of them say they’re going to Dothan”. So he headed out twenty miles further north to Dothan. And so he’s now almost ninety miles away from home. His brothers seeing him come conspired together to kill him. They said, Come now therefore, let us kill him, we’ll cast him into a pit, and we’ll say, Some evil beast must have devoured him: and we will see then what will become of his dreams ( Gen 37:20 ). Showing the deep resentment they had towards his dream, the very idea that they would bow down to him. “We’ll thwart really the plan of God. See what happens to God’s plan after we kill him”. Of course, there are many who see in Joseph a beautiful type of Jesus Christ and Satan’s endeavor to destroy Jesus to see what could become then of God’s plan. And of course God’s plans were fulfilled in the death of Christ. Reuben heard it [the oldest brother], and he delivered him out of their hands; and said, Hey, let us not kill him. Reuben said unto them, Don’t shed blood, let’s just throw him in this pit that is here in the wilderness, and don’t lay any hand upon him; that he might rid him out of their hands, to deliver him to his father again ( Gen 37:21-22 ). Now Reuben being the oldest brother would be then the one who would be most responsible. He would be the one that would be responsible to his dad for his youngest brother. And so seeing that these guys were really serious in their intention to kill him, he felt that it was his responsibility to save him from their anger. And so he suggests an alternate plan. “Don’t kill him, just throw him in the pit. Let him starve to death. And that way you don’t get your hands bloody. And you won’t have his blood on your hands. You just let him die there in the pit.” And he was intending to come back around later and to let Joseph out of the pit and deliver him back safe to his father. Joseph would have been safe around his father. It came to pass, when Joseph was come to his brothers, that they stripped Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colours that was on him ( Gen 37:23 ); Even as they stripped Jesus of His robe and cast lots. And they took him, and cast him into a pit: the pit was empty, there was no water in it ( Gen 37:24 ). So it indicates that it was probably a cistern. Now all over that land they have dug these huge cisterns in the rock, which are water reservoirs. And some of them have, were dug in an area where there was a fracture in the rock and they would not hold water. So here was a cistern, it was empty. They usually all of them have very steep sides and so they decided to dump Joseph in the cistern. And they sat down to eat bread: and they lifted up their eyes and behold, a company of Ishmeelites came from Gilead with their camels bearing spices and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt. And Judah said to his brothers, What profit is it if we kill our brother, and conceal his blood? Let’s sell him to the Ishmeelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother and our flesh. And his brothers were content ( Gen 37:25-27 ). Now whether or not it was Judah’s desire to save his life or to make money is only a matter of speculation. But he is suggesting that they again not actually kill him. They could actually make some money off of him. What profit is it to kill him? Let’s just sell him and we’ll make money off of him. And how pure were Judah’s motives or well intentioned as far as Joseph is concerned, there’s only speculation. We really don’t know for sure. Then there passed by the 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 ( Gen 37:28 ). And so he is rejected by his brethren and sold. Even again in the typology, as Christ was rejected by His brethren, and was sold for thirty pieces of silver by Judas Iscariot. Now at this point, Jacob was really, I mean Joseph was really crying and pleading with his brothers that they would have mercy on him and all. And his brothers just really turned a deaf ear unto his pleas. And later on in the book of Genesis, it tells how that his brothers when he was playing games with them in Egypt and putting pressure on them said, “You know, this is really our fault. We didn’t have mercy on our brother”. In the forty-second chapter, verse twenty-one, “And they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he begged us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us” ( Gen 42:21 ). And so going just a little bit ahead in the story, when Joseph became the ruler in Egypt and his brothers came down to buy grain, they did not recognize Joseph. Of course, some twenty years had transpired. Joseph was just seventeen years old when his brothers sold him. He was thirty years old when he came to Pharaoh. And he was seven years of the famine-I mean of the feast or the plentiful years so he was at least twenty years older since his brothers last saw him. And he was now older, matured and had no doubt the style of hair and beard and so forth as the Egyptians. And they didn’t recognize that this was their brother, but he recognized them but didn’t let them know who he was, spoke to them through an interpreter. But he started giving them a bad time. He said you guys are spies. You’re not brothers; you’ve come down here to spy out Egypt. I would have to put you all to death you know and just would give them a bad time and so he was giving such a rough time they started talking to each other in Hebrew, not knowing that he could understand. And they said, Hey, hey, you know, and it shows you that you can’t get away from your guilt. You may bury it down in the recesses of your mind that you might try to sublimate it, but guilt will out. Somewhere or other guilt will out. It will out in a neurotic behavior pattern, or it will out in some form or other. Guilt will out. There’s only one thing that can remove your guilt. That is confession to Jesus Christ and receiving His forgiveness. That’s the only thing that can remove your guilt. And so the brothers, twenty years later, are still feeling guilty over the acts that they did. This is caused because we saw the anguish of his soul and we didn’t give any heed to it. So Joseph was really begging them, pleading with them, no doubt crying. And yet they were heartless. They were hard. And as he was being carried away in this caravan, probably chained to the other slaves, looking back, pleading, crying, don’t do this; and they didn’t have any compassion upon him whatsoever. So later, Reuben. Now Reuben evidently had gone off someplace while the brothers conspired to sell him. Reuben came back to the pit; and saw that it was empty; and he tore his clothes. And he returned to the other brothers, and he said, The child isn’t in the pit; and I don’t know where I’m going to go. And they took Joseph’s coat, and killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the coat in the blood; and they sent the coat with long sleeves, and brought it to their father; and said, We found this coat: you know whether or not it is your son’s coat. And he knew it, and he said, It is my son’s coat; an evil beast hath devoured him; Joseph is without doubt torn in pieces. And Jacob tore his clothes, and put on sackcloth, and he mourned for his son for many days. And all of the sons and all of the daughters [daughters plural, so he had other daughters. Only one is named] they rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted; and he said, I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning. And thus the father wept for him ( Gen 37:29-35 ). Jacob the deceiver, deceiving his brother or actually deceiving his father to get his brother’s blessing, ends up being deceived. Deceived by his father-in-law Laban, and now deceived by his own sons. Notice the sons didn’t say anything about it. They let the old man come to his own conclusions. They just brought him a bloody coat and said, “You recognize this? It happens to belong to your son”. And they let their dad just jump to the conclusion that an animal must have killed his son. Joseph was no doubt torn in pieces and they let him jump to that conclusion and then let him believe it. But they were deceiving him. And so again, he who deceived ends up being deceived. Now the last verse seems to belong more, well it just closes off this chapter, and then chapter thirty-eight is just sort of a separate little story all on its own. The Midianites sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar, an officer ( Gen 37:36 ) The word officer here in Hebrew literally is “eunuch”, a eunuch, of Pharaoh’s, and the captain of the guard ( Gen 37:36 ). Now chapter thirty-eight is just thrown in to give us a little bit of historic background concerning the ancestry of Jesus Christ. For even as marvelous a person as Joseph was, his was not to be the blessing of having the Messiah come through him. The Messiah was to come through the tribe of Judah, not the tribe of Joseph. And so God by His own election and choice choosing the tribe of Judah that it might be by grace and not by works, shows us a little insight into Judah and the fact that the ancestry of Christ isn’t really a pure kind of an ancestry. There are several insertions into the ancestry of Jesus that if we were choosing a family background for our own son, we probably wouldn’t have chosen. But in order that He might be fully identified with each of us, God did not choose a perfect lineage to bring Him from, but imperfect in order that we might feel an identity. “

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

From this point in the sacred narrative, though Jacob appears more than once, for a time the history centers around Joseph, and it is certainly safe to say that in many aspects no more remarkable figure appears on the pages of Old Testament history.

Joseph is seen here, first as the object of his father’s love, a love which may surely be accounted for by the fact that he was the first-born of Rachel, and also to the ingenuous simplicity of his disposition and the strong integrity of his character.

If the marginal reading of the Revised Version be correct, and in all probability it is, that his father made him “a long garment with sleeves,” this probably suggests his appointment to a position of trust and oversight, for such a garment was the garment of a prince. Naturally imaginative and romantic and given to day dreams, through this avenue God suggested his coming position and power. With simple artlessness he told his dreams to his brethren. The character of the man as subsequently revealed makes it impossible to believe that he had any ulterior motive in this telling of his dreams. The construction his brethren placed on the dreams was undoubtedly the true one; but was most likely arrived at as the result of the position he occupied among them by appointment of his father, and by their interpretation of his feeling by their own jealousies.

The story of his betrayal is at once a revelation of their malice and of the divine determined counsel to move forward to ultimate realization of purpose.

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

Joseph Loved and Hated; His Dreams

Gen 37:1-11

It is a mistake for parents to show favoritism; but we can hardly wonder at Jacobs partiality for the lad, who reminded him so vividly of the beloved Rachel. Besides, there were a purity and an elevation of spirit in Joseph that stood out in welcome contrast to the coarse brutality and impurity of the others. He was separate from his brethren, Gen 49:26. The coat of many colors was, as r.v. margin indicates, a long garment of delicate texture, with sleeves, that was the dress of the young princes or nobles, who were not called to the menial toil of the field or household. The dreams of youth are proverbial and prophetic. In this case it would have been wiser for the lad to have kept his secrets locked in his own heart, though it was a tribute to his simplicity and ingenuousness that he must needs disclose them. The suggestion of coming greatness aroused his brothers sharpest envy, but the hands of the Mighty One upheld the lad, Gen 49:23.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Genesis 37

Joseph’s is one of the most interesting histories in the world. He has the strange power of uniting our hearts to him, as to a well-beloved friend. He had “the genius to be loved greatly,” because he had the genius to love greatly, and his genius still lives in these Bible pages. We discover in Joseph-

I. A hated brother. The boy was his father’s pet. Very likely he was the perfect picture of Rachel who was gone, and so Jacob saw and loved in him his sainted wife. In token of love his father foolishly gave him a coat of many colours, to which, alas! the colour of blood was soon added. It was for no good reason that his brothers hated him. Joseph brought unto his father their evil report. Not that he was a sneaking tell-tale; but he would not do as they did, nor would he hide from his father their evil doings. God means the children of a family to feel bound together by bands that grapple the heart, and to stand true to one another to life’s end. Reverence the mighty ties of kindred which God has fashioned. Joseph also teaches you never to make any one your foe without a very good reason. The weakest whom you wrong may one day be your master.

II. Joseph was also a blameless youth. Though terribly tempted, he never yielded. He was shamefully wronged, yet he was not hardened or soured. His soul was like the oak which is nursed into strength by storms. In his heart, not on it, he wore a talisman that destroyed sin’s charms. The heavenly plant of his piety disclosed all its beauty, and gave out its sweet odours in the wicked palaces of Potiphar and Pharaoh.

III. Joseph was also a famous ruler. He entered Egypt as a Hebrew slave, and became its prime minister. He was the hero of his age, the saviour of his country, the most successful man of his day. He became so great because he was so good; he was a noble man because he was a thorough man of God.

IV. Joseph was a type of Christ. Joseph, like Jesus, was his father’s well-beloved son, the best of brothers, yet hated and rejected by his own; was sold from envy for a few pieces of silver, endured a great temptation, yet without sin; was brought into a low estate and falsely condemned; was the greatest of forgivers, the forgiver of his own murderers; and was in all things the son and hope of Israel.

J. Wells, Bible Children, p. 35.

References: Gen 37-F. W. Robertson, Notes on Genesis, p. 135; M. Dods, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, p. 139. Gen 37:1-11, A. Craig, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 358; R. S. Candlish, Book of Genesis, vol. ii., p. 113; W. M. Taylor, Joseph the Prime Minister, p. 7. Gen 37:1-36.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iv., p. 99. Gen 37:3-S. Cox, Expositor’s Notebook, p. 31.

Gen 37:3, etc.

Jacob was wrong in making a favourite of Joseph. The coat of many colours was the dress the firstborn child was to wear. In giving it to Joseph, Jacob was making him like the firstborn son. It was a beautiful white tunic, with a great many pieces bound upon it-not many colours like a rainbow.

I. Joseph’s coat must have been a snare to him, for we read that he was a tell-tale. He told his father about the wrong things that his brothers did. Never tell of others till you have used every possible persuasion. If you try to do good to others, you must be very good yourself.

II. Just at that time Joseph had two dreams. Perhaps it was the wearing of the coat that made him have these dreams. He was a little proud about the coat, so he had proud dreams.

III. When his father sent him to Dothan, we find that Joseph was very obedient and very brave. He went at once. He lost his way, but he was so persevering he would not go back, because he was determined not to return without doing what his father told him; and even after his brothers had sold him, we find that he was patient and forgiving. The reason was that he loved God and tried to please Him. God took care of him and blessed him through life.

J. Vaughan, Sermons to Children, 4th series, p. 317.

References: Gen 37:12, Gen 37:35.-W. M. Taylor, Joseph the Prime Minister, p. 20; R. S. Candlish, Book of Genesis, vol. ii., p. 120. Gen 37:18.-Parker, Hidden Springs, p. 140. Gen 37:19.-Parker, vol. i., p. 287; Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvii., p. 262. Gen 37:25-36.-R. S. Candlish, Book of Genesis, vol. ii., p. 128. Gen 37:33.-Homiletic Magazine, vol. xii., p. 139. Gen 37:36.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vii., p. 167. Gen 38-R. S. Candlish, Book of Genesis, vol. ii., p. 128. Gen 39-F. W. Robertson, Notes on Genesis, p. 140; Parker, vol. i., p. 294; M. Dods, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, p. 165; R. S. Candlish, Book of Genesis, vol. ii., p. 138. Gen 39:1.-Ibid., p. 128. Gen 39:1-7.-W. M. Taylor, Joseph the Prime Minister, p. 33. Gen 39:2.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvii., No. 1610; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 369. Gen 39:2-21.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xiv., p. 96. Gen 39:7-23.-W. M. Taylor, Joseph the Prime Minister, p. 48.

Fuente: The Sermon Bible

XII. THE GENERATIONS OF JACOB

CHAPTER 37 The Story of Joseph

1. Jacob dwelling in Canaan (Gen 37:1)

2. Josephs character and feeding the flock (Gen 37:2)

3. Beloved of his father (Gen 37:3)

4. Hated by his brethren (Gen 37:4)

5. The dream of the sheaves (Gen 37:5-8)

6. The dream of the sun, moon and stars (Gen 37:9-11)

7. Joseph seeks his brethren (Gen 37:12-17)

8. The plot against Joseph (Gen 37:18-22)

9. Joseph in the pit and sold (Gen 37:23-28)

10. Reubens grief (Gen 37:29-30)

11. The deception of Jacobs sons (Gen 37:31-32)

12. The grief of Jacob (Gen 37:33-35)

13. Joseph in Egypt (Gen 37:36)

The story of Joseph is one of the most interesting in the whole Bible. The Holy Spirit has devoted more space to the life of Joseph than He devoted to Abraham. The reason for this must be sought in the fact that the story of Joseph foreshadows the story of Christ. Some critics have made out that the story of Joseph is an invention and that the record was written hundreds of years after Moses. However, archeological evidence has fully and completely established the historical character of Joseph. Two of the El Amarna tablets show that a Semite held such a high position as attributed to Joseph. Others, while they believe in the historicity of Joseph, deny that his life is typical of our Lord. Such a denial is akin to spiritual blindness. It is true nowhere is a statement made that Joseph typifies Christ, but throughout this age all teachers of the Word have treated the life of Joseph as foreshadowing Christ. Stephen in his great address before the Jewish council mentions Joseph (Act 7:9-14); the Messianic application must have been in his mind.

The life of Joseph falls into two periods; his humiliation and his exaltation. In these two parts the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow are blessedly foreshadowed. There is no other type so perfect as that of Joseph. In our annotations we shall not be able to point out all the comparisons; only the leading ones we give as a hint.

Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons and that reminds us of Him who is the Fathers delight. Joseph was separated from evil, even as Christ was. Joseph had a coat of many colors, the expression of the Fathers love; thus God honored His Son. And as Joseph was hated by his brethren without a cause, so Christ was hated (Joh 15:25). The dreams foretold Josephs future exaltation; he saw things in heaven and things on earth bowing before him, even as before Christ things in heaven and on earth must bow the knee.

Then the father sent forth his beloved Joseph to seek his brethren who were lost. Israel put Joseph into their hands. All this foreshadows Gods unspeakable gift in sending His only begotten Son into this world to seek what is lost.

Then note the following typical suggestions. When he came to his brethren, they conspired against him to slay him. Come now therefore let us slay him, and cast him in some pit. And in Joh 5:16 it is written that the Jews sought to slay Christ. The brethren stripped Joseph of his coat, as our Lord was stripped of His garment. He was cast into the pit and they sat down to eat bread. And the Pharisees who had delivered up the Lord Jesus sat down to eat the Passover, while the soldiers, who had parted the garments sat down to watch them. They sold him as the Lord was sold and Judah was the one who said let us sell him. This brings the betrayal by Judas to our mind.

And Jacob is deceived by his sons as he deceived his father. The coat stained by the blood of a kid reminds us of the skin of the kid with which he had deceived Isaac.

Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)

Chapter 32

JOSEPH — A TYPE OF CHRIST

“And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan. 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. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours. 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. 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: 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. 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. 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? And his brethren envied him; but his father observed the saying.

Gen 37:1-11

Most every Sunday School child has heard the story of Joseph and his brothers many, many times. Who is not familiar with the instructive narrative? Who does not know about Josephs coat of many colors? Who is unaware of the fact that his brothers hated him and sold him into slavery? There are numerous moral lessons and warnings to be drawn from the story.

Joseph, in his character and conduct, shows us how we ought to live in this world for the glory of God and how that God honors those that honor him. Josephs wicked brothers, in their character and conduct, represent everything that is base, vile, and malicious. They were wicked, covetous, self-centered, self-serving men. Obviously, Joseph represents all that we should be and do. His brothers represent all that we should avoid.

These lessons might be readily perceived by any natural moralist. Yet, there is much more here than lessons about moral conduct. In fact, if that is all we learn from the story of Joseph and his brothers, we have never yet understood the last fourteen chapters of Genesis. This story, like everything else in the Old Testament Scriptures, is intended by the Spirit of God to be a revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ in type and picture.

Adam typified Christ as our Covenant Head.

Abel showed forth the death of Christ as our Sacrifice.

Noah represented Christ in the saving of his household.

Abraham and Isaac portrayed the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ on Mount Moriah.

Melchizedek revealed Christ as our great High Priest.

Isaac pictured Christ the promised Seed, in whom all the nations of the earth are blessed.

Jacob saw Christ as a Ladder, the only Mediator between God and men.

However, the fullest, most complete and striking type of Christ to be seen in the Book of Genesis is Joseph. A. W. Pink, in his Gleanings From Genesis, shows 100 points in which Joseph is a picture of our Savior. I heartily recommend Pinks excellent, much more detailed study of Joseph as a type of Christ. Looking at just a few of the highlights of Josephs life, we see him as a beautifully, instructive type of the Lord Jesus Christ. As we have observed, the Book of Genesis is the Book of Beginnings. Here, God revealed his purpose of grace in the salvation of sinners, and showed fallen men how he would save his elect by the sacrifice of his own dear Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Joseph is one of the many pictures we are given of Gods grace and salvation in Christ.

His Name

1st. Joseph was typical of Christ in his name. Actually, he was given two names – Joseph and Zaphnathpaaneah (Gen 41:45). Zaphnathpaaneah is the name which Pharoah gave him when he made him Lord over all of Egypt. In this he was like our Savior who has two names given to him, a divine name and a human name. His divine name is Christ, which means Anointed of God. His human name is Jesus, which means Savior. He has two names given to him, because he is both the Son of God and the Son of Man.

The names given to Joseph are very significant as the type of our Savior. Joseph means Adding (Gen 30:24). Adam was a subtracter. We lost everything in Adam. But Christ, the Second Adam, is the Adder. Christ is the One who adds to heaven the sons of God. To this end, he came into this world, lived in righteousness, and died upon the cursed tree (Joh 12:24; Joh 14:3).

Josephs second name, Zephnathpaaneah, has a twofold meaning. It means Revealer. Christ is the Revealer of God (Joh 1:18). It also means Provider. And Christ is our great Provider. He is Jehovah-jireh, the Lord who provides. He provides his people with all things temporal and physical, as well as all things eternal and spiritual.

His Relationship

2nd. Joseph is typical of Christ in his relationship to his Father. Israel loved Joseph more than all his children (Gen 37:3). How Jacob loved Joseph! His happiness all his life long was wrapped up in Joseph. He rejoiced when Joseph was born. He distinguished Joseph from the sons of Leah, making for him a coat of many colors. His heart broke when he thought Joseph was dead. He took a long journey in his old age to see Josephs face. He committed himself to Joseph (Gen 47:29-31).

As Joseph was the object of his fathers love, so the Lord Jesus Christ is the object of His Fathers love (Joh 3:35). The Lord God delights in his Son (Pro 8:22; Pro 8:30; Mat 3:17; Mat 17:5). God has given all things into the hands of his Son (Joh 3:35). Christ, the Son of God, has pre-eminence over all things and in all things (Col 1:18).

Joseph was the object of Israels love, because he was the child of Israels old age (Gen 37:3). Here again is a picture of Christ. From all eternity, he is the Son of God. He was not born in time. He is the eternally begotten Son of the eternal Father, very God of very God, equal with and of the same substance as the Father (Joh 1:1-3). The Lord Jesus Christ is not a creature of God. He is God the Creator. He is not a mere emanation of God. He is God, the One in whom all the fulness of the Godhead dwells (Col 2:9). He is infinitely more than a manifestation of God. He is God manifest in the flesh (1Ti 3:16).

His Occupation

3rd. Joseph represents the Lord Jesus Christ in his occupation. He was a shepherd, feeding the flock (Gen 37:3). No representation of Christ is more beautiful than that of a Shepherd. The Lord is my Shepherd (Psalms 23). He is set before us as the Good Shepherd in his sin-atoning death (Joh 10:11-16; 1Pe 2:21-25). He is the Great Shepherd in his resurrection glory (Heb 13:20-21). And he is the Chief Shepherd in his glorious second advent (1Pe 5:4). What can be more beautiful than the comparison of Christ to a Shepherd? The figure suggests his tender care, his unceasing devotion, his constant provision, his watchful protection, his blessed patience, his peaceful presence, and his matchless love. Our Joseph is our Shepherd, the Shepherd of Israel (Psa 80:1).

His Coat

4th. Joseph Is a picture of Christ in his coat of many colors (Gen 37:3). There has been much debate about this coat of many colors. Some find fault with Jacob for making it, and some find fault with Joseph for wearing it. Yet, it cannot be denied that this coat was providentially and prophetically significant. It was not, as Dolly Partons song implied, a coat of many rags. This coat was made with great care and given to Joseph by his father as a mark of distinction and honor. It separated Joseph, the son of Rachel, from his brothers, his half brothers, the sons of Leah. It identified Joseph as one of noble birth, distinct from all others (Jdg 5:30; 2Sa 13:18).

Did not the Lord God so distinguish his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, from all other men? At his birth the angels sang and a star appeared. Never was there such a birth. At his baptism heaven opened, God spoke, and the Holy Spirit appeared in the form of a dove. This never happened before or since. Our Lord washed his disciples feet with water; but his feet were anointed with precious ointment. When he died upon the cursed tree, the Lord God made it apparent to all that he was no ordinary man. The three hours of darkness covered the earth. The earth itself shook and quaked at the death of the God-man. The veil in the temple was rent from top to bottom when by his blood the Lord Jesus opened the way for sinners to draw near to and be accepted by the holy Lord God. After the Lord Jesus died, one of the Roman soldiers, who had observed the whole days infamy, declared, Truly, this man was the Son of God! And, after he arose from the dead, many of the saints arose with him. Throughout his life and ministry, God the Father put on his Son a coat of many colors.

His Character

5th. Joseph was an eminent type of Christ in his character. As Joseph excelled his brothers in every feature of his character, so Christ excels all the sons of men in the infinite excellence of his character. Joseph was obedient to his father, righteous in his behavior, faithful to God, kind to men, and patient in suffering. In all these things, Joseph typified the Lord Jesus Christ, who for his great love for us was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, that he might glorify God, his Father and our Father, in redeeming and saving his people from their sins.

His Actions

6tth Joseph was typical of Christ in his actions. As we read the life of Joseph, if we simply changed his name to Christ, we might think we were reading one of the four Gospels instead of the Book of Genesis. As Joseph was sent by his father into the wilderness to visit his brothers who treated him contemptuously, so the Lord Jesus Christ came into this dark wilderness, being sent by his Father, to visit and redeem his people. When he came here, our Savior, like Joseph, was hated without a cause. His own kinsmen conspired and plotted to kill him (Joh 1:11). As Joseph secretly fed and cared for his brothers in their time of need, though they knew him not, so the Lord Jesus secretly cared for, fed, and protected us when we knew him not (Hos 2:8).

*Joseph suffered much by the hands of his brothers. His brothers betrayed him. They sold him into bondage. It was by the deeds of his brothers that he was imprisoned in Egypt. His own brothers delivered him up to die. So far as they knew, Joseph was dead. So it was with our Savior.

As Joseph did nothing but good for his brothers, though they fully deserved his wrath, so Christ, who was and is no greatly abused by us, does nothing but good for his elect (Rom 8:28). In the time of love, Joseph revealed himself to his brothers (Gen 45:1-3). So Christ, at the time of love, reveals himself to Gods elect (Eze 16:8; Gal 1:15-16). As Joseph forgave his brothers of all their crimes against him and assured them that he was in the place of God for the salvation of his household (Gen 50:19-21), so Christ forgives us and assures us of Gods purpose of grace. Though we killed the Lord of glory, he is in the place of God to save his people. As Joseph taught his brothers to love one another (See that ye fall not out by the way — Gen 45:24), so the Lord Jesus, above all else, teaches his disciples to love one another.

His Exaltation

7th. Joseph was an eminent type of Christ in his exaltation. Josephs two dreams, described in Genesis 37, prophetically made him as lord over the earth (Gen 37:5-8), lord over heaven (Gen 37:9-11), and thus lord over his brothers, just as the Old Testament Scriptures prophesied that Christ would be made Lord over all things as a man as the result of his accomplishments as our God-man Mediator (Isa 53:10-12). After much humiliation and suffering, Joseph was highly exalted by Pharaoh (Gen 41:39-41; Gen 41:53-57). He was given the place of highest honor in the land. He was made to have dominion over all Egypt and all its stores. Everyone in Egypt was required to bow before him. And anyone who wanted anything from Pharaohs bountiful store was required to go to Joseph.

So it is that the Lord God has highly exalted his Son as our Mediator (Joh 17:2; Rom 14:9; Php 2:8-11). What do you stand in need of? What is it that you want from God? Grace? Forgiveness? Righteousness? Peace? Eternal life? Strength? Comfort? Direction? Go to Christ. Christ is all. Christ has all. Christ gives all. Christ is our Joseph. He is in the place of God. He rules all things. He possesses all things. If we would live, we must go to Joseph. We must go to Christ.

Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible

am 2276, bc 1728

wherein his father was a stranger: Heb. of his father’s sojournings, Gen 17:8, Gen 23:4, Gen 28:4, *marg. Gen 36:7, Heb 11:9-16

Reciprocal: Gen 37:12 – in Shechem Gen 46:19 – Joseph Gen 48:21 – land Num 1:32 – General

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Joseph a Type of Christ

Gen 37:1-11

INTRODUCTORY WORDS

Gen 36:1-43 presents to us the generations of Esau, who is Edom. The Edomites became a mighty people on the earth, but their glories centered in things which were carnal and temporal. Like their great sire, Esau, who was the head of their nation, they sold their birthright for a mess of pottage, and lived for the things of earth.

The best that could be said of Esau was that he was the father of the Edomites. There was nothing in him that looked beyond to the realms of light and life and glory.

Leaving the story of Esau, we come to the story of Jacob. In some respects Jacob was not the equal of his brother, Esau; yet, in spiritualities, he far outclassed him. Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger, even in the land of Canaan.

That land was given unto Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and to Jacob’s twelve sons and their descendants forever. When God divided unto the nations their inheritance, He purposed this land as the inheritance of Israel, As we now write, the Children of Israel are known to be scattered over the whole world, even as corn is scattered in a sieve. However, there is a remnant still in Canaan, and in Jerusalem. That remnant is growing rapidly in these last days. Jews from all over the world are turning their faces once more toward Jerusalem. Chartered ships are carrying the people home again. The Lord is granting unto the land much of its former fertility. Tremendous enterprises along commercial and educational lines are taking place. The papers recently have been discussing the unprecedented and almost incalculable wealth that has been stored, during the centuries, in the bosom of the Dead Sea. The Arabs still hold much of power and authority in the land, while the Jews are buying up great tracts of land and are steadily becoming the dominant power in Palestine. Eng-land has sponsored the cause of the Jews, and by her graces Israel is enjoying a freedom and authority in the land of the fathers which she has not known since her city was destroyed by Titus.

Those who know, through the Bible, the eternal purposes of God, are watching with intense interest the present-day course of Jewish history. During all of the centuries the Jews have been kept together against this very hour in which we live. God promised that they should inherit the land, and that they should no more be pulled down out of their land forever. This promise is about to be realized. At the Second Coming of Christ, the twelve tribes will be restored under one King, the Lord Jesus. The people, forgiven and blest, will dwell in their former habitations and will possess the land to its uttermost geographical bounds, as was promised by the Lord through the Prophets.

I. JOSEPH FEEDING THE FLOCK (Gen 37:2)

Our text says, “Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren.”

As we pursue our lesson and the two lessons which follow, we will discover that Joseph is one of the outstanding types of Christ in the Bible. The many chapters devoted to the history of this marvelous youth are given us in the Word of God, not merely to instruct us in the chronicles of ancient times, and of mighty seers, but they are given because this man Joseph delineates in no uncertain way the story of our Lord.

1. Joseph was a shepherd. Jesus Christ was the Good Shepherd when He was upon earth-the Shepherd who gave His life for the sheep. Jesus Christ is now the Great Shepherd whom the Father brought again from the dead-even the Shepherd who daily leads His flock. Jesus Christ will be the Chief Shepherd in the blessed hour of His Second Advent-when He comes to reward His saints.

2. Joseph was a youthful shepherd. He was only seventeen years of age as he fed the flock. He is spoken of as “the lad.” The Lord Jesus Christ lived upon earth as the Good Shepherd in His youth. He was only thirty-three years of age, so far as His life in the flesh was concerned, when He died for His sheep.

When He comes again as the Chief Shepherd, He is described thus by the Holy Spirit: “From the womb of the morning: Thou hast the dew of Thy youth.”

3. Joseph was a shepherd associated with those who were evil. We read that he was with the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives.

Jesus Christ, likewise, was associated with evil men and yet with men of His own city and race.

Joseph brought unto his father their evil report. Thus Christ brought an evil report of the Jews. He likewise testified of the world that its works were evil.

II. ISRAEL’S LOVE FOR JOSEPH (Gen 37:3)

Our text reads, “Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children.” There are some who may condemn Jacob because of his favoritism toward Joseph. Be that as it may, Jesus Christ was God’s well beloved Son.

To Abraham it was spoken, “Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest.” Thus, both Isaac and Joseph were types of God’s love to His Son.

It is worthy of note that our text reads, “Now Israel loved Joseph.” Jacob’s new name is used. This increases the beauty of the type, inasmuch as “Israel” stands for covenant relationship. “Jacob” stood for the man of the flesh, the man who was a supplanter. “Israel” stood for the man who clung to God and prevailed.

1. Jesus Christ frequently spoke of the love which the Father had for Him. We know that the Father delighted to speak of His love for the Son. Out of the blue, on at least two different occasions, the Father called Christ His Beloved Son; and, out of the blue a third time, the Father said, “I have glorified [Thee], and will glorify [Thee] again.”

Christ, as He neared the Cross, said, “Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life” for the sheep.

2. The love of God toward the Son is passed on unto all of those who are saved through the sacrifice of the Son. God loves us because we are sons. Our Lord once said, “That the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” Again, Christ said, “Thou * * hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me.”

Thus the love of Jacob to Joseph is a type not only of the Father’s love to His Son, but to His sons-whose sons we are. How these words should humble us and cause us to lift up our voices in praise! If the Father loves us even as He loved the Son, how great a love He hath toward us!

III. JOSEPH, THE SON OF HIS FATHER’S OLD AGE (Gen 37:3, m.c.)

Here is the way our text runs: “Because he (Joseph) was the son of his (Israel’s) old age.”

The aged patriarch was more than rejoiced when Joseph was born. He was the son of Jacob’s favorite wife, Rachel. When Joseph was born he was named Joseph because he was “added.” In this name Joseph was a type of Christ, inasmuch as in Christ all things are added to us. In the first man, Adam, all was lost; in the second Man, Christ, all was regained.

1. The striking feature, which is now before us, is that Joseph was the son of his father’s old age. The type is plain. Christ was the Son of eternity. He was the Eternal Son, He was without beginning of days, and without ending of days.

Of Christ it is written, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” When the Holy Spirit announced the birth of Christ through Micah, he said, “Whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting” (Mic 5:2).

Thus it was that Christ spoke to the Father, saying, “And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with * * the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.”

2. Once more the typology includes the saints, for they too are said to have eternal life. If it be argued that the eternal life of saints reaches only forward from the time that they were saved, we answer-that is true. However, there is a sense in which even saints are made partakers of all the glory which Christ had with the Father before the world was.

3. Old age, as relating to Christ’s Sonship and the Father’s Fatherhood, by no means carries with it the conception of infirmity and lost strength. Jesus Christ is, at the same time, both the Son of eternity, the eternal Son, and the One who is to come to earth in the dew of His youth. God never is weary, and never grows old as we think of old age.

IV. JOSEPH’S COAT OF MANY COLORS (Gen 37:3, l.c.)

Our portion of Gen 37:3 says, “And he made him a coat of many colours.”

1. This coat of many colors suggests the special distinction with which Joseph was crowned. His father saw fit to set Joseph apart from the other sons as one to be specially favored and recognized.

As we pause, seeking the analogy between Joseph and Christ, we discover that our Lord was distinguished from all of the other sons of Mary and also from all of the other sons of men. Christ was from above, others were from beneath. The human race had Adam to its father. All came by him, and all partook of his fallen nature-in Adam death passed upon all men, in that all men have sinned.

Sainthood recognizes Christ as its Head. He is, in fact, spoken of as “The Everlasting Father.” In Him we are made partakers of the Divine nature. In His flesh He was God incarnate. He knew no sin and in Him there was no sin.

Jesus Christ was distinct from all other men in that He was born as no other man ever was born; He lived as no other man ever lived; He spoke as no other man ever spoke, for it is written, “Never man spake like this Man.”

2. This coat of many colors presented the special honor with which Joseph was set aside by his father. The other sons of Jacob immediately recognized this honor placed upon their brother, and they evilly entreated him.

Jesus Christ was honored of God in His birth. Not only did an angel announce to the shepherds the fact that He was born, but a multitude of angels sounded forth His praise. Beside this, a star, one of God’s heavenly constellations, guided the wise men to the manger where the God Child lay.

Jesus Christ was honored of God at His baptism. He was honored at the transfiguration and honored in the ascension.

V. JOSEPH WAS HATED BY HIS BRETHREN (Gen 37:4)

“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.”

Three times the chapter tells us that Joseph’s brethren hated him.

1. They hated him because their father loved him. As Jesus Christ moved among men, the scribes and the Pharisees realized that He was beloved of God. They saw that the hand of the Heavenly Father was upon Him.

Recently, according to the “Sunday School Times” there has been a re-trial of Christ in the city of Jerusalem before a large and august assembly. One noted Jew pleaded in behalf of those who crucified Him. He paraded Christ’s false claims; His antagonism to Judaistic principles, and His seeking to inaugurate a new religion. For five hours he presented his pleas. The second noted Jew to whom was given the defense of Christ pleaded His sincerity, His holiness of life and of purpose. He demonstrated that Christ was absolutely innocent from those things whereof they accused Him. When the five jurors brought in their verdict, they stood four to one in favor of Jesus Christ, as against the scribes and Pharisees of His day. The Bible plainly says, “They hated Me without a cause.”

2. They hated him because of his dream. Joseph related unto his brethren and to his father certain dreams which came to him in the visions of the night. These dreams showed Joseph’s superiority and authority not only over his eleven brothers, but also over his own father and mother. It was for this also that they hated Christ. The Jews desired for themselves the first seats in the synagogue. They wanted to be called of men Rabbi, Rabbi, (Great Chief).

3. They hated him for his words. Jesus Christ spoke words that no man had ever spoken. In His twelfth year He amazed the rulers and the doctors of Law with His questions and answers. As a Man they acknowledged that no man spake as this Man and yet they hated Him the more for His Words.

VI. JOSEPH’S FIRST DREAM (Gen 37:6-7)

And Joseph said, “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.”

1. Some have suggested that Joseph should have kept the story of his dream to himself. They say that relating the dream only caused him needless hatred on the part of his brethren.

However, we need to view these dreams of Joseph in their relationship to Joseph’s own future; and, more particularly, in their relationship to their prophetic message concerning Jesus Christ, Should Jesus Christ have kept to Himself the fact of His all-glorious might and power? Should He have refrained from telling that which seemingly did no more than anger the scribes and Pharisees? Should He have hid the fact that He came forth from the Father? that God was His Father? that He was equal with the Father? By no means.

2. The Lord Jesus is the pre-eminent Christ. When, on the occasion of the Transfiguration, Peter suggested that three tabernacles be made, one for Moses and one for Elias and one for Christ, quick as a flash, from the Heavens came the voice of God saying, “This is My beloved Son, hear Him.”

When John would have fallen down to worship an angel, supposing that He was the Christ, the angel said, “See thou do it not; for I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the Prophets.”

The present-day tendency to deify man is an abomination with God. It is just as villainous as bowing down to idols according to the custom of the East.

VII. JOSEPH’S SECOND DREAM (Gen 37:9-10)

This time Joseph dreamed, and he said: “And, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me.”

The meaning of this dream was altogether too plain to suit his brethren; even his father Jacob 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?”

We, of course, know that this dream, as well as Joseph’s other dream, met a literal fulfillment. His brethren did fall down before him and did obeisance when they came to Egypt for corn.

The far-flung prophecy of Christ, hidden away in Joseph’s dream, stands forth in easily detected prominence. The time came when Joseph’s brethren fell down before him, and the time is coming when every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus is Christ to the glory of the Father.

Joseph’s brethren hated him for his dream and for his words, and they were moved with envy against him. Jesus’ brethren in the flesh, even the Jews, hated Him for His statements concerning His Deity. They said, This man maketh “Himself equal with God,” saying that “God was His Father.” They even took up stones to stone the Lord. The Lord Jesus never, however, withdrew any statement that He had made. He rather emphasized, “That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father.” He claimed that as the Father raised the dead, even so the Son quickened whom He would. He insisted that the hour was coming when all the dead would hear His voice and live. He said that as the Father had life in Himself, even so had the Son life in Himself.

Joseph’s brethren envied him, and yet in after years they fulfilled his words, and did obeisance to him. Jesus’ brethren envied Him, and yet, in coming years they will fall down and worship Him, and acclaim Him as their King.

AN ILLUSTRATION

THE RUSSET COAT

Jacob gave Joseph a coat of many colors. God gives us the coat of righteousness, “‘Man is a proud creature, and would fain establish his own righteousness, and have somewhat wherein to glory in himself (Rom 10:3). Our proud heart takes up the old proverb and thinketh-A russet coat of our own is better than a silken garment that is borrowed of another.’ Man would sooner wear his own rags than Christ’s fine white linen. Pride, however, is too expensive a luxury when a man must give up all hope of Heaven in order to indulge it. Such is the case. There can be no feasting with the King unless we wear the wedding-garment which He supplies. Our own silk and satin would not suit His courts, much less our russet and our corduroy. We must accept the righteousness of God, or be unrighteous for ever. Surely we shall be worse than madmen if we insist upon going naked rather than put on the royal apparel of free grace.

Lord, I cannot longer err in this fashion, for I perceive my righteousnesses to be filthy rags, and I am heartily glad to be rid of them. Clothe me, I pray Thee, with Thy righteousness.”

Fuente: Neighbour’s Wells of Living Water

JOSEPHS HISTORY

DISPENSATIONAL ASPECT OF JACOBS HISTORY

Following F.W. Grant in the Numerical Bible, the life of Jacob gives as its lesson the story of that discipline by which the Spirit of God brings us from weakness to power, from natures strength to that wholesome weakness in which alone is strength. But for this, natural strength must be crippled, which is provided for in two ways: in allowing us to realize the power of another nature (Esau) and in the direct dealing of God with our souls.

To this also correspond the two names which distinguish to two parts of Jacobs life, before and after these experiences have done their work. He is Jacob in his methods, however, long after his heart is set upon divine things, and is only Israel when, his human strength broken down, he halts upon his thigh. These two names Jacob and Israel are applied all through the Scriptures in a very beautiful manner to the nation which sprang from him, and of which he is the representative throughout. But of course the effect of Gods discipline upon them cannot be read in their history hitherto, and awaits the fulfillment of prophecy concerning them.

Their past history has been that of Jacob, but it will yet be said of Jacob and of Israel: What hath God wrought! (Num 23:23).

Jacobs history divides itself into three parts his early life in Canaan, his stay in Padan-aram, and his life again as restored to Canaan; just as the history of the nation dispensationally divides itself into their first occupation of the land, their present dispersion, and their future and perpetual enjoyment of it when God brings them back again.

We find a kind of parallel between the first part of Jacobs life and that of the nation in his dream at Bethel when he is just about to leave the land, as we compare that dream with the application which Christ makes of it to Himself (Joh 1:51). Christ, as the Son of man, secures to Israel the care and ministrations of Jehovah while the nation is outcast from their inheritance, and when they shall with Nathanaels faith confess Christ as Son of God and King of Israel, they shall have in a more blessed way than ever their house of God on earth.

In the same way Jacobs history at Padan-aram suggests a parallel with the nation as they are now scattered from their land, for during the twenty years of Jacobs exile he enjoyed no such revelations of Gods presence as he did before. During that time God deals with him as He is now dealing with the nation, as one for whom He has a purpose of blessing only to be reached through disciplinary sorrow. Like his descendants he is multiplied as the dust, while trampled into it. The nation today is enslaved, persecuted and yet preserved in order to merge in the end of the age into that place of wealth and power of which all the prophets speak.

Jacobs return to his own land, in its application to the nation, brings us into the field of prophecy. For the nation, as well as for him, Peniel must prepare the way to Bethel. That the nation may not fall into the hands of their enemies, God, whose name is yet unknown to them, must take them into His own hand, crippling the human strength with which they contend with Him that in weakness they may hold Him fast for blessing. Thus, broken down in repentance and purged from idolatry, the nation will have their second Bethel when God will reveal to them His name so long hidden, and confirm to them the promise to their father Abraham.

QUESTIONS

1.What is the great lesson of Jacobs life?

2.Divide his history in three parts and apply it dispensationally.

3.Quote from memory Joh 1:51.

4.In what way does the Padan-aram experience foreshadow Israels history today?

5.What event in Jacobs life foreshadows a similar one yet to follow in the history of Israel?

The general familiarity with these chapters warrants the grouping of them in one lesson, especially since little within our present scope requires explanation.

LOVED AND HATED (Genesis 37)

It may seem foolish for Joseph to have made known his dreams to his brethren, and thus increase their enmity against him, but we should consider Gods purpose in the matter, whether Joseph understood it or not. In the outcome it was important that they should know these dreams, which were really prophecies, in advance of their fulfillment for the sake of the moral effect upon them.

In this chapter it will be seen that the merchantmen are called both Ishmaelites and Midianites, both being in the company, perhaps, as their territories were contiguous in Arabia.

SOLD INTO SLAVERY (Genesis 39)

Note the faith and piety of Joseph as indicated in Gen 39:9, in language unlike anything hitherto recorded of the patriarchs. Note too that according to Gen 39:20 Potiphar must have doubted the truth of his wifes charge, or else he would probably have executed Joseph.

FALSELY IMPRISONED (Genesis 40)

This chapter is chiefly notable for the further evidence it gives of Josephs intimate acquaintance with and faith in God, and the close dealings of God with him in the revelation of these things.

EXALTED TO THE THRONE (Genesis 41)

Note Pharaohs testimony to Josephs power with God (Gen 41:38), not that he himself knew the true God, but that he witnessed to the power Joseph had with the God he (Joseph) served. How does this incident in Josephs life illustrate 1Ti 4:8, last clause?

The name given Joseph by Pharaoh merits attention despite the difficulty in its interpretation. The Revised Version spells it Zaphenath-Paneah, but it is not determined whether it is of Hebrew, Egyptian or Coptic derivation.

If the first, it may mean Revealer of secrets; if the second, Bread of Life; if the third, Savior of the world, all bearing on the same thought and any of them both significant and appropriate.

DEALING WITH HIS BRETHREN (CHAPS. 42-44)

The details of these chapters show the purpose of Joseph to multiply unlooked for events and complicate the situation for his brethren, both to awaken their conviction of wrong-doing in the past and an expectation of something still more mysterious, whether good or bad, in the future thus preparing them for the great revelation soon to be made.

In Gen 42:17-18 the reference to the three days is important for its bearing on the death and resurrection of Christ. It will be well to note, for example, the vague way of the Hebrews in using the words. According to our usage, had Josephs brethren been imprisoned three days it would not have been until the fourth day that he changed his plan, but instead of that they were shut up by two nights and the intermediate day, with parts of the first and third days. This was the time Jesus was in the grave, so that there is no more reason to accuse the Bible of inaccuracy or contradiction in the one case than in the other.

REVEALING HIMSELF TO HIS BRETHREN (Genesis 45)

Why was Pharaoh so pleased to have Jacob and his family settle in Egypt? To show appreciation of Joseph? Yes, and for other reasons. It was not merely sixty-six souls that constituted the whole encampment of Jacob, but between three and four thousand souls, if we count all their dependents, which was a valuable accession to any nation when we consider the character of the people.

And there may have been another reason, if it be true that the reigning dynasty at this time was the Hyksos or Shepherd kings, i.e., Syrians or Asiatics who centuries before had invaded and seized upon the kingdom, and so were unpopular with the native races. It would be a great advantage

to them to have so powerful an accession of Asiatics as Jacobs tribe represented, not only to increase their riches but to give additional firmness to the throne against the discontent and disturbance of the native races.

SETTLING THE FAMILY IN GOSHEN (CHAPS. 46-48)

Note the suitableness of Goshen as a place of settlement for the Israelites. In the first place, it afforded good pasturage and they were shepherds, but in some parts of it there was excellent tillage as well. In the next place, its location near the Isthmus of Suez made it easy to depart from later on when the necessity was so great. And last, but not least, it was a location where the least offense would be given to the native races, and there was reason for such offense because shepherds were held in abomination by them. Their subjugation by a shepherd race explains this in part, but there was another reason in that the Egyptians for religious reasons did not eat flesh. They worshipped the beasts which the Israelites ate and offered in sacrifice to God.

How long did Jacob live in Egypt (Gen 47:28)? What solemn promise did he extract from Joseph just prior to his death (v. 29-31)? Do you think this expressed only the natural desire to be buried with his own people, or did it express faith in the divine promise that his seed should ultimately inherit Canaan?

QUESTIONS

1.What name did Pharaoh give Joseph, and what are its possible meanings?

2.How does this lesson throw light on the period that Christ remained in the grave?

3.What probable dynasty of Pharaohs is before us in this lesson?

4.Give some reasons for Pharaohs satisfaction in welcoming the Israelites to Egypt.

5.What made Goshen a desirable locality for them?

TYPICAL AND DISPENSATIONAL ASPECTS OF JOSEPHS HISTORY

The life of Joseph more than any other patriarch suggests that of Christ and shadows forth the history of Israel as a nation.

The first view we have of him he is loved of his father and hated by his brethren, and there are three things for which his brethren hated him, namely: the love of his father for him, his separation from them in a moral sense, and his dreams in which his future supremacy is announced. There were the same things for which Christ was hated by his brethren after the flesh: His Fathers love; His separation from them (Joh 15:17-25); and the announcement of His future glory (Mat 27:57-66).

Joseph is conspired against and sold, and it is his love-mission to his brethren, as sent by his father, that gives occasion for this. How like our Savior in His coming unto Israel! Joseph is cast into a pit at first, but instead of putting him to death his brethren sell him to the Ishmaelites. So the Jews, knowing it was not lawful for them to put any man to death, transferred Jesus to the Gentiles.

Joseph is a slave in the house of the Egyptian, but that house is greatly blessed of God because he is in it: a type of Christs ministry to the world while He abode therein. And yet Josephs goodness to the Egyptian did not avail in the face of false accusation, nor did that of Christ to the world. The former is cast into prison where again all things come under his hand, and so Christ descends into a darker prison-house where He manifests Himself as master of all there (Col 2:15; 1Pe 3:18-22).

Josephs humiliation issues in exaltation; the parallel to which in Christs case is as we see Him raised from the grave to the throne of glory. God sent me before you to preserve life, said Joseph to his brethren, and Jesus at the right hand of God in ministering in the spiritual sense, to His brethren of Israel to whom He is as yet unknown.

But connected with Josephs exaltation he enters a new relationship that of marriage with a Gentile woman, suggesting the unique relationship of Christ to His church, compose chiefly of Gentile believers.

Now comes the time of famine which speaks of the period at the end of this age, a literal seven years as indicated by Daniel 9, when the church shall have been translated to meet her Lord in the air, and Israel will be preparing through trial to recognize and receive her rejected Lord.

BENJAMIN BLENDED WITH JOSEPH

At this point Benjamin comes into view as blended with Joseph in the prototypical relation. All at last is made to depend upon Benjamin. No one person could be a full type of Christ, and Benjamin is brought in to supplement what is lacking in Joseph. Benjamin means the son of my right hand, and he represents the Messiah of power for whom the Jews have always been looking. But Benjamin, before he was called by his father the name which means the son of my right hand, was named by his mother Benoni, which means the son of my sorrow. It was necessary for Christ to be the sufferer before He could be the conqueror. Christ, known to us as the rejected One, is now exalted and seated at the right hand of God, and he is the One whom Israel does not know. A Christ triumphant and reigning over the earth is the one for whom they have always looked; the Sufferer for whom they did not look but who must precede the Conqueror they have refused.

But power does not lie with Benjamin for whom his brethren are looking, but with Joseph whom they have refused. As a conquering Messiah Christ has been prophesied to them, and as such He longs to display Himself in their behalf. This he cannot do without atonement for the sin that led them to their refusal of Him. For this they must be brought to repentance, and God sends them into an agony for their ideal Messiah that makes them ready to receive the true one. In the last great sorrow that shall overtake Israel as a nation this shall be accomplished. Before Him whom they do not know they shall plead for the Benjamin who has been lost to them, and in the agony of that hour, while they are still pleading for the ideal conquering Messiah, the heavens shall suddenly open and they shall be overwhelmed by a revelation of the Christ they refused (Zec 12:10).

Fuente: James Gray’s Concise Bible Commentary

The Seeds of Jealousy

Jealousy yields ugly actions. Joseph’ brothers were jealous of him for several reasons. When Joseph was seventeen, the sons of Bilhah, Dan and Naphtali, and Zilpah, Gad and Asher, did something wrong while tending their father’s sheep. Joseph told Jacob, thus stirring the hearts of four brothers against him. Joseph was the firstborn son of Rachel, Jacob’s favorite wife. He was also the son born to Jacob in his old age. So, Jacob gave him a coat of many colors. His brothers concluded he was loved more than they were. They hated him for it and would not speak to him in a kind way.

Then, Joseph had a dream that made them hate him more. In the dream, all the brothers were working in the field making sheaves of grain. The sheaves of the other brothers bowed down to Joseph’s sheave, which stood erect. They naturally concluded he would rule over them. He had another dream in which the sun, moon and eleven stars bowed down to him. When Jacob heard the dream, he asked if it meant he and his wife along with eleven sons would bow down to Joseph. This aroused envy in the brothers. However, Jacob, who knew the significance of certain dreams, kept the matter in his heart ( Gen 37:1-11 ; Gen 28:10-22 ).

Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books

Gen 37:2. These are the generations, or events which happened to Jacobs family.Sons of Bilhah. Jacob seems to have divided Leahs sons from the sons of the bond-women, who proved very wicked children; and Josephs calamities began by accusing them. Concumbentes cum bestiis.

Gen 37:3. Israel loved Joseph, because of Rachel, and because of his great piety at the age of seventeen; and having taken the birthright from Reuben, on account of his sin, he conferred it on Joseph on account of his piety. With this view he made him a coat of many colours, that he might assist him at the altar. But it might be called a coat of varied colours, from the embroidery, as the Tunicam manicatam seems to imply. The art of dyeing was understood by the ancients, as appears from the Tyrian purple, chiefly produced by secretions found in a fish. The works of art would obtrude discoveries on the old world.

Gen 37:4. They hated him. The partiality of their father, the complaints preferred against them for their faults, the coat of many colours, and the character of his dreams, instead of attracting the esteem of their better nature, excited their hatred, as was the case of the Lord Christ, of whom Joseph was a figure.

Gen 37:14. Whether it be well with thy brethren. Jacob might fear some calamity on account of the massacre at Shechem.

Gen 37:19. This dreamer cometh. A bitter sarcasm, and word of infidel reproach, which God, in the interpretation of Pharaohs dreams, converted into real honour, and a diadem of prophetic glory. So in the case of Jesus Christ, the crown of thorns was turned into a crown of glory, the reed into a sceptre of iron, and the purple robe into garments of light and majesty.

Gen 37:20. Let us slay him. Simeon and Levi, according to Abarbanel, were the two that moved the rest to this wicked deed. Poli. Synopsis. Simeon is said to have bound Joseph, which apparently accounts for his being bound in Egypt.

Gen 37:24. The pit was empty; being a pit to catch water in the rainy season.

Gen 37:34. Jacobmourned. There was more cause to have mourned for the wickedness of his sons yet alive, than for Joseph, who was supposed to be dead. When a man is supposed to have died in a distant land, his family should endeavour meekly to leave the matter with providence.

REFLECTIONS.

Entering now on the history of Joseph, one of the finest and most instructive providences is unfolded to our view which the sacred writings afford; and there is nothing in all the pagan writings, which either in point of consummate virtue or literary excellence, has claims to equal merit. May the Lord assist us in tracing its prominent features, and may our hearts be softened and sanctified by a review of his early providences and grace. We find Joseph, at the age of seventeen, inheriting the virtues of the patriarchs, and twice favoured with divine revelations of his future greatness. So it is that providence is wont to buoy up the mind with sacred hope, before the days of affliction approach.

He was hated of his brothers, because of his virtue; because he complained of their vices, and because he was honoured of his father and of his God. And providence is the same still; the cross and the crown are uniformly joined. We have seldom known a man eminently holy, but he was eminently tried. The one without the other might have been awful even to St. Paul: hence the joys of his revelations were allayed with a thorn (of infirmities) in the flesh. Consequently we ought not to be discouraged at adversity, for having Gods favour our crosses shall do us good, and not evil.

We learn also, that real religion is characterised by abundance of simplicity, and a disposition to overcome evil with good. How simply did this youth relate his dreams! Intending no harm himself, he little suspected that another would thereby take occasion to seek his destruction. How cheerfully did he run to Shechem, and then to Dothan, to seek his envious brothers! A deep work of God on a young mans mind is accompanied with the most engaging simplicity. Living to God, he has no secrets but what might be known. Wishing to do all things right, he opens all his soul without reserve. His friendship is without suspicion, and his conversation untainted with guile. Grace makes a man once more as a little child, and restores even to old age the heaven of infantile simplicity. On the other hand, how wicked, how inconceivably wicked must the human heart be, which can hate and persecute so much goodness in the soul of a brother. Oh, how sin estranges the heart from God: what a desert, a dry and barren desert, it brings upon the soul. Oh, how soon may a course of crimes reduce the human heart to become the habitation of devils, and the seat of every infernal plot. Suppress, oh my soul, every evil thought in its commencement, for thou knowest not but a single folly once indulged may prove thy destruction, or embarrass thee for life. A single folly did I say? But where is the sin that is not complicated? Here is a plot to kill a young, a pious, and unoffending brother. Next follows a scheme to cover the crime, by dipping his sacred coat in the blood of a kid; and sad is the recollection, that by a kid Jacob had deceived his father Isaac. Next the venerable Sire must be murdered too, or nearly so, with sorrow for a favourite son; and next, this horrid story must be persisted in for twenty years, till providence should develope the guilt. These brothers cast Joseph into a pit, and would have fallen themselves into the bottomless pit, had not God graciously brought them to deep repentance. Flee, oh young man, the society and counsel of ungodly men; for when once entered on a course of crimes, you may not stop at the limited point; and every kind of sin must terminate either in humiliating confessions, or everlasting misery.

Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Genesis 37 – 50

On which we shall dwell more particularly. There is not in scripture a more perfect and beautiful type of Christ than Joseph. Whether we view Christ as the object of the Father’s love, the object of the envy of His own, – in His humiliation, sufferings, death exaltation, and glory, in all we have Him strikingly typified by Joseph.

In Gen. 37 we have Joseph’s dreams, the statement of which draws out the enmity of his brethren. He was the object of his father’s love, and the subject of very high destinies, and inasmuch as the hearts of his brothers were not in communion with these things, they hated him. They had no fellowship in the father’s love. They would not yield to the thought of Joseph’s exaltation. In all this they represent the Jews in Christ’s day. He came to His own and his own received him not.” He had “no form nor comeliness in their eyes.” They would neither own Him as the Son of God, nor king of Israel. Their eyes were not open to behold “his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of “grace and truth.” They would not have Him; yea, they hated Him.

Now, in Joseph’s case, we see that he, in no wise, relaxed his testimony in consequence of his brethren’s refusal of his first dream. “And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it to his brethren;” and they hated him yet the more….And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it to his brethren.” This was simple testimony founded upon divine revelation; but it was testimony which brought Joseph down to the pit. Had he kept back his testimony, or taken off ought of its edge and power, he might have spared himself; but no; he told them the truth, and therefore they hated him.

Thus was it with Joseph’s great Antitype. He bore witness to the truth – He witnessed a good confession He kept back nothing – He could only speak the truth because He was the truth, and His testimony to the truth was answered, on man’s part, by the cross, the vinegar, the soldier’s spear. The testimony of Christ, too, was connected with the deepest, fullest, richest grace. He not only came as “the truth,” but also as the perfect expression of all the love of the Father’s heart:” grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” He was the full disclosure to man of what God was. Hence man was left entirely without excuse. He came and showed God to man, and man hated God with a perfect hatred. The fullest exhibition of divine love was answered by the fullest exhibition of human hatred. This is seen in the cross; and we have it touchingly foreshadowed at the pit into which Joseph was cast by his brethren.

“And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him. 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.” These words forcibly remind us of the parable in Matthew 22. “But, last of all, he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son. But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir, come let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance. And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him.” God sent His Son into the world with this thought, “They will reverence my son;” but, alas! man’s heart had no reverence for the “well beloved” of the Father. They cast him out. Earth and heaven were at issue in reference to Christ; and they are at issue still. Man crucified Him; but God raised Him from the dead. Man placed Him on a cross between two thieves; God set Him at His own right hand in the heavens. Man gave Him the very lowest place on earth; God gave Him the very highest place in heaven, in brightest majesty.

ALL this is shown out in Joseph’s history. “Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well, whose branches run over the wall. The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him; but his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob, (from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel;) even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breast and of the womb; the blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors, unto the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills; they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren.” (Gen. 49: 22-26)

These verses beautifully exhibit to our view “the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.” “The archers” have done their work; but God was stronger than they. The true Joseph has been shot at and grievously wounded in the house of his friends; but “the arms of his hands have been made strong” in the power of resurrection, and faith now knows Him as the basis of all God’s purposes of blessing and glory in reference to the Church, Israel, and the whole creation. When we look at Joseph in the pit, and in the prison, and look; at him afterwards as ruler over all the land of Egypt, we see the difference between the thoughts of God and the. thoughts of men; and so when we look at the cross, and at “the throne of the majesty in the heavens,” we see the same thing.

Nothing ever brought out the real state of man’s heart toward God but the coming of Christ. “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin.” (John 15: 22) It is not that they would not have been sinners. No; but “they had not had sin.” So He says, in another place, “If ye were blind, ye should have no sin.” (John 9: 41) God came near to man in the Person of His Son, and man was able to say, “this is the heir;” but yet he said, “come, let us kill him.” Hence, “they have no cloak for their sin.” Those who say they see, have no excuse. confessed blindness is not at all the difficulty, but professed sight. This is a truly solemn principle for a professing age like the present. The permanence of sin is connected with the mere profession to see. A man who is blind, and knows it, can have his eyes opened; but what can be done for one who thinks he sees, when he really does not?

Fuente: Mackintosh’s Notes on the Pentateuch

Gen 37:1-11. Joseph Hated by his Brothers on Account of his Talebearing, his Fathers Partiality, and his Dreams of Supremacy.

Gen 37:1-2 a is certainly from P, but probably Gen 37:2 b also. It gives a third reason for the hatred which Joseph excited; the rather priggish Joseph tells tales to Jacob about the children of his concubines. Nothing more is preserved from P till we reach Gen 41:46 a. Js story (Gen 37:3 f.) lays the blame on Jacobs partiality: he loved him because he was the son of his old agea curious statement in view of the fact that some of his half-brothers were younger than himself. Presumably he loved him because he was the son of his favourite wife. He made him a long garment with sleeves (mg.). Such a tunic was not worn by people who had to work (2Sa 13:18 mg.); the sleeves would be in the way, and the length, reaching to the feet instead of the knees, less convenient. E characteristically explains the envy as occasioned by Josephs two dreams (the duplication indicating the certainty and speed of accomplishment, Gen 41:32), which he could not keep to himself. The second, foretelling that father and mother will bow down, brings him reproof from Jacob, who, however, like Mary (Luk 2:19; Luk 2:51), ponders the omen in his heart. Observe that Jacob is here represented as practising agriculture (cf. Gen 26:12).

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN

How significant is the truth of verse 1, “Jacob lived in the land where his father sojourned, in the land of Canaan.” It had taken him some years to finally settle there, but even though dwelling, he was still really only a sojourner (Heb 11:9). He did not remain indefinitely, but later went down to Egypt, where he died (ch.46:5-6; 49:33).

We have seen in Chapter 36 a long list of the generations of Esau, but a great contrast faces us in Chapter 37, where we read of the generations of Jacob. Remarkably, his generations center simply in Joseph (v.2): there is no list of names. The answer to this is simply that the true genealogy of the line of faith centers in the person of the Lord Jesus, of whom Joseph is a type. Working together with his half-brothers in feeding Jacob’s flocks, he brought to his father the report of their bad practices. If these things were of a serious nature, it may have been necessary for Joseph to do this, but scripture does not say one way or the other. On the other hand, we know that the Lord Jesus was always right in communing with His Father about the evils of His brethren according to the flesh.

Verse 3 tells us that Jacob loved Joseph more than all his other sons. This was Jacob’s failure, for love in a family should be thoroughly impartial and concerned about the true welfare of every child. However, above all this, we are reminded in this history that God’s love for His Son is necessarily unique. The garment of many colors Jacob made for Joseph (v.3) is typical of the many features of the glories of the Lord Jesus, for indeed all the colors of the rainbow are involved in giving us some little picture of the attributes of this blessed person in His very nature as the eternal God.

However, the love of Jacob for Joseph drew out the bitter animosity of his brothers. Jacob was to blame for this, or course, not Joseph, but the same thing has happened in many families. In the case of the Lord Jesus, Israel hated both Him and His Father (Joh 15:24), nor did they have the slightest excuse for this, as Jacob’s brethren might have had for hating Joseph.

We read now of two dreams manifestly sent by God to Joseph, who told them to his brothers, only thereby increasing their hatred toward him. We may question, was it morally appropriate that Joseph should tell them his dreams? But it is clear that God overruled this in His sovereign wisdom, and we are reminded that the Lord Jesus told the Pharisees, “I tell you, hereafter you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven” (Mat 26:64).

In Joseph’s first dream he tells his brothers that he and they were binding sheaves of grain in the field: his sheaf arose and stood erect, and those of his brothers all bowed down to his sheaf (v.7). Joseph did not likely understand that God designed the dream as prophetic of the fact that Joseph’s brothers would yet bow to his authority, as chapter 42:6 tells us they did. Of course, the most vital lesson here is that all Israel will yet bow to the Lord Jesus, whom they have despised and hated. At the time Joseph’s brothers considered it ridiculous that he would ever have dominion over them (v.8).

The second dream seems to have awakened thoughts of questioning in his brothers minds. When he told them and also told his father that he dreamed that the sun and moon and eleven stars bowed down to him, his father rebuked him, evidently feeling it was pride on Joseph’s part that occasioned the dream, for he realized that the implication was plain that both he and Rachel and his eleven children would bow down to Joseph. But his brothers envied him. Did this not indicate that they were apprehensive that Joseph would have such a place of authority? We know too that it was not only unbelief on the part of the Jewish leaders that moved their rejection of Christ, but envy (Mat 27:18).

JOSEPH, SENT BY HIS FATHER, BUT REJECTED

Joseph’s brothers had gone to Shechem to feed their father’s flock. Shechem means “shoulder,” and speaks of assuming responsibility, which Israel did under law. So the Lord Jesus, sent by the Father, came to the place where Israel was responsible to be, under the law God had given them. Joseph was sent “from the valley of Hebron” (v.14). Hebron means “communion,” reminding us that the Father sent His Son from the place of intimate communion, which had been the portion of the Father and the Son from all the past eternity.

Joseph did not find his brothers at Shechem, however, just as the Lord Jesus did not find Israel in the place of obedience to the law of God. A man found Joseph wandering in the field and asked what he was looking for (v.15). Then the man was able to tell him that he had heard his brothers proposing to go to Dothan (v.17). This holds a most instructive lesson for us. Dothan means “their decree.” Just as Joseph thus found his brothers at Dothan, so the Lord Jesus found Israel in a place of their own decrees and traditions, rather than in the place of subjection to the law of God. He told the Pharisees and scribes, “You have made the commandment of God no effect by your tradition. Hypocrites, Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying, These people draw near to me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. And in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men” (Mat 15:6-9, NKJV).

When Joseph was still some distance from his brothers they saw him coming and plotted against him to put to death (vs.19-20). Herod, from the time of the birth of the Lord Jesus, was determined to kill Him (Mat 2:13-16). However, at this time God’s sovereign protection was evident, for Reuben, the oldest of the brothers, had some sense of responsibility for a younger brother and was to able to influence them not to kill him. Similarly, though the Jews sought often to kill the Lord Jesus, they could not do so until the time God Himself had appointed. In the meantime their fear of consequences restrained them (Mat 21:45-45).

Reuben suggested simply putting Joseph into a pit from which he could not escape, intending himself to afterward liberate Joseph so that he could return to his father (v.22). He evidently felt that, being the oldest, he would be answerable to his father for what the brothers did, for evil does not generally continue long without being discovered.

They likely took pleasure in stripping Joseph of his coat of many colors, on account of their jealousy toward him because of his father’s favoritism (v.13). All of this reminds us of men taking the garments of the Lord Jesus and casting lots for them at the time of His crucifixion (Mat 27:35). Then also, just as Joseph’s brothers coolly sat down to eat, so we are told of those who crucified the Lord, “sitting down they watched Him there” (Mat 27:36).

But an unexpected opportunity arises, of which the brothers take selfish advantage. When a company of Ishmaelite traders appear, traveling toward Egypt, Judah is not slow to recognize an ideal way of getting rid of Joseph and at the same time gaining some monetary profit. He therefore indicates to his brothers that if they killed Joseph and tried to conceal the fact, they would make no profit from this, but in selling him as a slave to the Ishmaelites they would realize a profit as well as having no problem as to how to dispose of a dead body. He also appeals to their sense of some loyalty to dispose of a dead body. He also appeals to their sense of some loyalty to their family relationship. Joseph was their brother (v.27). He seems to have a conscience against killing his brother, but no conscience against selling him as a slave!

The brothers sold Joseph for 20 pieces of silver. There are two points here that compare with Israel’s rejection of Christ. He was sold for 30 pieces of silver, and also the Jews delivered Him into the hands of Gentiles. Joseph is taken down to Egypt.

Reuben evidently was not present when the brothers sold Joseph, and his returning to the pit he is shocked to find him gone (v.29). His question to his brothers, “and I, where shall I go?” shows his fear of being held accountable. Did he perhaps think that Joseph had escaped and returned to report the whole matter to his father?

Of course the brothers would have to tell Reuben of their selling Joseph. Now they devised the plot of dipping Joseph’s coat in the blood of a goat, and bringing it to Jacob, saying they had found it (v.32). Thus they were guilty of cruel hatred both toward their brother and toward their father. They ask their father to examine the coat, to make sure it was Joseph’s Of course, in recognizing it he surmised that a wild animal had killed and eaten his son. Apparently it did not occur to him to ask them if they found bones in the vicinity or other articles of clothing. For a wild animal would not be so careful as to hide everything else and leave only a bloodstained coat.

Jacob was crushed to the point of deepest depression. This son was one in whom he had found greatest comfort. Now he is certain that Joseph has been killed. His mourning continued for his son over a long period of time, and though all his sons and his daughters sought to comfort him, he did not respond to this. Of course the comforting of his sons would be hypocritical, and we may be sure that Jacob’s intense sorrow made their consciences more perturbed. He tells them that the agony of his mourning will not be relieved before he goes “down to Sheol,”the unseen state of soul and spirit when death takes place.

In the meanwhile the Midianites, taking Joseph to Egypt, sold him as a slave to the captain of Pharaoh’s bodyguard, named Potiphar. Nothing is said here of how intensely Joseph felt the trauma of his ordeal. But we learn something of this in his brothers’ later words to one another, “we saw the distress of his soul when he pleaded with us, yet we would not listen” (ch.42:21). Now taken to a far distant country and made a slave at the tender age of 17, how many must have been the hours of his painful agony!

Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible

37:1 And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a {a} stranger, in the land of Canaan.

(a) That is, the story of such things as came to him and his family as in Gen 5:1

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

JOSEPHS DREAMS

Gen 37:1-36

“Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee.”- Psa 76:10

THE migration of Israel from Canaan to Egypt was a step of prime importance in the history. Great difficulties surrounded it, and very extraordinary means were used to bring it about.

The preparatory steps occupied about twenty years, and nearly a fourth of the Book of Genesis is devoted to this period. This migration was a new idea. So little was it the result of an accidental dearth, or of any of those unforeseen calamities which cause families to emigrate from our own country, that God had forewarned Abraham himself that it must be. But only when it was becoming matter of actual experience and of history did God make known the precise object to be accomplished by it. This He makes known to Jacob as he passes from Canaan; and as, in abandoning the land be had so painfully won, his heart sinks, he is sustained by the assurance, “Fear not to go down into Egypt; I will there make thee a great nation.”

The meaning of the step, and the suitableness of the time and of the place to which Israel migrated, are apparent. For more than two hundred years now had Abraham and his descendants been wandering as pilgrims, and as yet there were no signs of Gods promise being kept to them. That promise had been of a land and of a seed. Great fecundity had been promised to the race; but instead of that there had been a remarkable and perplexing barrenness, so that after two centuries one tent could contain the whole male population. In Jacobs time the population began to increase, but just in proportion as this part of the promise showed signs of fulfilment did the other part seem precarious. For, in proportion to their increase, the family became hostile to the Canaanites, and how should they ever get past that critical point in their history at which they would be strong enough to excite the suspicion, jealousy, and hatred of the indigenous tribes, and yet not strong enough to defend themselves against this enmity? Their presence was tolerated, just as our countrymen tolerated the presence of French refugees, on the score of their impotence to do harm. They were placed in a quite anomalous position; a single family who had continued for two hundred years in a land which they could only seem in jest to call theirs, dwelling as guests amid the natives, maintaining peculiar forms of worship and customs. Collision with the inhabitants seemed unavoidable as soon as their real character and pretensions oozed out, and as soon as it seemed at all likely that they really proposed to become owners and masters in the land. And, in case of such collision, what could be the result, but that which has ever followed where a few score men, brave enough to be cut down where they stood, have been exposed to mass after mass of fierce and bloodthirsty barbarians? A small number of men have often made good their entrance into lands where the inhabitants greatly outnumbered them, but these have commonly been highly disciplined troops, as in the case of the handful of Spaniards who seized Mexico and Peru; or they have been backed by a power which could aid with vast resources, as when the Romans held this country, or when the English lad in India left his pen on his desk and headed his few resolute countrymen, and held his own against unnumbered millions. It may be argued that if even Abraham with his own household swept Canaan clear of invaders, it might now have been possible for his grandson to do as much with increased means at his disposal. But, not to mention that every man has not the native genius for command and military enterprise which Abraham had, it must be taken into account that a force which is quite sufficient for a marauding expedition or a night attack, is inadequate for the exigencies of a campaign of several years duration. The war which Jacob must have waged, had hostilities been opened, must have been a war of extermination, and such a war must have desolated the house of Israel if victorious, and, more probably by far, would have quite annihilated it.

It is to obviate these dangers, and to secure that Israel grow without let or hindrance, that Jacobs household is removed to a land where protection and seclusion would at once be secured to them. In the land of Goshen, secured from molestation partly by the influence of Joseph, but much more by the caste-prejudices of the Egyptians, and their hatred of all foreigners, and shepherds in particular, they enjoyed such prosperity and attained so rapidly the magnitude of a nation that some, forgetful alike of the promise of God and of the natural advantages of Israels position, have refused to credit the accounts given us of the increase in their population. In a land so roomy, so fertile, and so secluded as that in which they were now settled, they had every advantage for making the transition from a family to a nation. Here they were preserved from all temptation to mingle with neighbours of a different race, and so lose their special place as a people called out by God to stand alone. The Egyptians would have scorned the marriages which the Canaanites passionately solicited. Here the very contempt in which they were held proved to be their most valuable bulwark. And if Christians have any of the wisdom of the serpent, they will often find in the contempt or exclusiveness of worldly men a convenient barrier, preventing them, indeed, from enjoying some privileges, but at the same time enabling them, without molestation, to pursue their own way. I believe young people especially feel put about by the deprivations which they have to suffer in order to save their religious scruples; they are shut off from what their friends and associates enjoy, and they perceive that they are not so well liked as they would be had they less desire to live by conscience and by Gods will. They feel ostracized, banished, frowned upon, laid under disabilities; but all this has its compensations: it forms for them a kind of Goshen where they may worship and increase, it runs a fence around them which keeps them apart from much that tempts and from much that enfeebles.

The residence of Israel in Egypt served another important purpose. By contact with the most civilised people of antiquity they emerged from the semi-barbarous condition in which they had previously been living. Going into Egypt mere. shepherds, as Jacob somewhat plaintively and deprecatingly says to Pharaoh; not even possessed, so far as we know, of the fundamental arts on which civilisation rests, unable to record in writing the revelations God made, or to read them if recorded; having the most rudimentary ideas of law and justice, and having nothing to keep them together and give them form anal strength, save the one idea that God meant to confer on them great distinction; they were transferred into a land where government had been so long established and law had come to be so thoroughly administered that life and property were as safe as among ourselves to-day, where science had made such advances that even the weather-beaten and time-stained relics of it seem to point to regions into which even the bold enterprise of modern investigation has not penetrated, and where all the arts needful for life were in familiar use, and even some practised which modern times have as yet been unable to recover. To no better school could the barbarous sons of Bilhah and Zitpah have been sent; to no more fitting discipline could the lawless spirits of Reuben, Simeon, and Levi have been subjected. In Egypt, where human life was sacred, where truth was worshipped as a deity, and where law was invested with the sanctity which belonged to what was supposed to have descended from heaven, they were brought under influences similar to those which ancient Rome exerted over conquered races.

The unwitting pioneer of this great movement was a man in all respects fitted to initiate it happily. In Joseph we meet a type of character rare in any race, and which, though occasionally reproduced in Jewish history, we should certainly not have expected to meet with at so early a period. For what chiefly strikes one in Joseph is a combination of grace and power, which is commonly looked upon as the peculiar result of civilising influences, knowledge of history, familiarity with foreign races, and hereditary dignity. In David we find a similar flexibility and grace of character, and a similar personal superiority. We find the same bright and humorous disposition helping him to play the man in adverse circumstances; but we miss in David Josephs self-control and incorruptible purity, as we also miss something of his capacity for difficult affairs of state. In Daniel this latter capacity is abundantly present, and a facility equal to Josephs in dealing with foreigners, and there is also a certain grace or nobility in the Jewish Vizier; but Joseph had a surplus of power which enabled him to be cheerful and alert in doleful circumstances, which Daniel would certainly have borne manfully, but probably in a sterner and more passive mood. Joseph, indeed, seemed to inherit and happily combine the highest qualities of his ancestors. He had Abrahams dignity and capacity, Isaacs purity and power of self-devotion, Jacobs cleverness and buoyancy and tenacity. From his mothers family he had personal beauty, humour, and management.

A young man of such capabilities could not long remain insensible to his own powers or indifferent to his own destiny. Indeed, the conduct of his father and brothers towards him must have made him self-conscious, even though he had been wholly innocent of introspection. The force of the impression he produced on his family may be measured by the circumstance that the princely dress given him by his father did not excite his brothers ridicule but their envy and hatred. In this dress there was a manifest suitableness to his person, and this excited them to a keen resentment of the distinction. So too they felt that his dreams were not the mere whimsicalities of a lively fancy, but were possessed of a verisimilitude which gave them importance. In short, the dress and the dreams were insufferably exasperating to the brothers, because they proclaimed and marked in a definite way the feeling of Josephs superiority which had already been vaguely rankling in their consciousness. And it is creditable to Joseph that this superiority should first have emerged in connection with a point of conduct. It was in moral stature that the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah felt that they were outgrown by the stripling whom they carried with them as their drudge. Neither are we obliged to suppose that Joseph was a gratuitous tale-bearer, or that when he carried their evil report to his father he was actuated by a prudish, censorious, or in any way unworthy spirit. That he very well knew how to hold his tongue no man ever gave more adequate proof; but he that understands that there is a time to keep silence necessarily sees also that there is a time to speak. And no one can tell what torture that pure young soul may have endured in the remote pastures, when left alone to withstand day after day the outrage of these coarse and unscrupulous men. An elder brother, if he will, can more effectually guard the innocence of a younger brother than any other relative can, but he can also inflict a more exquisite torture.

Joseph, then, could not but come to think of his future and of his destiny in this family. That his father should make a pet of him rather than of Benjamin, he would refer to the circumstance that he was the oldest son of the wife of his choice, of her whom first he had loved, and who had no rival while he lived. To so charming a companion as Joseph must always have been, Jacob would naturally impart all the traditions and hopes of the family. In him he found a sympathetic and appreciative listener, who wiled him on to endless narrative, and whose imaginativeness quickened his own hopes and made the future seem grander and the world more wide. And what Jacob had to tell could fall into no kindlier soil than the opening mind of Joseph. No hint was lost, every promise was interpreted by some waiting aspiration. And thus, like every youth of capacity, he came to have his clay-dreams. These day-dreams, though derided by those who cannot see the Caesar in the careless trifler, and though often awkward and even offensive in their expression, are not always the mere discontented cravings of youthful vanity, but are frequently instinctive gropings towards the position which the nature is fitted to fill. “Our wishes,” it has been said, “are the forefeeling of our capabilities”; and certainly where there is any special gift or genius in a man, the wish of his youth is predictive of the attainment of manhood. Whims, no doubt, there are, passing phases through which natural growth carries us, flutterings of the needle when too near some powerful influence; yet amidst all variations the true direction will be discernible and ultimately will be dominant. And it is a great art to discover what we are fit for, so that we may settle down to our own work, or patiently wait for our own place, without enviously striving to rob every other man of his crown and so losing our own. It is an art that saves us much fretting and disappointment and waste of time, to understand early in life what it is we can accomplish, and what precisely we mean to be at; “to recognise in, our personal gifts or station, in the circumstances and complications of our life, in our relations to others, or to the world-the will of God teaching us what we are, and for what we ought to live.” How much of life often is gone before its possessor sees the use he can put it to and ceases to beat the air! How much of life is an ill-considered but passionate striving after what can never be attained, or a vain imitation of persons who have quite different talents and opportunities from ourselves, and who are therefore set to quite another work than ours.

It was because Josephs dreams embodied his waking ambition that they were of importance. Dreams become significant when they are the concentrated essence of the main stream of the waking thoughts, and picturesquely exhibit the tendency of the character. “In a dream,” says Elihu, “in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed; then He openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction, that He may withdraw man from his purpose.” This is precisely the use of dreams: our tendencies, unbridled by reason and fact, run on to results; the purposes which the business and other good influences of the day have kept down act themselves out in our dreams, and we see the character unimpeded by social checks, and as it would be were it unmodified by the restraints and efforts and external considerations of our conscious hours. Our vanity, our pride, our malice, our impurity, our deceit, our every evil passion, has free play, and shows us its finished result, and in so vivid and true though caricatured a form that we are startled and withdrawn from our purpose. The evil thought we have suffered to creep about our heart seems in our dreams to become a deed, and we wake in horror and thank God we can yet refrain. Thus the poor woman, who in utter destitution was beginning to find her child a burden, dreamt she had drowned it, and woke in horror at the fancied sound of the plunge-woke to clasp her little one to her breast with the thrill of a grateful affection that never again gave way. So that while no man is so foolish as to expect instruction from every dream any more than from every thought that visits his waking mind, yet every one who has been accumulating some knowledge of himself is aware that he has drawn a large part of this from his unconscious hours. As the naturalist would know but a small part of the animal kingdom by studying the creatures that show themselves in the daylight, so there are moles and bats of the spirit that exhibit themselves most freely in the darkness; and there are jungles and waste places in the character which, if you look on them only in the sunshine, may seem safe and lovely, but which at night show themselves to be fall of all loathsome and savage beasts.

With the simplicity of a guileless mind, and with the natural proneness of members of one family to tell in the morning the dreams they have had, Joseph tells to the rest what seems to himself interesting, if not very suggestive. Possibly he thought very little of his dream till he saw how much importance his brothers attached to it. Possibly there might be discernible in his tone and look some mixture of youthful arrogance. And in his relation of the second dream, there was discernible at least a confidence that it would be realised, which was peculiarly intolerable to his brothers, and to his father seemed a dangerous symptom that called for rebuke. And yet “his father observed the saying”; as a parent has sometimes occasion to check his child, and yet, having done so, feels that that does not end the matter; that his boy and he are in somewhat different spheres, so that while he was certainly justified in punishing such and such a manifestation of his character, there is yet something behind that he does not quite understand, and for which possibly punishment may not be exactly the suitable award.

We fall into Jacobs mistake when we refuse to acknowledge as genuine and God-inspired any religious experience which we ourselves have not passed through, and which appears in a guise that is not only unfamiliar, but that is in some particulars objectionable. Up to the measure of our own religious experience, we recognise as genuine, and sympathise with, the parallel experience of others; but when they rise above us and get beyond us, we begin to speak of them as visionaries, enthusiasts, dreamers. We content ourselves with pointing again and again to the blots in their manner, and refuse to read the future through the ideas they add to our knowledge. But the future necessarily lies, not in the definite and finished attainment, but in the indefinite and hazy and dream-like germs that have yet growth in them. The future is not with Jacob, the rebuker, but with the dreaming, and, possibly, somewhat offensive Joseph. It was certainly a new element Joseph introduced into the experience of Gods people. He saw, obscurely indeed, but with sufficient clearness to make him thoughtful, that the man whom Goal chooses and makes a blessing to others is so far advanced above his fellows that they lean upon him and pay him homage as if he were in the place of God to them. He saw that his higher powers were to be used for his brethren, and that the high destiny he somehow felt to be his was to be won by doing service so essential that his family would bow before him and give themselves into his hand. He saw this, as every man whose love keeps pace with his talent sees it, and he so far anticipated the dignity of Him who, in the deepest self-sacrifice, assumed a position and asserted claims which enraged His brethren and made even His believing mother marvel. Joseph knew that the welfare of his family rested not with the Esau-like good-nature of Reuben, still less with the fanatical ferocity of Simeon and Levi, not with the servile patience of Issachar, nor with the natural force and dignity of Judah, but with some deeper qualities which, if he himself did not yet possess, he at least valued and aspired to.

Whatever Joseph thought of the path by which he was to reach the high dignity which his dreams foreshadowed, he was soon to learn that the path was neither easy nor short. Each man thinks that, for himself at least, an exceptional path will be broken out, and that without difficulties and humiliations he will inherit the kingdom. But it cannot be so. And as the first step a lad takes towards the attainment of his position often involves him in trouble and covers him with confusion, and does so even although he ultimately finds that it was the only path by which he could have reached his goal; so, that which was really the first step towards Josephs high destiny, no doubt seemed to him most calamitous and fatal. It certainly did so to his brothers, who thought that they were effectually and for ever putting an end to Josephs pretensions. “Behold, this dreamer cometh; come now therefore, and let us slay him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams.” They were, however, so far turned from their purpose by Reuben as to put him in a pit, meaning to leave him to die, and doubtless they thought themselves lenient in doing so. The less violent the death inflicted, the less of murder seems to be in it; so that he who slowly kills the body by only wounding the affections often counts himself no murderer at all, because he strikes no blood-shedding blow, and can deceive himself into the idea that it is the working of his victims own spirit that is doing the damage.

The tank into which Josephs brethren cast him was apparently one of those huge reservoirs excavated by shepherds in the East, that they may have a supply of water for their flocks in the end of the dry season, when the running waters fail them. Being so narrow at the mouth that they can be covered by a single stone, they gradually widen and form a large subterranean room; and the facility they thus afford for the confinement of prisoners was from the first too obvious not to be commonly taken advantage of. In such a place was Joseph left to die under the ground, sinking in mire, his flesh creeping at the touch of unseen slimy creatures, in darkness, alone: that is to say, in a species of confinement which tames the most reckless and maddens the best balanced spirits, which shakes the nerve of the calmest, and has sometimes left the blankness of idiocy in masculine understandings. A few wild cries that ring painfully round his prison show him he need expect no help from without; a few wild and desperate beatings round the shelving walls of rock show him there is no possibility of escape; he covers his face, or casts himself on the floor of his dungeon to escape within himself, but only to find this also in vain, and to rise and renew efforts he knows to be fruitless. Here, then, is what has come of his fine dreams. With shame he now remembers the beaming confidence with which he had related them; with bitterness he thinks of the bright life above him, from which these few feet cut him so absolutely off, and of the quick termination that has been put to all his hopes.

Into such tanks do young persons especially get cast: finding themselves suddenly dropped out of the lively scenery and bright sunshine in which they have been living, down into roomy graves where they seem left to die at leisure. They had conceived a way of being useful in the world; they had found an aim or a hope; they had, like Joseph, discerned their place and were making towards it. when suddenly they seem to be thrown out and are left to learn that the world can do very well without them, that the sun and moon and the eleven stars do not drop from their courses or make wail because of their sad condition. High aims and commendable purposes are not so easily fulfilled as they fancied. The faculty and desire in them to be of service are not recognised. Men do not make room for them, and God seems to disregard the hopes He has excited in them. The little attempt at living they have made seems only to have got themselves and others into trouble. They begin to think it a mistake their being in the world at all; they curse the day of their birth. Others are enjoying this life, and seem to be making something of it, having found work that suits and develops them; but, for their own part, they cannot get fitted into life at any point, and are excluded from the onward movement of the world. They are again and again flung back, until they fear they are not to see the fulfilment of any one bright dream that has ever visited them, and that they are never, never at all, to live out the life it is in them to live, or find light and scope for maturing those germs of the rich human nature that they feel within them.

All this is in the way to attainment. This or that check, this long burial for years, does not come upon you merely because stoppage and hindrance have been useful to others, but because your advancement lies through these experiences. Young persons naturally feel strongly that life is all before them, that this life is, in the first place, their concern, and that God must be proved sufficient for this life, able to bring them to their ideal. And the first lesson they have to learn is, that mere youthful confidence and energy are not the qualities that overcome the world. They have to learn that humility, and the ambition that seeks great things, but not for ourselves, are the qualities really indispensable. But do men become humble by being told to become so, or by knowing they ought to be so? God must make us humble by the actual experience we meet with in our ordinary life. Joseph, no doubt, knew very well, what his aged grandfather must often have told him, that a man must die before he begins to live. But what could an ambitious, happy youth make of this, till he was thrown into the pit and left there? as truly passing through the bitterness of death as Isaac had passed through it, and as keenly feeling the pain of severance from the light of life. Then, no doubt, he thought of Isaac, and of Isaacs God, till between himself and the impenetrable dungeon-walls the everlasting arms seemed to interpose, and through the darkness of his death-like solitude the face of Jacobs God appeared to beam upon him, and he came to feel what we must, by some extremity, all be made to feel, that it was not in this worlds life but in God he lived, that nothing could befall him which God did not will, and that what God had for him to do, God would enable him to do.

The heartless barbarity with which the brethren of Joseph sat down to eat and drink the very dainties he had brought them from his father, while they left him, as they thought, to starve, has been regarded by all later generations as the height of hard-hearted indifference. Amos, at a loss to describe the recklessness of his own generation, falls back upon this incident, and cries woe upon those “that drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointment, but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.” We reflect, if we do not substantially reproduce, their sin when we are filled with animosity against those who usher in some higher kind of life, effort, or worship, than we ourselves as yet desire or are fit for, and which, therefore, reflects shame on our incapacity; and when we would fain, without using violence, get rid of such persons. There are often schemes set on foot by better men than ourselves, against which somehow our spirit rises, yet which, did we consider, we should at the most say with the cautious Gamaliel, Let us beware of doing anything to hinder this; let us see whether, perchance, It be not of God. Sometimes there are in families individuals who do not get the encouragement in well-doing they might expect in a Christian family, but are rather frowned upon and hindered by the other members of it, because they seem to be inaugurating a higher style of religion than the family is used to, and to be reflecting from their own conduct a condemnation of what has hitherto been current.

This treatment, who among us has not extended to Him who in His whole experience so closely resembles Joseph? So long as Christ is to us merely, as it were, the pet of the family, the innocent, guileless, loving Being on whom we can heap pretty epithets, and in whom we find play for our best affections, to whom it is easier to show ourselves affectionate and well.-disposed than to the brothers who mingle with us in all our pursuits; so long as He remains to us as a child whose demands it is a relaxation to fulfil, we fancy that we are giving Him our hearts, and that He, if any, has our love. But when He declares to us His dreams, and claims to be our Lord, to whom with most absolute homage we must bow, who has a right to rule and means to rule over us, who will have His will done by us and not our own, then the love we fancied seems to pass into something like aversion. His purposes we would fain believe to be the idle fancies of a dreamer which He Himself does not expect us to pay much heed to. And if we do not resent the absolute surrender of ourselves to Him which He demands, if the bowing down of our fullest sheaves and brightest glory to Him is too little understood by us to be resented; if we think such dreams are not to come true, and that He does not mean much by demanding our homage, and therefore do not resent the demand; yet possibly we can remember with shame how we have “anointed ourselves with the chief ointment,” lain listlesly enjoying some of those luxuries which our Brother has brought us from the Fathers house, and yet let Himself and His cause be buried out of sight-enjoyed the good name of Christian, the pleasant social refinements of a Christian land, even the peace of conscience which the knowledge of the Christians God produces, and yet turned away from the deeper emotions which His personal entreaties stir, and from those self-sacrificing efforts which His cause requires if it is to prosper.

There are, too, unstable Reubens still, whom something always draws aside, and who are ever out of the way when most needed; who, like him, are on the other side of the hill when Christs cause is being betrayed; who still count their own private business that which must be done, and Gods work that which may be done-work for themselves necessary, and Gods work only voluntary and in the second place. And there are also those who, though they would be honestly shocked to be charged with murdering Christs cause, can yet leave it to perish.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary

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