Dr. Ron Sumners
September 13, 2009
By the time Joseph reached the age of seventeen, he had seen more of the ugly side of family life than many people experience in a lifetime.
Given all the events that had unfolded in his life, Joseph was quite a remarkable seventeen year old. His background was prosperous, his family was large, and it was apparent that he was living with an increasing sense that somehow, in some way, God had something special planned for him.
Here in the early verses of Genesis 37, in the beginning of God’s dealings with Joseph, we have the first inklings of God’s providential care. We begin to see the unfolding of a classic Old Testament illustration of Romans 8:28 “God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.”
Three aspects of Joseph’s life set the tempo for all that followed; Joseph was the object of his father’s special attention, his brothers’ jealous hatred, and God’s providential care.
It is clear from the beginning that Joseph was his father’s favorite. Was it right? No. Playing favorites among one’s children can be devastating to a family. But this is the way it was for Jacob. Joseph was his baby boy, born in his old age to his great lifetime love, Rachel. It is easy to see how Jacob would have a unique sense of affection for Joseph.
Jacob’s other ten sons were much older than Joseph. They had established lives of their own by that time. They might have expected that Jacob would become attached to Joseph, and they might have understood that it was no judgment against them for their baby brother to become the object of his father’s love. But clearly, Joseph’s brothers didn’t concede anything of the kind. And they did not share their father’s love for their brother.
Jacob’s favoritism might not have been so bad if it had stopped there. But he gave Joseph an expensive gift that became a visible reminder to the brothers of Joseph’s favored status. They hated him as he walked by in his ornamented coat of many colors.
Why would a coat cause such hostility? Parents should be able to take one of their children shopping and buy something for that child without expecting the purchase to produce a venomous and treacherous response in the hearts of the other children. If a gift to another can cause that kind of response in people, they have a problem far deeper than the gift. And that was the case with Joseph’s brothers.
The problem was that the coat put Joseph in a class apart. There was something about Joseph wearing that coat that spoke of leadership; a leadership that would not naturally fall to the youngest son in the house. Reuben, Jacob’s oldest son, should have inherited the leadership in the family. But Reuben had violated his father’s confidence when he slept with Bilhah, one of his father’s concubines (35:22). In giving Joseph this beautiful coat, Jacob set him apart from the others.
Even though God’s providence was continually overruling Joseph’s life, we need to recognize that Jacob’s actions were unwise. It is poor judgment for a father to display favoritism among his children, especially in such an overt way as represented by Joseph’s coat.
Not only did Joseph enjoy his father’s special blessing, he had to endure his brother’s scheming bitterness. He was the object of his brother’s hatred.
There is a progression in the text. We are told in Genesis 37:4, “When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.” Then when Joseph told the brothers his dream, “they hated him all the more” (vv. 5, 8). Finally, we read, “His brothers were jealous of him” (verse 11).
It wasn’t that Joseph’s older brothers simply didn’t like him. It wasn’t that they were irritated because their father made them take Joseph along with them. Most of us can remember that scenario: “let your brother play with you. It won’t hurt you to do that.” No, this was much more than an irritating little brother. The ten older boys had an intense hatred for Joseph that would express itself in immense cruelty toward him. The narrative makes clear the three factors that contributed to this hatred.
The brother’s hatred for Joseph was initially provoked by the “bad report about them” he made to Jacob (v.2). In other words, Joseph was a tattletale! There is little doubt that the closeness Joseph enjoyed with his father encouraged this tale bearing. Joseph noted the unacceptable behavior of his older brothers and reported it to their father, like many youngsters would do.
The brothers hated him for his coat. The text says that they could not speak kindly to Joseph. Their eyes never met his at the dinner table. They couldn’t engage Joseph in conversation without hatred and venom spilling out.
The root of the hatred is clear. Joseph’s brothers were jealous of him. There are people who have not spoken to nor written to brothers or sisters in years because of the monster called jealousy. Jealousy is a monster, a giant that will eat us alive. The happiness and success of others is poison to the bloodstream of the jealous person.
Sometimes it is almost easier to get demoted in your work than to get promoted, for when you get promoted it reveals the character of the people around you. It’s hard for some people to say, “I’m so pleased that you got this wonderful promotion and I didn’t, and I am so happy that you are now above me in the pecking order.”
Let’s be honest! It is very hard to feel charity toward one we envy. So, before we get on our spiritual high horse and condemn Joseph’s brothers, let’s remember that we wear the coat of jealousy often ourselves, and it is a perfect fit.
Did you know that pastors can get jealous of one another? It is hard for a pastor to feel excitement for another pastor’s success. We oddly feel that we are in competition with each other rather than praying for and supporting each other.
I became pastor of a church and there was someone already in the church that had designs on becoming the pastor himself. His jealousy of me became a real problem, because there was no way I could do anything right in his eyes because they were clouded with a green fog of jealousy.
A philosopher once said, “The odious passion of jealousy torments and destroys oneself, while it seeks the ruin of its object.” Jealousy destroys the jealous person, not the object of the envy. It’s like self-pity, or hatred. It eats you up, but it doesn’t do anything to the other person that you hate or that you feel has wronged you.
Greek history tells the story of a statue erected in a prominent position in the city to honor a famous athlete. A rival athlete, who was jealous of the success of the honored one, decided that he would destroy the statue. So, he came at night with a hammer and a chisel, chipping away at the foundation of the statue, hoping to bring it down.
He finally weakened the statue enough that it fell; but on him, crushing him to death. Jealousy only hurts the one who harbors that emotion.
If Joseph’s brothers had understood that God works in people’s lives and that He had determined to make Joseph the object of His favor, they might have had no reason for their jealousy. Or they might have at least been able to understand God’s perspective of what was happening, even if it still bothered them.
God is in control. And God’s sovereignty works in people’s lives. So, the people who are raised up must not get the big head, and the people who aren’t raised up must not be discouraged. If only Joseph’s brothers had fastened on the truth, they would have saved themselves and their family much heartache.
I saw a little rhyme once that speaks to this truth: “It takes more grace than I can tell, to play the second fiddle well.” That is the hardest position to play.
John the Baptist played it well. He occupies a central position in the opening chapters of the Gospel of John. He was the forerunner to Christ, preaching repentance and baptizing great numbers of people and having a very successful ministry.
But John understood his role. So, when his disciples came and told him that he was losing his crowd to this man Jesus, John replied, “A man can receive only what is given him from heaven” (John 3:27). John knew that God had made him a voice, not the WORD! He knew that God had made him a forerunner, not the Messiah. He knew that God had made him the herald, not the King.
Beside the bad report and the beautiful coat, his brothers hated Joseph because of his dreams. Obviously, these were no ordinary dreams.
Everybody dreams. Some people remember their dreams and some don’t. At the breakfast table they may be good for a laugh. We decide we aren’t going to eat spicy food at bedtime because of the crazy dream we had.
Joseph’s brothers could have laughed when he said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it” (Genesis 37:6-7).
The brothers could have listened to that and said, “Oh man, little brother is crazy. He must have eaten some bad humus dip last night. What a dumb idea. He’s a crazy kid with crazy dreams and a silly, tacky coat.”
The reason the ten brothers didn’t do that was because it was obvious that God was somehow involved in those dreams. They were portents of what God was going to do. God was speaking by means of these dreams so that when the events unfolded as dreamed, it would be apparent to everybody that they had happened as the unfolding of God’s plan. So, it was that Joseph told his brothers his extraordinary dream.
But that wasn’t the end of it. Joseph said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me” (v.9).
Should Joseph have shared his dreams? Probably not. It may have been an error in judgment to tell his brothers these things. Later, Joseph told his father the second dream and was rebuked for it (v.10). Within these dreams was the strong hint that Joseph was the object of God’s special favor and the servant of His special purpose.
Because of his dreams, his brothers’ hatred intensified. Imagine being seventeen and knowing that no one really likes you. Do you remember when you were seventeen? Do you remember how important approval was to you? It was everything. The last thing in the world you wanted was to be isolated, to walk the corridors at school with no one to talk to and with no one to hang out with.
That was Joseph’s predicament. We would not have been surprised if Joseph had emerged from this experience withdrawn and inward looking, hiding in his room listening to music, to put it in modern terms.
But Joseph was resilient, focused, and clear. His brothers’ hatred and his father’s rebuke did not shrivel his character.
The resilience of his personality was surely grounded in a growing awareness that in and through it all he was the object of God’s providential care. God was intimately involved in the events of Joseph’s life, as was made obvious in his trip to visit his brothers.
One day Jacob sent Joseph to check on his brothers who were grazing the family’s flocks some distance away.
Joseph could have asked his father to send a servant. He could have said, “Dad, don’t you realize that my brothers hate me? They never talk to me. They don’t want to see me.” But Joseph obeyed his father.
Did Jacob realize that he was putting his son in danger? Did he realize there was some danger in the journey in more ways than one? Did he know how much the older brothers hated Joseph?
We don’t know. It is easier to understand Jacob’s decision on the basis that he really did not believe that the older boys would do anything to harm Joseph. That’s understandable. Lots of parents say, “Oh sure, the boys fight once in a while. But they would never hurt each other.” If that is what Jacob thought, he was wrong!
If Jacob had realized what was in store for Joseph, if he had known that he would not see him again for twenty years, he would not have sent him. But God was in control of the circumstances and it was actually better for Joseph to be isolated from his home but in the center of God’s plan, than to be at home but isolated from God’s purposes.
What a mistake we make when we try to determine God’s guidance on the basis of what is most comfortable, acceptable, and rational to us.
Picture Joseph as he approached his brothers in the field near Dothan (vv.14-18). The brothers saw him coming. “Here comes that dreamer! Let’s kill him!” (vv.19-20). Don’t miss the irony of this. As the ten older brothers sat and watched Joseph appear on the horizon, they recognized him by his coat and plotted his murder. They planned to kill the very person without whom, someday, they would starve to death. The one who was to be the instrument of their salvation was about to be thrown into a well and left to die.
The unfolding drama of Joseph’s life gives us things to think about. God was firmly in control of the plots and plans and the pits of Joseph’s life as he was in control of Joseph’s dreams and their fulfillment.
When you or your loved one is rolled into the hospital for a CAT scan and the doctor says that the news is bad, the temptation is to ask, “Where is God in all of this?” The answer is that He is as sovereignly in control of “all of this” as He is in control of the blessings in our lives.
We need to learn from Joseph not to be grieved when God determines to prosper us and others become jealous. This is a hard lesson for many of us to learn. I often hear people trying to discount and explain away God’s blessing so that others will not be upset with them.
There is no need for that! If you realize that God has enabled you to put the business deal together and smiled on it, if you know that every breath you breathe is a gift from God’s hand, and if you can only explain the bottom line in terms of God’s choice to bless you, you don’t need to feel guilty because the next guy is jealous of your success.
God’s providential care expresses itself in wonderful and unusual ways. Joseph was about to be tossed into a cistern, but God would shine the light of victory and power and provision into that dark hole. So, we must not look upon the dark and disappointing times of our lives as those that thwart the unfolding of God’s purpose. We must learn to trust Him even in the dark.
Do you see the wonderful way in which these events, and Joseph himself, foreshadow another who was to come?
As it was on account of envy that Joseph was handed into slavery, so Matthew tells us that Pilate recognized in the actions of the Jewish leaders that “It was out of envy that they had handed Jesus over to him” (Matthew 27:18).
As Joseph traveled across the hill country in search of those who would reject him, so Jesus “came unto His own and His own did not receive Him” (John 1:11).
As Joseph was despised and rejected by those he would one day rescue, so Jesus’ experience of rejection was to become the gateway to life for all who believe.
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