Joseph’s dreams
37
📚And Jacob lived in the land where his father had been a stranger, in the land of Canaan.2 📚These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, seventeen years old, was pasturing the flock with his brothers. The boy was with the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives, and Joseph 📖 brought to his father a bad report 📖 about them.
3 📚Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his children, because he was the son of his old age. And he made a coat of many colours 📖 for him 📖. 4 📚And when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of his brothers, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him 📖.
5 📚And Joseph had a dream 📖 and told it to his brothers, and they hated him still more. 6 📚And he said to them, “Please listen to this dream which I had. 7 📚For, see, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo and behold, my sheaf rose and also stood upright, and, see, your sheaves stood around and bowed down to my sheaf”.
8 📚And his brothers said to him, “Will you really rule us! Will you lord it over us!” And they hated him still more because of his dreams, and because of his words.
9 📚And he had still another dream, and told it 📖 to his brothers, and said, “See, I have had another dream. And, lo and behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars bowed down to me”.
10 📚And he told it to his father and to his brothers. And his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream you have had! Will I and your mother and your brothers really come to bow down to the earth before you?”
37:10 As far as we know Jacob never bowed down to Joseph, but Joseph became the prime minister of Egypt and so the ruler over Jacob and his family after they came there.⚜
11 📚And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the thing in mind 📖.
Joseph’s brothers sell him
12 📚And his brothers went to pasture their father’s flock in Shechem 📖. 13 📚And Israel said to Joseph, “Your brothers are pasturing the flock in Shechem, aren’t they? Come, I will send you to them”. And he said to him, “Here I am”.
14 📚And he said to him, “Please go and see whether it is going well with your brothers, and well with the flocks, and bring me word again”. So he sent him out of the valley of Hebron 📖, and he came to Shechem. 15 📚And a man found him, when he appeared wandering in the field, and the man asked him, saying, “What are you looking for?”
16 📚And he said, “I’m looking for my brothers. Please tell me where they are pasturing their flocks”.
17 📚And the man said, “They left here; for I heard them say, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.’ ” And Joseph went after his brothers, and found them in Dothan.
37:17 Dothan was about 20 kilometers north of Shechem.⚜
18 📚And when they saw him at a distance, and before he came near them, they plotted against him to kill him 📖.
19 📚And they said to one another, “Look, this dreamer 📖 is coming. 20 📚So come on now, let’s kill him, and throw him into some pit, and we will say, ‘Some savage beast has eaten him.’ And we shall see what becomes of his dreams”.
21 📚And Reuben heard it, and he saved him from their hands by saying, “Let us not kill him”. 22 📚And Reuben said to them, “Do not shed blood. Throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but lay no hand on him”. He said this so that he might rescue him from their hands, and take him back to his father again.
37:21-22 See Gen 42:22. Reuben felt responsible for Joseph as the oldest, it is possible he had a different motive. Notice in vs. 29, when Reuben went back to rescue Joseph (apparently he was not present when Joseph was sold to the Midinites), he laments, “The boy is not there. And where am I to go!” That added with verse 22, “He said that so that he might rescue them from his hands, and take him back to his father again”. At the time Reuben had already defiled his fathers bed by sleeping with Jacob's concubine. Jacob knew it and now Reuben had lost favor and his birthright. Is it possible, Reuben saw this as an opportunity to restore him in favor with Jacob? Certainly, by pulling Joseph out of the pit and bringing him back to their father, Reuben would be seen as a hero in the eyes of Jacob and Joseph – vs 29,30.⚜
23 📚And it came about when Joseph came to his brothers that they stripped Joseph of his coat, his coat of many colours that he had on. 24 📚And they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it.
25 📚And they sat down to eat bread. And they raised their eyes and looked, and, a group of Ishmaelites 📖 appeared, coming from Gilead with their camels bearing spices and balm and myrrh, going along carrying them down to Egypt.
26 📚And Judah said to his brothers, “What do we gain by killing our brother, and concealing his blood? 27 📚Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let our hand not be on him; for he is our brother and our flesh 📖”. And his brothers listened to him.
28 📚Then some Midianites, merchants, were passing by. And they pulled Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver 📖. And they took Joseph to Egypt.
37:28 These merchants are called Ishmaelites in vs 25,28 and Gen 39:1, and Midianites in vs 28,36. Either there was a mixture of these two clans in this group or they were all Ishmaelites who lived in the land of Midian and so were both Ishmaelites and Midianites. Both of these peoples were descended from Abraham, and so closely related.⚜
29 📚And Reuben returned to the pit, and, lo and behold, Joseph was not in the pit. And he tore his clothes 📖. 30 📚And he returned to his brothers and said, “The boy is not there. And I, where am I to go!”
31 📚And they took Joseph’s coat, and killed one of the young goats, and dipped the coat in the blood, 32 📚and they sent the coat of many colours, and had it brought to their father, saying, “We have found this. Examine it now and see whether it is your son’s coat or not”.
37:31-32 Jacob began his career by deceiving his father. Now he reaped again what he sowed (Gal 6:7), being deceived by his sons. This deception also involved a goat – compare Gen 27:6-19.⚜
33 📚And he examined it and said, “It is my son’s coat! A savage beast has devoured him! Without doubt Joseph has been torn in pieces!”
34 📚And Jacob tore his clothes, and put on a loincloth of sackcloth, and mourned for his son many days. 35 📚And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. And he said, “For I will go down to the grave 📖 to my son still mourning”. So his father wept for him.
36 📚And the Midianites sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials, and captain of the guard.