However horrible the events that were to follow, they’re not hard to comprehend. To be in that close proximity to, and even to be related to, someone whom you hated would inevitably lead, sooner or later, only to trouble.

And it did.

Read Genesis 37:12-36. What does this teach us about how dangerous and evil unregenerate hearts can be and to what they can lead any one of us to do?

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The brothers hated Joseph because they were jealous of God’s favor (Acts 7:9), a favor that will be confirmed at each step in the next course of events. When Joseph has lost his way, a man finds him and guides him (Genesis 37:15). When Joseph’s brothers plot to kill him, Reuben intervenes and suggests that he be thrown into a pit instead (Genesis 37:20-22).

It’s hard to imagine the kind of hatred expressed here, especially for someone of their own household. How could these young men have done something so cruel? Did they not think, even for a few moments, about how this would impact their own father? Whatever resentment they might have had toward their father because he favored Joseph, to do this to one of his children was, truly, despicable. What a powerful manifestation of just how evil human beings can be.

“But some of them [the brothers] were ill at ease; they did not feel the satisfaction they had anticipated from their revenge. Soon a company of travelers was seen approaching. It was a caravan of Ishmaelites from beyond Jordan, on their way to Egypt with spices and other merchandise. Judah now proposed to sell their brother to these heathen traders instead of leaving him to die. While he would be effectually put out of their way, they would remain clear of his blood.” — Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 211.

After they cast him into the pit, planning to kill him later, a caravan passes, and Judah proposes to his brothers to sell Joseph to them (Genesis 37:26-27). After Joseph is sold to the Midianites (Genesis 37:28), the Midianites sell him to someone in Egypt (Genesis 37:36), thus anticipating his future glory.

<–Sunday Tuesday–>

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Jacob has, at last, settled in the land. While Isaac was only “a stranger,” the text also says that Jacob “dwelt in the land” (Genesis 37:1). Yet, it was then, as he was settling into the land, that the troubles began, this time from inside the family. The controversy does not concern the possession of the land or the use of a well; it is, mainly, spiritual.

Read Genesis 37:1-11. What family dynamic predisposed Joseph’s brothers to hate him so much?

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From the very beginning, we understand that Joseph, the son of Jacob’s old age (Genesis 37:3), enjoyed a special relationship with his father, who “loved him more than all his brothers” (Genesis 37:4, NKJV). He even went so far as to make Joseph “a tunic of many colors” (Genesis 37:3, NKJV), a prince’s garment (2 Samuel 13:18), an indication of Jacob’s secret intention to elevate Joseph, Rachel’s first son, to the status of firstborn.

The future will, indeed, confirm Jacob’s wishes because Joseph will eventually receive the rights of the firstborn (1 Chronicles 5:2). No wonder, then, that Joseph’s brothers hated him so much and could not even engage in peaceful conversations with him (Genesis 37:4).

Furthermore, Joseph would bring bad reports to his father about any reprehensible behavior from his brothers (Genesis 37:2). No one likes a snitch.

So when Joseph shared his dreams, suggesting that God would put him in a higher position and that they, his brothers, would bow before him, they hated him even more. The genuine prophetic character of the dreams is even ratified by the fact that they are repeated (see Genesis 41:32). Although Jacob openly rebuked his son (Genesis 37:10), he kept this incident in his mind, meditating about its meaning and waiting for its fulfillment (Genesis 37:11). The implication is that, perhaps, deep down he thought that there might be something to these dreams after all. He was right, however much he couldn’t know it at the time.

<–Sabbath Monday–>

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