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Summary
This passage in Genesis 37 teaches us about God’s sovereign providence working through the sinful actions of Joseph’s brothers to accomplish His eternal purposes. Jacob’s favoritism toward Joseph, combined with Joseph’s dreams of future prominence, ignited hatred and jealousy among his brothers—ultimately leading them to sell him into slavery in Egypt. Yet behind every human scheme, God was orchestrating events to preserve His covenant people and advance His redemptive plan.
Key Lessons:
- God’s sovereign purposes cannot be thwarted by human sin or scheming—He works through flawed people and even evil motives to accomplish His will.
- Favoritism and jealousy within families create devastating cycles of sin, as seen through multiple generations from Abraham to Jacob’s sons.
- Joseph’s faithfulness and integrity remained consistent regardless of his circumstances—whether favored son, slave, or prisoner—because his orientation was toward God.
- One sin leads to another in a compounding cycle; repentance and transparency are the only way to break free.
Application: We are called to trust in God’s sovereign providence even in painful and confusing circumstances, to pursue faithfulness like Joseph regardless of our station in life, and to practice repentance and transparency in our families rather than covering sin with more sin.
Discussion Questions:
- In what areas of your life do you struggle to trust God’s sovereignty, and how does Joseph’s story encourage you to rest in His providence?
- How have you seen cycles of sin compound in your own life or family, and what steps can you take toward repentance and breaking those cycles?
- Joseph displayed the same faithfulness whether he was a favored son, a slave, or a prisoner—how can we cultivate that kind of consistent character regardless of our circumstances?
Scripture Focus: Genesis 37 (the entire chapter covering Joseph’s dreams, his brothers’ hatred, and his sale into slavery), Psalm 33:10-12 (God’s counsel stands forever), and Genesis 45:7-8 (Joseph’s later recognition that God sent him to Egypt).
Outline
- Introduction
- Scriptural and Historical Background
- Joseph’s Dreams and His Brothers’ Hatred
- The Plot Against Joseph
- Unpacking the Narrative: Questions and Answers
- Class Discussion: Joseph’s Motives
- The Evil Report: Faithfulness, Not Slander
- How God Accomplishes His Will
- Class Discussion: God’s Sovereignty and Joseph’s Humility
- Application: Breaking Cycles of Sin
- Closing Prayer
Introduction
Five, we continue in our series on the patriarchs. Praise the Lord. He got us through some technical difficulties this morning. I’m told that spiritual warfare occurs in church media systems, and I believe that. But so far so good.
I love to think about what the Apostle Paul said: the word of God is not bound. It’s certainly not bound by technology. It’s not bound by anything else.
If you would turn in your Bibles to Genesis 37, we’ll be entirely in Genesis 37 today. I just want to say thanks to Dave, Jose, and Ian for their faithful teaching so far. We’ve really benefited from that and we’ll continue in that stream today.
And for some reason this remote stopped working, Lyndon. Oh, there we go. It’s a little slow.
All right, as we usually do, just a couple of verses of scripture to wet our appetite and prepare us before we pray.
Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons because he was the son of his old age. And he made him a very colored tunic. And his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers. And so they hated him and could not speak to him in peace.
Then fast forward later in the chapter, we would see that hatred acted out.
Then some Midianite traders passed by. So they pulled him up and lifted Joseph out of the pit and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for 20 shekels of silver. Thus they brought Joseph into Egypt.
As we fast forward into the life of Joseph, did they really send Joseph to Egypt? There’s more to that, and we’ll discover that as we go along.
Here’s a verse from Psalm 33 that’s been precious to me as we think about the spiritual realities that are behind the scenes that we see in the narrative.
The Lord nullifies the counsel of the nations. He frustrates the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of his heart from generation to generation. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen for his own inheritance.
We see that played out in our narrative today. With that, let me pray for us.
Father God, help us to see your purposes not only in this narrative today, but all the way through redemptive history and even into our own lives. Thank you that you navigate the sin and deception of man to accomplish your eternal purposes. Like Joseph, Father, may you make us humble and faithful in all circumstances. Guide our steps, illuminate our hearts, transform us into your image through this time together. We pray. Amen.
All right, hope you’re in Genesis 37. Our outline is pretty much the same throughout the week as we try to teach some principles of good inductive Bible study. We’re going to give some scriptural and historical background, do some observations from the text, some interpretation and correlation, and some application.
In the past we’ve kind of left some space for questions as we go. We’re going to save those toward the end unless I prompt you. What you’ll see is there will be questions on the slides and I will both give the questions and the answers.
At the end I’ll try to give some generous time for us to interact. I know that you will take advantage of that time. I can see you’re ready for it. So I’m looking forward to that.
What I love about that is God is impressing things on our hearts through this time.
Scriptural and Historical Background
This is a spiritual exercise as the Holy Spirit illumines our hearts. That’s what makes it so exciting. Some of the things that I will say I’m hearing for the first time too. That’s a sign that God is our teacher. Praise God for that.
Just a little bit of background leading up to Genesis 37. God made a covenant with Abraham over 200 years earlier than this narrative. God reaffirmed that covenant with Isaac.
We’re going from Genesis 12 to Genesis 26. God proclaimed the covenant to Jacob. We see that reaffirmed in Genesis 28. So now we see those three names together—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—throughout the New Testament and in Scripture. You see this stream, this flow of God reaffirming his covenant through those generations.
In Genesis 35, God called Jacob to move from Shechem to Bethel. God changed Jacob’s name to Israel and confirmed his covenant to make him a great nation. We see God’s purposes continue to unfold through the generations. Very exciting.
In Genesis 37, just a little bit of background before we read it. Jacob was 91 years old when Joseph was born to Rachel and Heron. Sometimes we forget how old these men were at the time. We sometimes think of them as young men when in fact they were older.
“God reaffirmed his covenant through those generations—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
Jacob’s Family Dynamics
Joseph lived with his large family in Haron for another six years until Jacob finally fled from Laban, his father-in-law. After 20 years of servitude, Jacob returned to Canaan.
Jacob had 12 sons: six from Leah, two from Rachel, and four from their maidservants. We see this played out as the siblings relate to each other in unhealthy ways in our narrative today.
Jacob loved Rachel and her sons more than Leah and hers. We’ve already seen favoritism play in throughout several generations, right? People trying to manipulate the situation to their own advantage.
And what comes out of that? God’s eternal purposes. It’s amazing.
That’s not an excuse for us to sin, but it’s a reassurance for us that we cannot thwart God’s purposes. There’s no way, as my friend Danny says, that God is relentless. And that’s a good thing.
“God is relentless, and that’s a good thing.”
Joseph’s Dreams and His Brothers’ Hatred
He’s relentless. All right, let me go ahead and just read Genesis 37. We’ll read the first 11 verses to start.
Now, Jacob lived in the land where his father had sojourned, in the land of Canaan. These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, when 17 years of age, was pastoring the flock with his brothers while he was still a youth, along with the sons of Bilha and the sons of Zilpa, his father’s wives.
And Joseph brought back an evil report about them to their father. Now, Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons, because he was the son of his old age.
And he made him a very colored tunic.
And his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, so they hated him and could not speak to him in peace. Then Joseph had a dream and he told it to his brothers, so they hated him even more.
And he said to them, “Please listen to this dream which I have had. Indeed, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field and behold my sheaf rose up and also stood upright and behold your sheaves gathered around and bowed down to my sheaf.”
Then his brothers said to him, “Are you really going to reign over us or are you really going to rule over us?” So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words. We’re seeing a pattern there.
“Their love for their brother is not growing. Their hatred is growing.”
Israel’s Response to the Dreams
Their love for their brother is not growing. Their hatred is growing. Then he had still another dream and recounted it to his brothers. You’d think he would stop at this point, right? But he keeps going and you wonder about that.
Behold, I have had still another dream. And behold, the sun and the moon and the 11 stars were bowing down to me. And he recounted it to his father, to his brothers. And his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream that you have had? Shall I and your mother and your brothers really come to bow ourselves down before you to the ground?” And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind.
Here’s another pattern we see. In the natural order, particularly at that time, the oldest was the most prominent, and that has certainly not been the case so far in the book of Genesis. I think our Lord is trying to tell us something with that.
Let’s go ahead and proceed with some questions. As I just mentioned, where was Joseph in the birth order? He was the last one before they left Haran, so only Benjamin is younger. He was the 11th of 12 children.
How old was Joseph at this time? The text says explicitly that he was 17. From this we can conclude that they had been back in Canaan for 10 or 11 years since they had arrived, so they had settled in.
How is the relationship between Israel and Joseph described? It’s very explicit here: Israel loved Joseph more than the other children because he was the son of his old age.
When I read this personally, I feel this a little bit because I’ve got kind of two sons of my old age. Some of you may know that we had four children. Noel was the youngest. We weren’t planning on having any more, but as is so often the case, the Lord did not consult me on his plans and he just went ahead.
And so we have Lee who’s in Lancaster and Jackson who’s working the sound booth today. There’s a really interesting affection that has happened. I was born just a couple weeks after I turned 40, and Lee was born just a couple weeks after I turned 40. That was a really unusual time.
I can understand the affection of having younger children at an older age because I think you appreciate it more. You’re a little more seasoned. I think the dad that Lee and Jackson have experienced and I is a little bit more sanctified than the one that Noel and the other kids have experienced. Praise the Lord.
I think the Lord knew that I needed a lot of work as a parent, and so that’s why he did that. But you can understand that, can’t you?
One of the things that we thought about when our younger kids were born is that I have kind of this unique paranoia about not spoiling the younger kids. Does that make sense? I’d seen that happen in other families and I just didn’t want that to happen.
Not to make this about me, but you can understand the affection and the different dynamic of having younger kids, especially when Israel had a wife who he loved more than the others, which was unfortunate. On a human level, I think we can really relate to that.
So, how did Joseph’s brothers react to this situation? Seeing that Israel loved them less than Joseph, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him. Proverbs says that jealousy is rottenness to the bones. Anybody here struggle with jealousy at all? It’s corrupting, right?
Nothing good comes of it, but we see that taking root in Joseph’s brothers.
So what did Joseph see in his first dream? Twelve sheaves of wheat were harvested by the 12 brothers and 11 bowed down to Joseph’s sheaf which was standing up in the middle.
Now the text doesn’t say this, but you wonder why he would offer that up in that family knowing he had to know of their hatred of him. It didn’t seem like they hid it. As I think about it, as a younger person, maybe he was just excited about this dream and didn’t think about the implications. I think that’s possible.
But for whatever reason, he was not shy about sharing these dreams and completely unaware, I think, of how they would react.
“In the natural order the oldest was most prominent—that has certainly not been the case in Genesis.”
Bear with me, guys.
We saw what he saw in his first dream. Good.
Observations on Favoritism and Wisdom
This is new. Okay. How did his brothers respond to hearing his dream? They hated Joseph even more and scoffed at the idea that he, the youngest besides Benjamin, would rule over them, right? This was just an unheard of thing at that time.
Just very, very unusual. And then how did Israel respond to Joseph and interpret his dream? He rebuked Joseph. He thought you really maybe you could keep these dreams to yourself.
And understood the dream to mean that the family would bow down to Joseph. So on one level he thought that this might be prophetic, and we see that further on in the text. Okay, looking at verse 11, his brothers were jealous of him, but the father kept the saying in mind.
Right? That was a contrast. He thought the brothers envied Joseph, but Israel kind of filed it away. And it was a good thing. As we walk through the narrative of Joseph, we’ll see why that was important and how that was significant.
So it seems that Israel did not learn the lesson of the strife that comes from favoritism. Right? Again, we’ve seen this through several generations at this point. As you probably know, things are about to get ugly.
While we don’t have explicit statements of motive from the text, it seems that Joseph was a bit arrogant and unwise, perhaps naively so, but I think we can derive that from the text. His father noticed this, right? He shared his dreams with his brothers knowing full well it would provoke them. Joseph’s lack of discretion created only more strife.
So I think we can hopefully all relate to this. Just because you think something doesn’t mean you necessarily have to say it. Those of us who are on the more talkative side have to be careful. He who restrains his words is wise, the proverb says. And so Joseph, I think, would have benefited from that.
However, in all this, as we can see, God is working behind the evil motives of men to accomplish his good purposes. Let me just look at my phone here real quick because I have the slides here and I want to make sure that we’re not missing anything. Okay. Well, let’s keep going.
Proverbs 17:27: “He who restrains his words is wise.”
The Plot Against Joseph
Let’s read the rest of the chapter. Let’s look at verses 12 through 36. Will you follow along as I read?
Then his brothers went to pasture their father’s flock in Shechem. And Israel said to Joseph, “Are not your brothers pastoring the flock in Shechem? Come, I will send you to them.” And he said to him, “I will go.”
Then he said to him, “Go now and see about the welfare of your brothers and the welfare of the flock and bring word back to me.” So he sent him from the valley of Hebron and he came to Shechem and a man found him and behold he was wandering in the field and the man asked him what are you seeking and he said I am seeking my brothers please tell me where they are pasturing the flock.
Then the man said they have journeyed from here for I heard them saying let us go to Dothan.
So Joseph went after his brothers and found them in Dothan. And they saw him from a distance, and before he came close to them, they plotted against him to put him to death. Then they said to one another, “Here comes that dreamer.”
So now come and let us kill him and cast him into one of the pits, and we will say, “A wild beast devoured him. Then let us see what will become of his dreams.” But Reuben heard this and delivered him out of their hands and said, “Let us not strike down his life.”
Reuben further said to them, “Shed no blood. Cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, but do not put forth your hands against him that he might deliver him out of their hands to return him to his father.”
Now it happened when Joseph reached his brothers that they stripped Joseph of his tunic, the very colored tunic that was on him. And they took him and cast him into the pit. Now the pit was empty without any water in it.
And they sat down to eat a meal, apparently very comfortable with what they had done to take a break to eat.
“The hatred in their heart was strong—they may have been thinking about this even before they saw Joseph.”
Joseph Sold into Slavery
Then they lifted up their eyes and saw a caravan of Israelites coming from Gilead with their camels bearing aromatic gum and balm and myrrh, going to bring them down to Egypt. And Judah said to his brothers, “What gain is it that we kill our brother and cover up his blood? Come and let us sell him to the Israelites and not lay our hands on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.” And his brothers listened.
Then some Midianite traders passed by. So they pulled him up and lifted Joseph out of the pit and sold Joseph to the Israelites for twenty shekels of silver.
Thus they brought Joseph into Egypt.
“God is working among several parties who each had their own interests.”
The Deception of Jacob
Then Reuben returned to the pit, and behold, Joseph was not in the pit. So he tore his garments. Then he returned to his brothers and said, “The boy is not there. As for me, where am I to go?”
So they took Joseph’s tunic and slaughtered a male goat and dipped the tunic in the blood. And they sent the very colored tunic and brought it to their father and said, “We found this. Please recognize it whether it is your son’s tunic or not.”
And he recognized it and said, “It is my son’s tunic. A wild beast has devoured him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces.” So Jacob tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his loins and mourned for his son many days.
Then all his sons and all his daughters arose to comfort him. And he refused to be comforted. And he said, “Surely I will go down to Sheol in mourning for my son.” So his father wept for him.
“They conspired to deceive their father into thinking Joseph had been killed by a wild beast.”
Meanwhile, the Midianites sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, Pharaoh’s officer, the captain of the bodyguard.
Unpacking the Narrative: Questions and Answers
Okay, there’s a lot going on here. Let’s unpack it together. What circumstances took Joseph to Shechem? His brothers had gone there to feed the flocks, and Israel sent Joseph to check on them.
How did the brothers respond when they saw Joseph approaching? What was their intent? They decided right away to take him out. They made plans to kill the dreamer in an effort to stop the fulfillment. They understood on one level that the dreams may be prophetic, and they decided they would stop that.
How does that usually go when we try to stop God’s plans? It doesn’t normally go that well. They also intended to cover up the murder by saying that a beast had killed him.
Now, I don’t know how far away Joseph was when they saw him, but this seemed like a pretty quickly conceived plot. The hatred in their heart was strong, and I think it indicates that they may have been thinking about this even before they saw Joseph.
So, who interceded for Joseph? We see Reuben encourage them not to murder their brother, but to throw him into a pit, intending to rescue him later. So we’ve got kind of a subplot—the brothers scheming, and another brother trying to do something else.
When the Ishmaelites appeared, what did Judah propose? He proposed to sell them and to profit from the sale rather than to kill him. When the Midianite traders passed by, they sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites.
So you’ve got a number of people involved here: the brothers, the Midianites, the Ishmaelites. If you were planning this humanly, I think you wouldn’t really be able to orchestrate this. God is working among several parties who each had their own interests. What comes out of that is God sending him to Egypt.
Was Reuben aware of this transaction? It doesn’t say, but he had to be somewhere else when this happened. Apparently not. He was not aware.
So Reuben had secret plans different from his brothers to rescue Joseph. When he did not find him, he despaired. He and his brothers conspired to deceive their father into thinking that he had been killed by the wild beast. That’s kind of back to the original plan.
As the eldest, Reuben felt a heavier weight of responsibility, and I think that explains some of his actions here to look out for his younger brother.
“How does it usually go when we try to stop God’s plans? It doesn’t normally go that well.”
We’re waiting. We’re waiting.
Israel’s Grief and Joseph’s Fate
How did Israel respond to seeing the bloody robe? Well, in one sense, it worked. They convinced Israel that Joseph was dead. He believed it was proof that Joseph had been killed by a wild beast.
He tore his clothes and dressed himself in sackcloth as a sign of mourning.
If you were to pick one son that he did not want to die, Joseph would probably have been it because of his favoritism, which wasn’t good. But you can imagine how this landed with Israel.
How long did Israel intend to mourn for Joseph? For the rest of his life, right, until he died. The term “go down to Sheol” is describing this period. That’s far longer than the time of mourning that was given at that time. Even at that point, he’s saying, “I’m never going to get over this.”
Has anyone had someone pass that’s close to them and you’ve never gotten over it? There’s a sense in which that’s natural. You lose a parent. I know we have had some, and it stays with you and I get that. My mom died when I was in my mid-20s and it stays with me.
But we have hope. We have hope. But it doesn’t seem like Israel was thinking about that. He thought he would be grieving for the rest of his life.
So what was Joseph’s fate at the close of this passage? He was sold to Potiphar, captain of Pharaoh’s bodyguards.
“We have hope. We have hope.”
It’s interesting to go from being sold into slavery to being in the home of a very prominent official. The narrative is just so riveting through the rest of Genesis. I’m tempted to talk about it, but we’re going to save that for future lessons as we see God’s providence unfold.
I will pause right now before we go into making some connections. Do you have any questions up to this point? Thank you, Keith.
Anyone?
Class Discussion: Joseph’s Motives
Glenda, I’m looking at Joseph as a young boy. He knows his dad loved him more than the others. Do you think he played on that by telling them the dream over and over, knowing the dream is annoying them?
Yeah. Was he playing with my dad’s love? Yeah. And let me tell them if they don’t accept it, that’s up to them. Yeah. But let me keep telling them.
I’m seeing it aggravating them.
So do you think that was his point there? Telling them all the time to aggravate them? Yeah, let’s talk about that a little bit. We’re doing great on time, so I can take my time on this a little bit. This is one of those areas where the text just doesn’t tell us. And so we have to be a bit careful not to read into it.
It’s possible. We know we have a sin nature. We know Joseph had a sin nature. As I looked at various commentaries, it ranges from him being young—right, he was 17 and innocent—and just being excited about what he learned. We can understand that he may not have had the guile or the presence of mind to think beyond that.
Yet at the same time, we know as the narrative continues about Joseph that he was wise beyond his years. So you may be able to project from that—yeah, he was—and that would certainly be human nature to do that. But honestly, we just don’t know.
“The text just doesn’t tell us, so we have to be careful not to read into it.”
Leela, thanks. So at the beginning of the chapter I was noticing and wondering about the significance that it says he was pastoring the flock with the sons of Bilha and the sons of Zilpa. So they weren’t the sons of Leah.
They were stepbros. And so I was wondering if he’s telling them that dream because he already feels superior to them. Yeah. Again, we can only speculate on that. Certainly we can rely on his father’s wisdom. If you look, his father rebuked him in verse 10. And so I think there’s something to that, right? I think that’s about as far as we can go with understanding his motives.
Yeah. Just because the scripture specifically mentions that it’s the sons of Bilha and Zilpa. Yeah, that’s right. And that’s great to understand. You can see that strife certainly was fermented by them not being full brothers and his father having multiple wives. That just never goes well. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Anyone else? Magda giving Keith his exercise today.
My question was in reference to the Ishmaelites and the Midianites. So was he sold to both of them? So we’re going to get to that. I have seen various interpretations of that in commentaries. I have a whole slide for that. It seems to me as I read it that both were involved.
They saw the Ishmaelites who sold—my slide has it, I don’t remember—but in my view, one party sold them to the other. What’s interesting about that is both groups were descendants of Abraham, which is really interesting. So we’re going to get to that. We’ll even have a map. It’ll be very exciting. Yeah.
So just really quick: earlier in the chapter, is there any significance to the piece of the story where Joseph is looking for his brothers and he has to ask for directions? Is there—okay, there is significance to that, and we’ll get to that as well. Be patient, Arthur. We’ll just one more and then we’ll move on. That’s all good.
It’s all good. We’ll get there. I’m glad we’re going to get there. I didn’t want to be stumped, but that would be okay.
Arthur, my question is two-part. First part: shouldn’t we go back to the rivalry between Leah and Rachel? Oh, I’m sorry. Did I say Rebecca? Yeah, Rachel and Leah. Yeah, there was a rivalry there to understand where the jealousy and the strife comes from. Absolutely. Yes. To understand the state of mind of the brothers. Yeah.
But the other thing that just caught my attention as I studied through this chapter preparing for today is we know that Joseph had the ability to interpret dreams. But it’s interesting that when he tells his brothers the dream, they immediately—we’re not given any context that he explained it to them, that they understood it. Yeah. And we realize that if we jump further ahead, Joseph interprets dreams later on. So did his brothers also have that gift? Yeah. But they just never had an opportunity to demonstrate it. Yeah. We don’t know.
The Evil Report: Faithfulness, Not Slander
But we do know according to the text that on some level they understood that Joseph was indicating that he would be in some way superior to them. That did not land well.
Let’s go ahead and make some connections in the text. This was interesting. I actually thought of this late in my preparation. Was the evil report that Joseph brought about—and that’s in verse two—was that evil report he brought to his father something slanderous or sinful? It’s a good question.
I did not see that covered in the guide for this lesson, so I had to do a little research on that. It says Joseph brought back an evil report about them to their father. Now, we know that his father sent them to check up on them.
Couple things here. While the word “evil report” can be used for slander, we see that same word used in some other passages of scripture. In this case, it is an accurate report concerning evil things. It also seems likely that the bad report here foreshadows the intended evil we’ll see in Genesis 50.
So I think what we see here—and I’ve concluded, and not all commentators agree, but as I look through it and examine some of the context—I recognize that this is really an expression of Joseph’s faithfulness. Joseph is the only patriarch, which is interesting, whose integrity is unquestioned in the book of Genesis.
“Joseph is the only patriarch whose integrity is unquestioned in the book of Genesis.”
Joseph’s Exemplary Character
That’s really interesting. As such, this report was likely an act of faithfulness consistent with the rest of his life. One of my favorite verses in the next chapter is talking about Potiphar. It said Potiphar did not concern himself with anything that he gave Joseph to do. In other words, he considered it done.
Would that we all have that level of faithfulness? One of the things I pray every day for myself is, “Lord, give me the faithfulness of Joseph, the wisdom and conviction of Daniel, and the mind of Christ.” I had a Christian boss years ago say to me one time, and it just warmed my heart because it was an answer to prayer. He said, “Mark, you remind me of Joseph because when I give you something to do, I just don’t even worry about it.” Praise the Lord. That’s a great example for us.
One of the things I think about with regard to prominent men like Joseph and Daniel is my own motives. I tend to be more impressed with their prominence and that they were impressive men, but I don’t think that’s where the Lord would have us land with them. It’s their character and their faithfulness.
One of the things we notice about Joseph is he was going to be the same. He would have the same level of faithfulness regardless of his station in life. Whether he was a slave in Potiphar’s house, whether he was in prison, or whether he was in the company of Pharaoh, he was equally faithful because his orientation primarily was toward the Lord and other people around him. That’s a wonderful example for us.
The faithfulness we have before him, regardless of who sees it, is a great reward because it draws us close to him. Once again, we see how the sinful attitudes within this family have brought about turmoil. There was so much pride, deceit, and hatred that Joseph’s brothers were willing to kill him.
Think about that. We all have family drama, I’m assuming we all have some level of it, right? Maybe even some of you have a family member with whom you’re estranged. But to think about killing a family member is a different level, right? That’s pretty severe. They not only thought about it—which Jesus said is equal to murder in his eyes in Matthew 5:21-22—they actually were willing to carry it out.
While the most significant consequences of their sin would be judged by God, they also experienced the consequences in a temporal sense. They saw their father devastated by the loss of his favorite son. They continued to cover up their evil deeds. What do we read about Israel? He was going to mourn for the rest of his life. They never told him. He was probably the most shocked. “I never expected to see you alive,” he said to his son Joseph, “much less your sons.” Amazing.
“Joseph had the same level of faithfulness regardless of his station in life.”
How God Accomplishes His Will
Think about the dynamic in the family and how that affected things. I think this is what we call unintended consequences. I don’t think the brothers thought that through. It could not have been pleasant at home after this.
How does God typically accomplish his will on the earth? That’s a loaded question, but I’m going to summarize it here. What we see, although God works miracles, God primarily accomplishes his purposes on earth by acting through people—flawed people like us.
The sequence of activities and players was clearly orchestrated by God. You had several parties with different motives, all working somehow under the providence of God for the outcome that he had determined. It’s an amazing thing.
Again, this is not the first time we’ve seen people sin and be manipulative and trying to orchestrate an outcome that was ungodly, and we see God’s purposes come through it. Again, this is not an excuse for us to sin, but something to boost our faith. God will work with or without you and me.
Fast forward—I couldn’t resist sharing Genesis 45:7-8. Joseph said to his brothers when he was reunited, “God sent me before you to establish for you a remnant in the earth and to keep you alive for a great remnant of survivors. So now it was not you who sent me here, but God.”
“God primarily accomplishes his purposes on earth by acting through people—flawed people like us.”
Amazing. God is the ultimate cause, right? We have proximate indirect causes and we have efficient causes. You see this in the crucifixion—God’s purpose from eternity past to crucify his son. The proximate cause was the Jews who put him on trial, and then the efficient cause was the Romans, all working under God’s providence to make something happen.
As you read these things, may God open our eyes to not only see and be confident in God’s working, but think about the implications of that in our own lives. Might we be more content?
Genesis 45:8: “It was not you who sent me here, but God.”
The Significance of Dothan and the Trade Routes
Right? Might we be more prayerful as we understand the circumstances that are beyond our control?
Here’s the map piece. Dothan is a significant place. Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan. That was a very strategic place where multiple trade routes converged.
It was of God that his brothers were there and that Joseph had to be redirected there. The archaeology of Dothan is consistent, including Joseph’s well or pit. There’s an actual pit there that they think was likely the one that Joseph was thrown into.
Isn’t it interesting? I don’t know if you follow biblical archaeology at all. I see things from time to time. There’s who wrote the book Patterns of Evidence. We’ve seen some of those movies, and I get these updates and they just keep finding more and more that validates the scriptures.
We would expect that all these things that they say didn’t exist somehow we find them. It’s interesting.
Judah then prompted his brothers to sell Joseph to the passing Ishmaelites on their way from Gilead to Egypt. Ishmaelites were descendants of Abraham by Hagar, and the Midianites descended from Abraham by his concubine Keturah. The term Ishmaelites became a general designation for desert tribes so that Midianite traders were also known as Ishmaelites. That’s possible. They could both be talking about the same people. I don’t think so, but that’s possible.
Joseph was treated harshly by his brothers, but being sold for 20 shekels, which is 8 ounces of silver, and taken to Egypt, he was preserved alive by God’s providential hand working through all of it.
I thought I had something else here. I do. Give me a second here. Nope.
I thought I had something else to answer your question, Abigail, but as you can see, the slides aren’t cooperating. We’ve got a good amount of time here today. I’m just going to stop before we get into some specific application questions for any questions you have.
Glenda, once again, I’m sorry I couldn’t answer your last question. Can you hear me? Yes, I’ll be right with you, Glenda.
The multicolored coat. What’s that all about? Maybe you need to tell us a little bit about that. It had a lot of colors.
Thank you. You needed that. That’s all I got. Well, it was a sign of honor and favoritism and apparently very valuable.
I haven’t studied more than that. I didn’t see anything really in the commentaries that unpack that. Although I have my MacArthur study Bible here. Let me take a quick look and see if it says anything about the tunic. I don’t think that it does.
I’m just going to cheat here by reading from my study Bible. Well, that’s okay.
The Septuagint favored this translation of very colored tunic. The Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. Although some refer to a long-sleeved robe or an ornamented tunic, it marked the owner as one who the father intended to be the future leader of the household and honor normally given to the firstborn son.
Well, there you go. That would be a kind of a poke in the eye of the older brothers.
Does that help, Danny? I don’t know where you went. Okay. Sorry I didn’t cover that earlier, Glenda.
And then, okay, Jay. The scripture said everything written in the scriptures for our learning. It makes me see right there God’s plan because they were in Shechem and that’s where he went.
But then he asked somebody saw him wandering and asked him, “Did you see my brothers?” He said they went to Dothan. God directed them to move from Shechem to Dothan because the Ishmaelites and the Amalekites, they’re going to come that way and that’s where I am going to send him down into Egypt.
We should take really example from that. God is the director of everything in scripture and everything in our lives. He is sovereign. I see his sovereign plan. This is the route I want them to take Joseph down into Egypt where I want Joseph. That’s what I get from that.
Yeah. Yeah. Jay.
Class Discussion: God’s Sovereignty and Joseph’s Humility
Earlier you said, or it was mentioned, that Joseph was aware of the way that his brothers felt about him. Was he aware that they were jealous and hated him?
I just feel like how could he not be? I mean, he had the coat. He had the coat and they hated him. We usually pick up on things like that. I’m sure that wasn’t the first expression of their hatred of Joseph.
But I look at that and then what happened—we know God was in control of this whole situation and he was directing it for his purpose. Joseph went from being the favorite son, designated to be the heir, and he became a slave.
So God had to humble him. But God was working his purpose. I know it doesn’t really address that, but it’s obvious that it was quite a humbling for Joseph. God used it to teach him. And look what happened. Praise God. Aren’t we all in need of humility?
“God had to humble him, but God was working his purpose.”
Absolutely. I’m not humble enough. I’m not holy enough. These are growth areas.
I heard once, I think it was C.J. Mahaney who wrote a book on humility. I think we might have it in the bookstore there. He said, “I’m not a humble man. I’m a proud man seeking to be humble.” I think that’s the right way we should describe ourselves, hopefully.
This is less of a question, more of an observation, but maybe you can feed into it. The person who should have been most upset about Joseph having the coat is Reuben. But it was Reuben who was trying to save his life.
That’s interesting. Judah, from where Jesus comes—the tribe of Judah—he was the one who wanted to sell him. I’m just curious if there was any insight in that.
Not particularly. I’m trying not to speculate too much, although I think the observations of jealousy and sibling rivalry are natural. If you have siblings, you have that.
I will say that I’m the oldest child, and there tends to be things that go with that. I’m the only son of my parents. I’m also the oldest grandchild in that generation, so I was like the prince for the first five years of my life. I probably relished that a little too much. I knew I was the favorite of my grandparents since I was the first grandchild.
Having six children, you recognize it’s a different dynamic that comes sometimes with birth order. I love talking with Jackson about it. He’s the youngest and he has an experience that I can’t relate to at all.
But it’s part of God’s providence that we shouldn’t be jealous of the other kids or condescending toward them as I was as a child. Both of those things are sin.
I’m sorry, folks. I’m thinking about all this differently, and I’m going to say that I’m going to ask my question after I explain why. I worked for human services for 20 years. I was a DYFS worker. I’ve been in the mess. I’ve seen what happens when mothers and fathers divorce. I’ve seen what happens when a father or mother commits adultery. I see what happens in the home when these things happen. So I think differently.
Should we not show more grace to Joseph because Jesus, the perfect example, when he stood up and read that prophecy to the people of his hometown that grew up with him—the first thing they wanted to do is throw him off a mountain? Jesus himself said that prophets are not honored in their home.
Where would he get that? Was that something he was saying because he was God, or something he was saying because he knew the scriptures? He saw the example of Cain and Abel. What did Cain do? He wanted to kill his brother.
So my question is: should we show grace to Joseph because we’ve got to remember that God the Father, he chose Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob out of how many people on the earth at that time?
God’s Right to Do His Will
God is doing the very thing he’s choosing whom the savior is going to come through. He’s rejecting everyone else, choosing only certain people to fulfill his plan. When we say that Israel or Jacob was doing something wrong by showing favor to Joseph whom God had already determined was going to be a prophet, we see the mess right there.
It’s whenever God is involved in a plan for someone’s life, they’re going to be people unhappy about it regardless of what their behavior is going to be. Let me give you two responses to that and then we’ll get into application questions. That’s such a great point.
With regard to Joseph’s character, it doesn’t say explicitly that his actions were sinful. It only says that his father rebuked him. For that to be a glaring sin would be inconsistent with everything else we read about Joseph. So you can make a great point that that wasn’t sinful.
Secondly, about God’s choice. That should give us a lot of confidence. This is something that we stumble over. We teach this unapologetically here at Calvary when people talk about man’s free will.
I often respond with what the scripture says about that. One is we’re free to do whatever our nature, what’s in our nature to do. It’s just not in our nature to seek him unless he does something. But I think the better question is: what about God’s right to do his will? What about his right to do what he wants? That’s a very good thing.
I hope you see from the narratives like this that that’s not something to fight or argue about. That’s something to worship him for. When you read Romans 8 through 11, the whole point of God’s sovereignty is not that we argue, it’s that we worship.
Let’s do that and let’s think about that as we go through the annoyances of life. As someone cuts us off on the way home from church today, God is sovereign over that. He is. How does God want me to respond to that in the big things and in the little things?
“The whole point of God’s sovereignty is not that we argue—it’s that we worship.”
Parallels to Christ
Shaji, go ahead, brother. Yeah, I was just noticing the fact that similar to what you just said, Joseph was a young man at that age going through something like that—such violence. We don’t see him fighting back. We don’t hear anything coming back from him in such a way to escape or do anything of that manner.
And that just made me think about Isaiah 53:7. There’s an interesting parallel to that. It says, “He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before the shearer is silent, so he opened not his mouth.” And I see an interesting parallel between Joseph’s actions and what the Lord did.
Yeah, that’s a great point. I want to speak to that briefly because as you get further along in the book of Genesis with Joseph, you see that he does have a redemptive role for his brothers. And while I don’t want to make too much of that because the New Testament doesn’t speak directly to that, it seems like a very obvious connection.
I think I’ve mentioned this before. When his brothers are all in Egypt—I don’t remember the exact verse. It’s toward the end of Genesis and Israel has died and his brothers expected Joseph to exact his revenge on them because that’s what they would do. There’s nothing in Joseph that would indicate that he would do that. But they thought he would do that.
Isaiah 53:7: “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth.”
And they said, “We know that we cannot justify ourselves.” I think that’s gospel, right? They needed someone to justify them as we do as well. So again, I don’t want to make too much of that, but there are some parallels like that that in my opinion are very obvious.
And so as we’ve talked about God’s will unfolding, we’ve talked about the redemptive flow of history. It’s like a wave that keeps coming and culminates in Christ. We know this. And so it’s good to reflect on those things.
I do want to say a brief thing. Abigail, I don’t think I honored your question well enough. I just want to look at verse 28.
And tell you how I thought this through in the last few days when it says, “Then some Midianite traders passed by. So they pulled him up and lifted Joseph out of the pit and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver.”
“Thus they brought Joseph out of Egypt.” I interpret that to mean that it wasn’t Joseph’s brothers that sold him, but it was the Midianites who sold him to the Ishmaelites. That’s how I interpret that. And so to me, they’re two different, distinct people. But again, to be fair, different commentators have different interpretations of that.
So does that help? Okay, there’s a lot there and it’s okay to not understand everything right there. There’s a lot more that we don’t know than that we do.
Let me suggest some application questions for us. These don’t come from me. These are from the Answers in Genesis study guide, primarily with some modification.
Application: Breaking Cycles of Sin
In what ways is living as a Christian contrary to the norms of society today?
Where do you start with a green light like that? We could go on for a long time about that. As my wife often reminds me, take what the world does, do the opposite, and you’re probably doing well. You’re probably obeying the Lord.
In this series of events, one sin led to another, right? To cover up what had become a cycle of sin. Some of you might know the comedian Brian Rean, who I love. He says when you lie, our tendency is to cover that up with another lie because there’s nothing smarter than that strategy, right? But that’s our tendency to compound sin upon sin upon sin.
This is why the Lord is so gracious to give us the concept of repentance. Come clean with it, right? Walk in the light. In this series of events, one sin led to another to cover up what had become a cycle of sin. How can we learn from this in order to avoid similar cycles in our lives? Let’s camp on that for a minute. I’d love to hear your thoughts on that.
By the way, these slides will be sent out this week so you can spend some more time in it.
“One sin led to another to cover up what had become a cycle of sin.”
Keep in mind we see in the epistles in the New Testament these things were written for our instruction. That’s primarily talking about the negative example that some of our forebears display for us. Go ahead, Mike.
Thanks for today. We read this section of the Bible and we talk about this cycle of sin, but the Bible has just been one big continuous cycle of sin since the garden. I go back to the root and I say this Bible is about God revealing his son to us. I think we wouldn’t be wrong in making too much of it because if this is what God gave us, this is what he ordained. He called out his people to bring forth his son.
It’s not just a matter of okay, well, he wanted Joseph in Egypt, but he wanted Jesus to bring forth to this earth. Without this work, without all of this stuff going on with Joseph, Israel dies from the famine and there’s no Jesus. That’s the thread. It all had to line up.
It’s a beautiful thing. It’s really worthy of our consideration.
As some of you who know me know, I have a tendency toward anxiety. That’s an understatement. If you’re not worried right now, I can help you.
Has anyone seen the movie Toy Story?
God’s Providence as Our Consolation
Now’s the perfect time to panic. Yes. What better time than now? That’s how we roll. But what I do, and this is so encouraging to me when I go through this—because sometimes when I’m just anxious in my thoughts and I can’t sleep, I’ll lay in bed and I’ll just start thinking about this. This is the only thing that’ll help me, honestly. I start thinking about redemptive history.
I think about creation and then through Genesis and just into God’s providence in my own life. It’s all part of it. And I’m just like, okay, amazing. And so I think these are here to give us hope in that regard.
Couple other things and we need to wrap up. What consolation do you find in your own life when you consider how God eventually used this horrible event in Joseph’s life to bring about a good end?
“I start thinking about redemptive history… and I’m just like, okay, amazing.”
Shi, you brought about a great point that I hadn’t even thought about. He didn’t complain. It doesn’t give any indication that he fought back. I honestly never thought about that.
That’s amazing. That’s amazing. What attributes of God do we see accented? Well, sovereignty.
Repentance and Transparency in Families
I love the word providence because it’s loving sovereignty. It’s bringing about something good, something that’s even better than we could have possibly imagined.
Leela, you’ll be the last one. We need to wrap up. Do you have something, Cheryl? Yes, that’s fine.
To answer that question of what attributes of God—Michael was talking about how the Bible is cohesive and it’s all reflecting and showing us who Jesus is and who God is. This story of when Jacob sent Joseph out to check on his brothers reminded me of the parable of the vine dressers where the master of the vineyard sends out his servants to check on the vineyard. They see him coming and they kill them one after the next.
To answer the question of the attributes of God: the story is cohesive in that God’s character is the same. He shows us through the same pictures over and over again how these things are connected. His character is the same, and our character was the same. As it says in Exodus, he is slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and truth.
Think about the forbearance he had with all of these people involved. He could have struck them down at any time and been justified, and he didn’t.
Cheryl, I was thinking of the second question and it kind of dovetails with all the others. Just think about in my own life when I’ve recognized a sin after the fact and seen the repercussions of it through my life or my children’s lives.
I think about the terrible sorrow that Jacob must have had. Over time there’s an awareness that, even though on the front end he sent Joseph to look after the other brothers, knowing the family dynamic made that a high-risk thing if he was really aware. So I would say he was not aware until many years later how his favoritism bore thorns, not fruit.
For my own life, you don’t know what you’re doing until God brings you to repentance and then you look back and you see the repercussions of that. I didn’t recognize it. But likewise for other people, I think it makes me more compassionate.
When I see people either sinning against others or myself, I realize this is what Jesus said on the cross: “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.” At some point, if God is gracious, they will know what they did. And it’s a terrible grief that I don’t want other people to have to go through.
“Our only consolation is that God forgives us and he redeems even that.”
I know what it’s like when I’ve gone through it. I just see our only consolation, right, is that God forgives us and he redeems even that. Amen.
One does wonder. Let’s get this over to Michael.
I was going to say this reminds me of the hymn “God Moves in a Mysterious Way.” Joseph plays. Amen. Amen. Smiling behind what we see as a dark cloud is actually mercy.
What we see as a dark cloud is actually mercy.
We’re going to have to stop. I’m sorry. We’re at time, but we’ll chat afterwards.
Arthur, I’m so glad you mentioned that, Cheryl, because I do wonder if Israel ever had that conversation with his kids and talked transparently about an awareness of how his favoritism had affected the family.
For us as parents, that can be a very powerful thing—to talk with your kids about the mistakes that you’ve made. I’ve made some. I’ve got six kids and I’m 61 years old, so I’ve made a lot of mistakes. Those regrets can kind of pile up for you.
But in God’s providence, he’s moved with Betty and me to talk very transparently with our kids, to apologize, to repent of things that need to be repented of, to have those transparent conversations, to demonstrate repentance and faith to our kids.
“If our kids can’t see repentance and faith in us, what that looks like, we have no hope.”
Closing Prayer
And that’s gospel. If our kids can’t see repentance and faith in us, what that looks like, we have no hope.
So praise the Lord for his mercy and working through such as us.
Let me pray for us. Father, thank you for being with us in power today as your word unpacks things that maybe we didn’t expect. We are so in awe of your sovereign providence in our lives.
Thank you for moving in our families. Some of us have had some unbelievably difficult family experiences. I know that as I look out and think about who’s here.
And yet as Joseph said toward the end of his life, what you meant for evil, God meant for good.
We worship you and we ask you to make us faithful, dependent, humble and loving in Jesus’ name. Amen.