The Devotional Journey: Bible Reading 30

Yahweh speaks to Joseph through his dreams

Read Genesis 37:1–36.

The scene shifts back to Jacob and his family. The last time we saw him, Jacob was getting ready to meet his estranged brother Esau and he had ended up spending the night wrestling with Yahweh and being renamed by God. We skipped over his meeting with Esau but to summarise, Esau and Jacob restored their relationship, and Esau moved away. Jacob settled back into the land God had promised Abraham.

As we enter the final section of Genesis, we start to see Yahweh carefully moving history forward so that His plan for mankind’s salvation can be advanced. The focus was now on Jacob’s sons and in particular, Joseph. He was the son of Rachel, Jacob’s favourite wife and he was born late in his father’s life. So Joseph was Jacob’s favourite among 12 brothers and one sister. (Joseph had a full brother named Benjamin.)

Jacob gave Joseph a special robe or tunic that was beautifully decorated. Every time his brothers saw him wearing it, they were reminded of their father’s favouritism and it made them resent him more and more.

As the all-knowing God, Yahweh began to work to ensure the survival of Abraham’s descendants so that His promises in the Abrahamic Covenant would be fulfilled. But even as Yahweh acted, He did not violate the freedom and free will that He had given His creatures.

Yahweh acted by speaking to young Joseph through two visions. In both of them, the family bowed in submission to Joseph. Joseph made the prideful mistake of telling his family about his dreams and this caused greater resentment among his brothers against him. And even Jacob was not pleased with Joseph’s boasting but he suspected God was starting to work through his young son.

Later, Jacob sent Joseph to check on his brothers who were taking care of the family's herds in distant pastureland. When his brothers saw him from afar, their jealousy boiled over and they plotted to kill him. Imagine how they must have resented Joseph!

But Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn son, convinced the other brothers to throw Joseph down a dried-out cistern (an underground water storage chamber) with the secret plan of coming back later to rescue his little brother. But this plan didn’t work because while he was away, another brother, Judah, proposed selling Joseph off to Ishmaelite traders who were passing by. (The Ishmaelites were descendants of Abraham’s son, Ishmael, and so were actually distantly related to Jacob’s family.)

So Joseph was gone. His brothers covered up their evil act by smearing his precious robe with goat’s blood to make it look like a wild animal had killed him. Jacob was overcome with grief and the rest of his family were unable to comfort him. Meanwhile, Joseph was sold by the traders to Potiphar, an officer of the Egyptian king, the Pharaoh. Joseph was now a slave in Egypt.

Here are sobering lessons for us. We can witness the terrible effects of favouritism and jealousy. And this is God’s chosen family, the family He was working His salvation plan through!

Jacob had repeated the mistake of his parents in showing favouritism. (Jacob’s mother, Rebekah, had favoured him, while his father, Isaac, had favoured his brother Esau.) We need to watch our hearts and behaviour so as not to create such strife in our families.

But at the same time, notice what Yahweh was starting to do. He had hinted through visions to Joseph about the future—his family would bow in respect to him.

Yahweh was able to work through and around young Joseph’s naivety in crowing about his dreams to his family. God was able to work through and around Jacob’s favouritism. And Yahweh was more than capable of working through and around the brothers’ jealous and vicious actions to harm and abandon their young brother. Though people can use their God-given free will to make poor and evil decisions, God is still able to work out His good plans for mankind. We will see more of how God can do this as we read more about Joseph’s life.