Joseph comes into view aged seventeen. He’s different from all his half-brothers, he’s younger and Jacob’s favourite. He and his little brother Benjamin are all Jacob has left of Rachel. Jacob made Joseph a tunic of many colors.
When his brothers saw that their father loved Joseph more, they hated him and could not speak peaceably to him.
Joseph did not help himself, he worked in the fields and brought back a bad report to his father about Dan, Naphtali, Gad and Asher.
Also he had dreams which he unwisely told his brothers, and they hated him even more.
One day Jacob sent Joseph on a journey to his brothers who were feeding their flocks at Shechem. He found them at a place called Dothan, but they weren’t happy to see him; “Look, this dreamer is coming! Come therefore, let us now kill him and cast him into some pit; and we shall say, ‘Some wild beast has devoured him.’ We shall see what will become of his dreams!”
All of them wanted to kill him except Reuben, who convinced them to throw him into a waterless pit so he could come back and rescue him. They, minus Reuben, sat down to eat a meal. Seeing an approaching company of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead with their camels bearing spices, balm, and myrrh on their way down to Egypt, Judah suggested selling him. And so Joseph was sold for twenty shekels of silver.
In Egypt the Midianites sold Joseph to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh and captain of the guard.
The brothers took Joseph’s tunic, killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the tunic in the blood. Bringing the tunic of many colors to their father they said, “We have found this. Do you know whether it is your son’s tunic or not?”
Recognising it, Jacob said, “It is my son’s tunic. A wild beast has devoured him. Without doubt Joseph is torn to pieces.”
Jacob mourned Joseph and refused to be comforted.
The brothers haven’t changed, they were bad for deceiving and killing the men of Shechem in chapter 34 and they’re still bad. How can God make a nation of them?
Joseph’s Dreams
Joseph said to them, “Please hear this dream which I have dreamed:
And his brothers said to him, “Shall you indeed reign over us? Or shall you indeed have dominion over us?” So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words.
Then he dreamed still another dream and told it to his brothers, and said, “Look, I have dreamed another dream. And this time, the sun, the moon, and the eleven stars bowed down to me.”
So he told it to his father and his brothers; and his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall your mother and I and your brothers indeed come to bow down to the earth before you?” And his brothers envied him, but his father kept the matter in mind.
Genesis 37:6-11
Joseph was probably trying to make sense of the dreams but his brothers weren’t the right people to hear them. He didn’t know that one day he’d be described as “the prince among his brothers,” Genesis 49:26.
Perhaps the stars are the crown of the Woman in Revelation 12; Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars, Revelation 12:1-6
And perhaps Joseph as one of those stars is a precursor of Jesus, the ruler to come.
Here in Genesis 37:9 we see the sun, moon and eleven stars, with the twelth star rising to preeminence. In Revelation 12:1 the focus changes to the Woman wearing a crown of stars.
The Woman is Israel and the names of the sons spell out a message, one that is not assembled yet. The message is explained in my book “The End, the Wayfarer’s Guide to the Apocalypse” and it’s a gold nugget.
The Coat of Many Colours
There are hints of Joseph in Psalm 45 which speaks of Messiah and His Bride. Verse 14 says, “She shall be brought to the King in robes of many colors; The virgins, her companions who follow her, shall be brought to You.”
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