A Beloved Son and Brotherly Betrayal - Pastor Tom Loghry
The story focus shifts to Jacob’s son Joseph. Favored by his father, Joseph is hated by his brothers; he is despised all the more after sharing his dreams depicting him in a position of authority over his family.
Transcript:
The reading today is from Genesis 37, 5 through 11. Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. He said to them, Listen to this dream I had. We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field, when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.
His brothers said to him, Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us? And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said. Then he had another dream, and told it to his brothers. Listen, he said, I had another dream. And this time, the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.
When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I, and your brothers, actually come and bow down to the ground before you? His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.
I think there are a few things that human beings despise more than betrayal. If you're a New Englander, if a Red Sox player becomes a Yankee, they're dead to us. A name like Benedict Arnold becomes infamous because of his betrayal of the American Army during the Revolutionary War. He did other things, but he is only remembered for his treachery.
Of course, betrayal also hits much closer to home in our lives. Some of us can tell stories of how a family member or a friend betrayed us. Their act cuts much deeper than if it simply came from a stranger. It appears to be a chronic symptom of human sinfulness. Betrayal is very old and ever new. In the book of Genesis, we see it aplenty.
And we see it especially in the story of Joseph. And so as we turn to Genesis 37, we are turning to really a new segment of the story which will ultimately lead Jacob and his family into the land of Egypt. So looking at chapter 37, beginning in verse 1, the scene is set. It says, Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan.
This is the account of Jacob's family line. Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives. And he brought their father a bad report about them. Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age, and he made an ornate robe for him. When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him, and could not speak a kind word to him. So, we find Jacob's family in the land of Canaan, as promised. They're living there. All seems to be going well, on the surface at least. But, as we see right here from the beginning of this chapter, there's trouble brewing within the family.
Joseph it said, who is at 17 at the time, brings back a bad report about the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah. Now this would have been his brothers Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. Basically kind of tattletales on them. Maybe he wasn't just a situation of tattletailing, though, he may have been put in a kind of supervisory role.
Because after all, it says here that Joseph was Jacob's favorite. And the reason why he was his favorite was because he was born to him in his old age. And it doesn't say this in the text, but we might also suppose it's because he was the firstborn of his most beloved wife, Rachel. And because he loved him so much, he made him an ornate robe, and this has been kind of traditionally described as a, as a coat of many colors.
Now, we don't know if it exactly looked like the rainbow, if it was, but the idea was that it was a very nice coat. And, in fact, wearing such a coat may have signaled at that time, a person occupying sort of a managerial sort of role. Almost like you think about someone wearing a suit jacket. It's nice. And in relation to his brothers, getting this nice jacket, he's kind of being identified as an important one amongst all of them.
And the brothers take notice. They notice, and you've got to consider, because Joseph was born later on, when his father was older, that means all these other brothers, most of them are older than him, if not all of them are older than him. And, so they hate him because of that. They hate him because they can see that this younger brother is usurping their own position in relation to their father.
And so they can't speak any nice word about him. And so, you have that as kind of just the baseline. They don't like Joseph because Jacob is showing favor towards him. But then things get worse. We turn to verses 5 through 11, as John read for us. Joseph has some dreams. He has some dreams first about some sheaves of grain. Now, we don't necessarily live in an agricultural society any longer, so some of you might be wondering, what is a sheaf of grain? Well, you imagine you have stalks of grain. You've got to take those stalks and then you bind them together. So you kind of have this, all this wheat gathered together, standing up. Well, Joseph had this dream that he had all these sheaves.
His sheaf stood upright, all the sheaves of his brother bowed before his sheave. And the meaning is pretty transparent. You don't have to be a, I don't know if rocket scientist is the right word, but you don't have to have any deep insight to be able to try to discern the meaning of this dream. His brothers understand it.
He says in, they say in verse 8, Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us? And so because of that, they hate him all the more because of his dream and what he said. Now, he also has another dream. And this dream, it identifies the sun, moon, and 11 stars bowing down to him. Now this is basically just the whole family bowing down to him.
His father, his mother. Now it's interesting to think, you know, who the mother is here. Was it Rachel? Rachel had already passed away at this point. Perhaps it was Leah. Perhaps it was Bilhah, because Bilhah was Rachel's handmaiden. It's difficult to know, but in any case, the significance is, is the whole family is bowing down before Joseph.
Now, this makes the brothers all the more angry, jealous. And the reason why they're responding this way, rather than just being like, That's weird, is because Joseph is not telling them these dreams as though it's just a funny story. You know, we have weird dreams sometimes. You know, I had this crazy dream last night, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
You know, isn't that nuts? When people had dreams in this time, they took it seriously as kind of foretelling something that might transpire. And even to this day in the Near East people take dreams very seriously. It's been the case that many Muslims have actually come to Christ through dream encounters with him.
That's been a big part in their conversion. So we have to just understand that we're much different people than they are when it comes to dreams. We think it's like, I ate a bad burrito last night. For them, like, this, this means something. And so Joseph is staking a claim out there. Now Jacob, when he hears, especially the second dream, about him and his, and Joseph's mother bowing before him, he's not really amused by it.
But, it says that he kept the matter in mind. So he does think to himself, there might be something to this. And it kind of recalls for us, the idea of how when Mary was told that, how she treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. It's kind of this idea of he, he knows there's something here, even if, on the surface, Jacob's like, I don't really, I don't, I don't really like your tone, young man.
That kind, that kind of thing. Now these details help us understand what follows. The brothers dislike Joseph, Jacob favors him, and now circumstances will come together bringing a conflict to a head. So looking at verses 12 through 17. Now his brothers had gone to graze their flocks near Shechem. And Israel said to Joseph, As you know, your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem.
Come, I am going to send you to them. Very well, he replied, so he said to him, go and see if all is well with your brothers and with the flocks and bring word back to me. Then he sent him off from the valley of Hebron. When Joseph arrived at Shechem, a man found him wandering around in the fields and asked him, what are you looking for?
He replied, I'm looking for my brothers, can you tell me where they are grazing their flocks? They have moved on from here, the man answered. I heard them say, let's go to Dothan. So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near Dothan. So just to kind of orient you to the landscape here, we've got a map.
I know you can't see it, so I'm going to zoom in in a second. This is the area we're working with. You can see the red lines. That's basically identifying the route that Joseph's journey here is going to take. Hebron, you'll see, is right down here, kind of the starting place of that red line. It's just to the west of the Dead Sea, Salt Sea.
And he's heading up to Shechem. Now remember, they had lived near Shechem before, so, and this is an, this is a family that tends to flocks. And so they gotta go where good grazing is. So, he's quite a far away from home. It's about four or five days walking journey. So he's far away from his father.
He's gone up to Shechem to try to find his brothers but he can't find them. And so he's redirected by a man that he meets out there to Dothan. He says, I heard your brothers were going up to Dothan. So that's even further up north. So, as he heads to Dothan, his brothers are able to see him coming in the distance.
So continuing on, start picking up in verse 18. It says, But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him. Here comes that dreamer, they said to each other. Come now, let's kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him.
Then we'll see what comes of his dreams. When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. Let's not take his life, he said. Don't shed any blood. Throw him into the cistern here in the wilderness, but don't lay a hand on him. Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father.
So now at this point we really truly appreciate how deep their hatred for Joseph runs. It's gone so far that they are ready to murder him. And we do know that there's some violent impulses among the brothers. We remember what Simeon and Levi did to the men of Shechem when they violated their sister Dinah.
So we know that there's some violent tendencies here, but it is shocking to see that they're ready to commit such violence against their own blood, their brother. And this just reminds us what envy does to a person, when we're jealous of people. It, in Proverbs, it says in Proverbs 14: 30, it says, A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones.
When we despise what someone has, that we're lacking, and we want what they have, and in this case, they want the favor that Joseph's enjoying from Jacob, it does us no good. It just rots on the inside. And it turns us into ugly people on the inside. And it's because of that envy that's built up within them that they have such malice for their brother.
And so they conspire, we're going to kill him. We're going to kill him, and we're going to throw him in a cistern, and then we'll just make it seem like an animal got to him. So it's just important to understand exactly what they're prescribing here. First, we're going to kill him, we're going to throw him in a cistern, and then we're going to cover up.
Now, if you're wondering what a, what a cistern is, In those times, they would take, they might either dig out an area that was, had a deposit of limestone, they'd dig it out so that it could collect rainwater, because water was a important commodity so, they might dig it out, they might plaster a hole in the ground in order for it to collect water.
At this time in the year, the hole is empty, so they're not throwing them into a thing of water. It might be muddy. It's interesting in Jeremiah, we see how the prophet Jeremiah was also thrown into a, a cistern and it says it had no water in it, only mud, and Jeremiah sank down into the mud, so it may not have been a very, I mean we can be assured it wasn't a nice place to be put, to be put into.
It wouldn't have mattered for Joseph though, because he would have been dead, so he would've been none the wiser. But, Reuben intervenes. Now remember, Reuben is the firstborn of the family. He's supposed to be kind of the responsible one, the one who's overseeing his brothers. Now, you'll recall though, that Reuben's kind of put him, put himself in a bad place with his dad because he slept with one of his wives.
And so, he knows that Joseph is Jacob's favorite son. So he may be thinking to himself a couple of things. One, he's the responsible one, so if he doesn't spare Joseph here, it'll just get worse for him. His father would be like, what were you doing, kind of thing. On the other hand, too, he may think, if I'm able to deliver Joseph back to my father, it may get me back into his good graces.
Of course, he could also just have genuine concern, but I think it is important for us to have a realistic look at the motivations that could be coming into play here. And so he suggests, let's not kill him. Let's not get blood on our hands. Let's just put him in the cistern. Now that's not great either, because his idea is that he's going to go back and get him later, but he doesn't tell that to his brothers.
So instead of just killing Joseph outright, they said, well, let's just put him in the cistern and let him suffer and I guess eventually die. But they go for it. They say, all right, we'll do that. So with that plan in place, they fall upon Joseph once he arrives at their camp. Picking up in verse 23. It says, So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the ornate robe he was wearing.
And they took him and threw him into the cistern. The cistern was empty. There was no water in it. As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm, and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt.
Judah said to his brothers, What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? Sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him. After all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood. His brothers agreed. So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for 20 shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt.
So, this awesome jacket that Joseph has, stripped off him, he's thrown into the cistern, and just to see the callousness of his brothers, you can imagine Joseph, he's down in the cistern, he's probably, yelling, let me out, you know, and they're just there. Yeah, we're going to eat lunch. Meanwhile, Joseph's in despair.
And then they see this caravan coming along, this Ishmaelite caravan. Now it's interesting because later on in verse 28, it calls them Midianite merchants. So there, it seems as though the terms are kind of interchangeable here. And we see that actually in Judges 8 the terms used kind of interchangebly. Now, the significance of this, if you recall, is that Ishmael is a son of Abraham.
Now, Midian is a son of Keturah, who is also a wife of Abraham later on. So, what we're talking about here is basically distant relatives, cousins. Their cousins are coming toward them in this caravan, and an idea occurs to Judah. Now, Reuben's the oldest, so Judah's not the oldest. But Judah is going to be kind of a rising brother here in Genesis.
Because it's anticipating everything that's going to transpire, ultimately later on, where you'll have Judah as the one promise, as the one whom this king will come. David, and then ultimately Jesus, because Jesus is of the tribe of Judah. Now, this does not mean that Judah is perfect, and we see just how, how much of a mixed bag he is here.
He says, you know, what do we gain from killing him? Well, obviously, nothing. All they do is, they, they gain guilt, because they've shed their brother's blood. And so his proposal is, let's avoid guilt, technically, by selling him to some, you know, slave traders. Because whatever happens to him then, well, we can't be blamed for that.
And, plus as a bonus, we'll get a little bit of money in exchange for selling out our brother. And so, that's what they do. They sell Joseph as a slave to this Ishmaelite caravan for 20 shekels of silver. Which is a decent amount of money, it's two years wages, likely for a shepherd at that time, but, I mean, split among all the brothers, it's not a ton of money.
And, so they take Joseph. And where he's going to be heading is along this route. And this is a, just a common trade route that will ultimately lead him to Egypt. Now, during this time, the oldest, oldest brother, Reuben, has been away. This isn't that unusual. He may have been dealing with some flock or, you know, away from their base camp.
So he didn't realize all this was going down. So turning to verse 29, we find his response when he discovers what his brothers did. It says, When Reuben returned to the cistern and saw that Joseph was not there, he tore his clothes. He went back to his brothers and said, The boy isn't there. Where can I turn now?
Then they got Joseph's robe, slaughtered a goat, and dipped the robe in the blood. They took the ornate robe back to their father and said, We found this. Examine it to see whether it is your son's robe. He recognized it and said, It is my son's robe. Some ferocious animal has devoured him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces.
Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, and mourned for his son many days. All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. No, he said, I will continue to mourn until I join my son in the grave. So his father wept for him. Meanwhile, the Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard.
So, between Reuben's response and Jacob's response, we see kind of a very typical response of grief at that time, which is tearing one's clothes, which is no small thing because we have tons of clothes in our closet these days, but it took a lot of effort to make clothes at that time. So it's a, it's a pretty profound signal of grief that you're gonna tear some clothes that are probably fairly valuable.
And Reuben is grieving. Perhaps for, for Joseph, but if not for Joseph, probably again for himself, maybe feeling a sense of responsibility or a lost opportunity to get back in the good graces of his father, and they proceed with their original plan of saying, making it a cover up that Joseph was killed by a wild animal. They slaughtered a goat. The utility of them taking his robe was this is obviously Joseph's robe. It's not just, his father couldn't have been like, well, you know, maybe it was some, you know, stranger's robe. Nope. He knows that this is Joseph's robe. They dip it in blood and they deceive Jacob.
Now isn't this interesting about how all things come back around. Remember Jacob's own deception of his father, Isaac and securing the blessing from his father. And now he himself is being deceived by his own sons. It's the terrible cycle of sin that we see here. And he's inconsolable. Tears his clothes.
He has sackcloth on, which is not comfortable clothing. And he declares, I will continue to mourn until I join my son in the grave. Now, we don't see how the brothers respond to all of this, they did try to, it says that they tried to comfort him. Later on it, it does seem like perhaps they might have had some regrets after, after doing this, just seeing the way that he responded, maybe they didn't expect that he would respond quite like this. And as for Joseph, at the end of this chapter, we do have this little hint that his story's not over. We're going to pick it up, back up, and we're going to pick it back up in Egypt because he is sold there to Potiphar, who is one of Pharaoh's officials, who's the captain of the guard.
Now, as far as Joseph's brothers were concerned, he was as good as dead. There was no coming back from this. They were never going to see him again. But something much bigger than they could imagine was afoot. Many years before, the Lord told their grandfather, Abraham, that his descendants would be enslaved in a country not their own.
Genesis 15, verses 13 through 14, the Lord told Abraham, Know for certain that for four hundred years, your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.
Little did they realize it, but God was wielding their treachery to accomplish his promised word. That the family would, in fact, leave Canaan. And what's more, that Joseph's dream would come to pass. The betrayal of Joseph brings to mind the betrayal of Jesus. Joseph was sold for 20 shekels of silver.
Judas sold Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. Joseph was rejected by his own brothers. Jesus came to his own and his own did not receive him. Jesus was the light to come into the world, but people love darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Before we sit in pride condemning Joseph's brothers, condemning those who have betrayed us, condemning those who rejected and crucified Christ, we should acknowledge our own acts of betrayal. If anything, who among us has not betrayed God? In fact, before we come to Christ, we are all active traitors, in league with the demonic horde opposing God. Even so, God acts to save us. Paul states it plainly in Romans 5, 6 through 8. He says, You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.
Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Joseph's story is an excellent mirror. It reminds us of the wretchedness of human sin. It also reminds us of God's firm purpose and plan.
Joseph's family would indeed bow before him. And every knee will indeed bow before Jesus Christ. As Paul tells us in Philippians 2, 9 through 11, Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
Let us pray.
Father. Your word this morning relates to us the condition of the human heart. Of how much we are given to envy one another. So much so that we would even betray those that are our own siblings, our own family.
What we see in this story, Father, is just that. It's the great need for your intervention, your intervention to redeem humanity. And what's so wonderful, Father, is that we see that even in the midst of the terrible corruption and brokenness that we see here, we also see your hand at work bringing about that very salvation.
Father. We confess our own acts of betrayal. We confess all the ways that we've gone astray. But Father, we also trust that no amount of evil is able to foil your plan. And so, Father, we leave behind our past, our past as traitors. And look to you to walk in accordance with your will. Help us to do so, Father, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, we pray. Amen.
Hey there, Pastor Tom here. I hope you enjoyed this sermon I offered to Rockland Community Church. Rockland Community Church is located at 212 Rockland Road in North Scituate, Rhode Island, just around the bend from the Scituate Public High School. We invite you to join us in person or virtually this Sunday as we continue our series entitled Israel Arises. It's our joy to welcome you into our community.
Intro/Outro Song
Title: River Meditation
Artist: Jason Shaw
Source:http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Jason_Shaw/Audionautix_Acoustic/RIVER_MEDITATION___________2-58
License:(CC BY 3.0 US)