Jacob gives one son a coat the others do not get, and the household divides along the seam of it. Joseph dreams that his family bows to him, and says so out loud — twice. Sent alone to check on his brothers in the north, he finds them at Dothan, and they see the coat coming across the field before they see his face. By nightfall he is in a pit, then in a caravan, then gone; and his father is holding a bloodied coat and refusing to be comforted.
A study in Genesis 37 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 9 min read
Loved Him More Than All His Brethren
“Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours. And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him.”
Genesis 37:3-4
The coat is the problem before Joseph opens his mouth. It is the kind of long, ornamented tunic a man of standing wears, not a shepherd — a garment that says this one will not be working like the rest of you. Jacob, of all people, should have known where favoritism leads. He grew up as the son his mother preferred while Esau was his father’s, and that split produced twenty years of exile. He now does the same thing to his own house, in cloth.
“He ‘loved Joseph more than all his children.’ But even this affection was to become a cause of trouble and sorrow. Jacob unwisely manifested his preference for Joseph, and this excited the jealousy of his other sons.”
Ellen G. White · Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 209
They Hated Him Yet The More
“And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren: and they hated him yet the more… For, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf.”
Genesis 37:5, 7
The dream is about harvest — sheaves, the work of the field — and it puts Joseph’s sheaf upright in the center with theirs bowing around it. Whether or not the dream is from God, telling it to the men who already cannot “speak peaceably unto him” is not wisdom. Their answer is a question with its own answer built in: “Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us?”
His Father Observed The Saying
“Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me… And his brethren envied him; but his father observed the saying.”
Genesis 37:9, 11
Jacob rebukes him openly — “Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?” — and then quietly files it away. The narrator draws the line himself: the brothers envied, the father observed. Jacob has lived long enough to know that God sometimes tells the future to the least likely person in the room, because that is how his own life had gone.
“Notwithstanding the apparent severity of his words, Jacob believed that the Lord was revealing the future to Joseph.”
Ellen G. White · Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 210
Here Am I
“And Israel said unto Joseph, Do not thy brethren feed the flock in Shechem? come, and I will send thee unto them. And he said to him, Here am I. And he said to him, Go, I pray thee, see whether it be well with thy brethren, and well with the flocks; and bring me word again.”
Genesis 37:13-14
“Here am I” is the same answer Abraham gave God on the way up Moriah and gave the angel with the knife raised (Genesis 22). Joseph says it to his father, and it sends him on a journey that will look, for years, exactly like a death. Jacob has no idea what he is sending the boy into; his sons have hidden their hatred well enough that a father trusts them with his favorite, alone, fifty miles from home. Joseph reaches Shechem, is redirected to Dothan, and keeps going.
Behold, This Dreamer Cometh
“And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him. And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams.”
Genesis 37:18-20
They plan to kill the dream by killing the dreamer, and their cover story — “some evil beast” — is the exact lie they will use on their father a few hours later. The hatred that started with a coat has arrived at murder, in a field, with time to talk it over calmly first.
“The sight of the coat, the token of their father’s love, filled them with frenzy.”
Ellen G. White · Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 210
Ellen White names the resemblance directly: “The same spirit that actuated Cain was kindling in their hearts.” The book’s first murder was also a brother killing a brother because God had regarded the other man’s offering and not his (Genesis 4).
Sold For Twenty Pieces Of Silver
“And Reuben said unto them, Shed no blood, but cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, and lay no hand upon him; that he might rid him out of their hands, to deliver him to his father again.”
Genesis 37:22
Reuben, the firstborn who has already lost his standing (Genesis 35:22), tries a half-measure: stall the killing, plan a secret rescue. He leaves, and while he is gone Judah proposes a sale.
“Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmeelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother and our flesh. And his brethren were content. Then there passed by Midianites merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmeelites for twenty pieces of silver: and they brought Joseph into Egypt.”
Genesis 37:27-28
“He is our brother and our flesh” is offered as a reason for mercy and used as a reason for profit. Twenty pieces of silver is the going price of a boy. Centuries later a descendant of this same Judah will hand over a greater Brother for thirty.
“Steeling their hearts against his entreaties, they delivered him into the hands of the heathen traders.”
Ellen G. White · Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 211
It Is My Son’s Coat
“And he knew it, and said, It is my son’s coat; an evil beast hath devoured him; Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces. And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days. And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted; and he said, For I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning.”
Genesis 37:33-35
The man who deceived his own blind father with a borrowed coat and a goatskin (Genesis 27) is now deceived by his own sons with a coat and the blood of a goat. He had reaped this once before, from Laban; here he reaps it from his children. And the brothers stand in the tent watching a grief they cannot undo and dare not explain, keeping their sisters and their father company in a mourning they manufactured. Joseph, meanwhile, is alive, and on a road going down to Egypt.
“They had looked forward to this scene with dread, but they were not prepared for the heart-rending anguish, the utter abandonment of grief, which they were compelled to witness.”
Ellen G. White · Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 212
