The Genesis narrative moves back to the family of Jacob today and to the subject of prophetic dreams experienced by Jacob's son Joseph.
"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." (Genesis 37:1-2) Joseph doesn't find the work satisfactory of Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. Some commentaries find fault with Joseph for complaining to his father about the work of his older half brothers as if he is a meddlesome tattletale. I tend to think that there really is something wrong with their performance and that Joseph has a legitimate complaint. But we can see how resentment would have arisen among these older sons of Jacob toward a younger brother who thinks he is their boss.
Jacob himself has caused a great deal of the dysfunction and the growing resentment in his large family. He has fostered a bossy attitude in Joseph and he has lavished so much adoration upon him that the other sons feel like he considers them nothing but chopped liver. "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." (Genesis 37:3-4)
Jacob is clearly in the wrong for showing so much favoritism to the oldest son of his preferred wife Rachel. His excuse is that, "Aw, he's just a youngster! He's the baby I had in my old age. Why shouldn't I spoil him?" Benjamin is actually the baby of the family, and Jacob was older when Benjamin was born than when Joseph was born, but Rachel died right after having Benjamin due to complications of childbirth. Benjamin's birth is inextricably linked with grief in Jacob's mind. As a result, instead of affectionately spoiling the motherless youngest child of the family (something the much older brothers might have been able to understand), Jacob has placed the largest portion of his affections upon Joseph and appears to be making it clear that Joseph is the heir-apparent of his estate.
As we noted earlier in Genesis, Jacob's three eldest sons by his first wife Leah have disqualified themselves as his primary heir. Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, slept with Jacob's wife Bilhah in an act of defiance, rebellion, and sexual immorality. Simeon and Levi plotted and carried out cold-blooded murder in the city of Schechem, slaughtering every man there because one young man violated the honor of their sister. It's my opinion that Jacob intends to skip over all the sons he had with Leah, Bilhah, and Zilpah in favor of leaving his estate to his eldest son by Rachel. I feel he is making his intentions clear by providing Joseph with a special robe that marks him as someone of status and authority. Jacob gave his son a robe which indicates he is an overseer, not a laborer. This explains why he is supervising and reporting on the work of his older brothers in the field. His father is training him to take over after Jacob's death. Naturally all of Joseph's older brothers feel resentful, unloved, and bitter.
To make matters worse, Joseph begins having dreams he believes are prophetic in nature. As it later turns out, they are, but he would have been smart to have kept them to himself. I think he's a bit full of himself due to being the spoiled favorite child of Jacob. He can't resist talking about the exalted position in which he finds himself in his dreams. "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.'" (Genesis 37:5-7)
His brothers are understandably unimpressed by this information. "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." (Genesis 37:8) Do they think his dream is prophetic and that they will actually bow before him someday, faces to the ground? Probably not. They can't imagine any situation that would make such an action necessary on their part. Even if Jacob makes Joseph his heir, this doesn't mean Joseph's brothers ever intend to grovel at his feet. They think his dream is a product of his spoiled, ambitious, selfish young mind and they ask, "Who do you think you are? Do you really believe we are going to bow at your feet and beg for anything from your hand? Do you think you're going to stand over us like a king someday while we grovel in the dust? Get real!"
But Joseph has another dream, and even though his telling of the first dream wasn't met with a positive reaction, he can't keep the second dream to himself. "Then he had another dream, and he 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.'" (Genesis 37:9) Joseph says, "Look, guys, this dream about you bowing to me wasn't a one-time thing. If it was then I guess you could make fun of me and tell me I'm just being a brat. But the Lord sent me another dream much like the first. This has to mean something!"
Jacob didn't speak up when he heard about the first dream in which all Joseph's brothers bowed before him. Since Jacob intends to make Joseph his heir, and since everyone in the family is painfully aware of it, he can understand his son having an exalted vision of himself someday ruling over the estate and being superior in rank to his brothers. But now, in this second dream, Jacob himself is bowing at the feet of his son! Feeling insulted by the idea, he scolds Joseph. "When he had 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." (Genesis 37:10-11) Indignant though Jacob may be, he senses that the Lord is up to something. He can't dismiss these dreams as the silly ambitious musings of a young man who knows he's in line to inherit great wealth. Jacob feels there's something more going on.
Joseph's biological mother, Rachel, is dead. I believe we can safely assume that when Jacob refers to Joseph's "mother" he is making a reference to Leah. Leah is the sister of Rachel and is the obvious choice to be step-mother to Joseph and his younger brother Benjamin. It's not likely Jacob would have assigned this important task to either of the servant women who are his secondary wives. Leah is the aunt of Joseph and Benjamin and I think she took them in as her own sons. She deserves credit for her good influence on Joseph, for he is going to become one of the most godly men of the Bible. Would Rachel have done as good a job? Honestly, I think not. As I've said before during our study of Genesis, if Jacob had allowed the Lord to lead him to the right wife, I feel Leah would have been the Lord's choice for him. A great deal of Bible scholars feel the same way and that makes me think I'm on the right track. Rachel wasn't a bad woman, but the Bible speaks more of her outward beauty than of her inward beauty. That's likely because she wasn't as spiritual as the wife of Jacob needed to be. Leah, the less outwardly attractive of the two sisters, was said to have had kind eyes and several times we find her talking to the Lord and giving Him the credit for her blessings. It's my opinion that the Lord would have preferred Leah for Jacob and that He wanted her to be Jacob's only wife.
In our passage today Joseph comes across as spoiled, prideful, and insensitive. We don't yet see him as one of the finest examples of godly living that can be found in the Bible. But before we become too critical of him right now, I think we have to keep in mind that he is only seventeen. Do you remember what it was like being seventeen? Wasn't it just about the silliest time of your life? Didn't you find yourself being reckless and impulsive? Didn't you make some decisions that could have had lifelong consequences---and perhaps did have lifelong consequences? Joseph is only a teenager. He hasn't yet learned that "discretion is the better part of valor". He can't keep anything to himself. He's excited about these dreams and is unable to keep from talking about them even though it would be in his best interests to remain silent. He seems unaware that he's being insensitive to his brothers and that they find his dreams and his attitude about the dreams offensive. Joseph's words are going to set in motion something that will have lifelong repercussions, for him and for his whole family.
But God is going to use Joseph's reckless impulsiveness and his brothers' resentment in His plan. The dreams are prophetic. Joseph, who has a heart for God but who just hasn't yet matured in his faith, knows the Lord intends to do something huge in his life. His brothers don't want to hear such things; to them it's bad enough that their father is always doing something huge for Joseph. But the Lord, in His great mercy, is going to do huge things for all of them. He is going to use all of their faults and failures to create a situation in which the dysfunction of their family can be healed. In spite of all the mistakes they will make, He's going to make this misfit band of scrappy, scoundrelly brothers into a great nation upon which His blessing will always rest.
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