God’s providence can overcome human failure (Gen 37:1-17)

Bridegrooms are sometimes told to look at their prospective bride’s mother to know how their beloved will turn out; advice that my husband – quick as a flash – replied to, ‘Oooh, I’ll have lots of delicious cake to eat in my old age!’. While following in our parents’ footsteps in certain ways may be desirable, we have all experienced traits in them, which we vowed never to imitate in our own lives. Yet, if we are honest, we may catch ourselves doing just what we so vehemently opposed in them. As we return to the patriarchal narrative (see my Introduction to Gen 12-50 and earlier posts on Gen 12-25 and Gen 25-36), we find Jacob repeating his parents’ mistakes all over again. Jacob experienced strife earlier because his father loved Esau, while his mother preferred him (Gen 25:28). The sibling rivalry fuelled by favouritism led to Esau’s murderous intentions and Jacob’s exile for twenty years (Gen 27:42-43; 31:41). Yet, Jacob, forgetting his own past, loved his wife Rachel, but not Leah (the Hebrew uses a stronger term for ‘unloved’ that elsewhere means ‘hatred’ or ‘revulsion’; Gen 29:30, 31).

Jacob’s favouritism

Now, that Rachel is dead (Gen 35:16-21), that fierce love is transferred to Joseph, the firstborn of his mother. The special robe made for him, probably with long sleeves rather than multicoloured (Gen 37:3),[1] is not simply a lavish gift from an indulgent father. Clothes in the ancient world communicated a wearer’s position in society and the only other occurrence of the Hebrew word for this garment refers to the robe of Tamar, King David’s daughter, which is described as royal clothing (2 Sam 13:8). Thus, it is more than likely that in Joseph’s case it expressed pre-eminence and status.

Joseph’s behaviour

Joseph’s own behaviour did not help the situation either. Whether the report he brought back about the brothers was malicious or a true report of something bad they had done is unclear (Gen 37:2), but Joseph certainly did not endear himself to them. His dreams likewise infuriated them (their hatred is mentioned three times, Gen 37:4, 5, 8). Dreams in the ancient world were believed to be significant as a form of communication from God or the gods and the fact that the two dreams essentially repeat the same message twice suggests the certainty of their fulfilment (cf. Gen 41:32).[2] Regardless of how true the dreams turned out to be,[3] Joseph’s immaturity is evident in the way he relates them, oblivious to the effect this creates or perhaps, secure in his father’s love, he is deliberately goading his brothers.

God’s providence

Jacob seems blissfully ignorant of his sons’ hatred for his favourite even though they cannot even muster a semblance of friendliness (Gen 37:4). Thus, he has not the slightest clue that sending Joseph after the brothers is his death sentence (see Ezek 37:11-14 for exile as a form of death). For that matter, neither does Joseph sense any danger. The curious little incident of him wandering (Gen 37:15-17), almost as if lost, expresses more than the physical reality of not finding his brothers. Biblical narrative often works on two levels, actual events and circumstances pointing to the spiritual plane.[4] Thus, Joseph wandering and looking for his brothers is an apt image of his disconnectedness from them. In a spiritual sense, he is also lost because, from God’s perspective, his arrogance disqualifies him from rule and reign. But then a nameless, faceless man appears who happens to find him and who happens to know where the brothers went. If it hadn’t been for him, Joseph would not have found them and been sold into slavery in Egypt.[5] In one sense, he would have been ‘saved’ from all that. In another, he would never have become the man he was meant to be. In God’s providence, he was sent to his ‘death’, but in that dying a new man was born. Joseph’s story encourages us that the most unpromising beginning may lead to a redeemed life because God’s grace is able to overrule. It also teaches us that God is at work in our circumstances. We may not always know what He is doing (sometimes not even in retrospect) but we can trust His love.

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[1] The idea of a multicoloured coat comes from the ancient Greek translation (Septuagint). The Hebrew word is rare and none of the cognate languages provide any helpful clues to its meaning. Scholars today tend to prefer the interpretation that the adjective refers to the length either of the whole garment or the sleeves.

[2] Some scholars question whether these dreams were actually from God or only an expression of Joseph’s inflated ego. I am inclined to think that we are meant to take them as genuine communication from God. Jacob cannot quite dismiss them (Gen 37:10) and later Joseph remembers them when his brothers bow down to him in Egypt (Gen 42:9), which suggest to me something of their importance that is more than just the arrogance of a spoilt young man. Finally, they were fulfilled, which is surely not coincidental.

[3] In the second dream the bowing down of Joseph’s mother may puzzle us (Gen 37:10), since we read earlier that Rachel died giving birth to Benjamin (Gen 35:16-21). Given that not everything is recorded in these accounts chronologically, it is possible that she is still alive at this point, but she certainly would have been dead by the time the family moved to Egypt (she died giving birth to Benjamin who is a young boy/man when the family re-settles in Egypt). Either Bilhah, Rachel’s maid became a kind of mother to Rachel’s sons, or the reference is to Leah, Jacob’s other wife. In any case, the point of the dream is that the whole family will be subject to Joseph, not whether they actually bowed down in person in front of him later.

[4] A classic example of a physical trait pointing to a spiritual reality is Eli’s impaired vision in his old age. This description comes hard on the heels of the statement that visions were rare in those days and is followed by God’s revelation to the young Samuel (1 Sam 3:1-4).

[5] I agree with John H. Walton, who argues that this incident is significant in pointing to God’s providence even in this early stage of the story. God is at work in the events that will follow. Genesis, NIVAC (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), 690.

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