Introduction: Today we’re going to begin reading the story of Joseph from Genesis 37-50.  This might be my favorite entire story in the Bible, and is one of the most complete and complex gifts from ancient literature.    

Like most stories, the Bible doesn’t give us a “meaning” or a “lesson” anywhere along the line.  Every character is human – with things you might admire and things that make you scratch your head.  The story just tells what happened, nudges our attention toward what the author thinks is important, and invites you and I to watch it unfold.    

Read it, and read it again, and you’ll discover more than you imagined was there The joy is in the nuance, seemingly inconsequential details, and in occasionally wondering what God might think about all this.  

Just read it.  

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1) Dad’s Favorite, from Genesis 37

“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 (who is also called “Jacob”) 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.”

Good stories use their first words to show us what we should keep our eyes on.  You know that Joseph is seventeen – think of what a 17-year-old boy is like.  You also hear that Joseph is dad’s favorite.  You know this, and more importantly, his brothers know it.  And “they hated him.”  

A little background might be useful.  Joseph’s family lived in the land of Canaan, near the Mediterranean Sea, and was quite prosperous from raising sheep.  Some of his brothers were grown men by the time Joseph came along, and a few, like Reuben, Simeon, and Levi, had done wicked things.  These brothers came from different mothers – some men had many wives back then, though God didn’t encourage it.  After Joseph, Jacob would have one more son, Benjamin, who will come up later in the story.  

So we know Joseph was dad’s favorite, and that dad showed this to everyone.  We also know his brothers hated Joseph for it, they resented dad, and they’re capable of doing terrible things.  

One night, Joseph had a dream: “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.”  Then he had another dream: “This time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”  Joseph told his brothers about the dreams, and they weren’t too pleased.  Even Jacob told his son to keep quiet about it.

So Joseph’s simplicity (or foolishness?), and his brothers’ jealousy, are mixed together in a pot.    In the next story, it will boil over.   

Make it a great trip!

Daddio