Limavady Reformed Presbyterian Church
Studies in The Life of Joseph
Study 2
Introduction
We began a series of studies last week on the life of Joseph by looking together at his family background. And what a family background it proved to be. We hear a lot today about dysfunctional families. People who have had several partners in life living together with each other; a house full of kids some of them belonging to one of the partners, others of them to the other and some of them the product of the present relationship. Families with major problems when it comes to the area of interpersonal relationships and behavioural patterns with many of the parents vices being reproduced in their children. Well Joseph’s family as we saw last week would not have been in the least bit out of place among the dysfunctional familes of modern day society. His dad had four women living in the house all of whom he had sexual relationships with and who between them had produced 13 children. It was a family that had a long history of deceit, favoritism, rivalry and ill-feeling between and among its members and growing up in such an atmosphere modern day Psycologists would no doubt have expected and predicted that Jospeh’s character and conduct would very much reflect the environment in which he grew up. Such however was not the case as we see from the subsequent narrative. As I pointed out last week a person’s family background and the influences that are brought to bear upon them in their childhood can and often do shape and mould their future character and conduct and that being the case it is important for us as parents to pay diligent attention to the sort of atmosphere and sort of standards we are setting within our family environment as we raise our children. However I also pointed out that that whilst such things can and very of ten do influence the future character and conduct of a child they do not dictate it. Many a good parent who has created a godly family environment for their children to grow up in, in the hope that they will turn out to be fine Christian men and women has witnessed with brokenness of heart their son, their daughter turning ut to be quite the opposite. And there are parents who if the example they had set were followed and the moral and spiritual atmosphere of the home that they had created had been fully imbibed would never have expected their son or their daughter to turn out to be a godly young Christian man or woman and yet despite their family background that is exactly what happened. And so we concluded last week by stressing the principle of individual repsonsibility before God for ones personal character and conduct and acknowledging the sovereign grace of God in shaping and moulding us according to his purposes.
Now this evening as we continue our study of the life of Joseph we are going to return once again to the family home and we are going to trace the factors and the events which eventually led to Joseph being sold as a slave to the Ishmaelities.
As we return to Jospeh’s home life once again notice with me first of all this evening
1) Jospeh – Favoured by his Father
We learn from v3 of chapter 37 that Jacob “loved Joseph more than any of his other sons...”
This was a family in which favoritism was shown by the father towards at least one of his sons over and above the others. Jacob had a deeper affection for Jospeh than he had for his other children. The Bible gives us one reason why this was so but I am sure that this was not the only reason. We are told that he loved Jospeh more than the rest of his sons because “he had been born to him in his old age.” Now if we accept for a moment that this is the best way to translate the original Hebrew wording here, and I will come back to this in a minute, then it seems that one of the reasons why Jacob had a preferetial love for Jospeh over and above his other sons was because baby Jospeh came along very late in Jacob’s life, perhaps at a time when he thought he had reached his full quota of children and unlikely to father any more. It must have been a great disappointment to Jacob that he had not been able to Father any children through Rachel, the woman that he really and truly loved. Year after year she remained barren. Her infertility must have been as much a source of distress to him as it was to rachel herself. And well now Jacob was getting well on in years and of course the older he got the less likely it became that Rachel would ever have a child. But then the day arrived when Rachel no doubt ecstatic with excitement and with joy broke the news to him that she was pregnant and over the ensuing months Jacob eagerly awaited the birth of this child. It was a boy. Just what he wanted. What Joy it must have brought to him. How special this little child was in his eyes. This was the frist child that was conceived as a result of true love, and Jacob, now an old man, just adored him. So part of Jacob’s favoritism towards Jospeh was rooted in the fact that he was the child that Jacob never expected to have both because he himelf was getting on in years and humanly speaking thought that he was at the stage where he was unlikely to be able to father any more children and also because his beloved wife was unable ever to have children. The fact that he went on to have one other child by Rachel, Benjamin, did not take away from the fact that this first child of theirs was very special, an unexpected son in his old age to the woman he loved.
There is another way in which the wording here in v3 can be translated because the literal rendering of the Hebrew here is “Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other sons because he was a son of old men” And there are some Hebrew scholars who believe that Jacob’s preferential love for Joseph lay not so much in the fact that he was the son born to him in his old age, but rather in the peculiar wisdom and maturity of character that Joseph even as a young man poossessed. They point out that this phrase “son of old men” is a Hebraism, a hebrew turn of phrase for saying that he had an old head on young shoulders and that this character trait endeared him to Jacob.
Whislt there may be some disagreement and doubt about the exact meaning of the phrase, there is no disputing the fact that Jospeh was Jacob’s favorite son. I am convinced that Jospeh’s godly character, which as we can guage from the overall narrative, stood in complete contrast to the rest of his brothers, that this also endeared him to his ageing father. Oh how Jacob must have wished that the rest of his sons had turned out like Joseph. So Jospeh, no doubt for a number of reasons ended up being his father’s favorite, his fathers pet.
It wasn’t long before Jacob’s special love for Joseph manifested itself in his special treatment of him, special treatement that took the form of presenting him with the well known ‘coat of many colors” or as the NIV puts it ‘a richly ornamented robe’. Now we have to understand that this cloak was not just a nice new item of clothing that Jacob just happened to see one day when he was out shopping and decided it would be a nice wee present to give to Jospeh, something that Joseph could add to his wardrobe and wear on special occasions. It was much more than that. It was a garment which not only had long sleeves but which also reached right down to ones ankles and as such was not what you might call a funtional garment, not the sort of grment that on would wear as one worked as a shepherd. We see from 2 Sam 13/18 that it was in fact the sort of garment that was worn by royalty - “She was wearing a richly ornamented robe for this was the kind of garment the virgin daughters of the king wore.” Such a garment was worn as a mark of distinction. It was the sort of thing a nobleman or a prince would wear. So when Jacob gave Joseph this garment, no doubt presenting it to him in the presence of the rest of the family, he was in fact making a very clear statement. This was Jacob’s way of letting everyone in the family know that the rights of the firstborn were being conferred on Joseph, that he was the ‘prince’ of the family. Such a distinction of course should have been conferred upon Reuben who was Jacob’s firstborn son through Leah, but it seems that Jacob had already decided, perhaps in the wake of Reubens terrible sin when he had an affair with his stepmother to transfer the rights of inheritance to the one he regarded as his first Son - Joseph. Jospeh occupied the place of pre-eminence in Jacob’s affections and now in presenting him with this robe he was clearly demonstrating that he was conferring on him the place of pre-eminence within the family.
Jospeh then, for various reasons, was very clearly his fathers favorite. “Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other sons.”
And you know brethren Jacob reaped the bitter fruit of his folly in not only allowing himself to have a favorite among his children but of making his preference for Joseph so obvious before the other members of the family. This favoritism as we are going to see engendered, envy, hostility and hatred on the part of the other members of the family towards Joseph.
Isn’t there a solemn warning here to those of us who are parents and who have been blessed by God with more than one child. A warning that cries out from this narrative – ‘beware of favoritism within the family’. As parents we are to love all our children EQUALLY. Regardless of their temperament, their intellectual ability, their gifts, their defects or whatever. There may be something about one of our children that particularly draws us to them because it is something that appeals to our own character, temperament, interests. Maybe there are some of you fathers here this evening who have a couple of sons in your family and from a very early age one of those sons has shown a real interest in lets say sport whereas the other son has absolutely no interest whatsoever. And because you yourself are very interested in sport you find yourself being drawn more naturally to the more sporty of your two sons. Well can I say this to you – Beware, Be on your guard lest you begin to favor that son over and above your other son. Or maybe there is one of your children who is evidently much brighter than the others and every year at the end of term when the reports come home, she is streets ahead of the rest of the family. She gets straight A’s and all the comments by her teachers are encouraging and complimentary whereas the reports of the other children in the family are either pretty average or rather poor. Well listen parents, beware, be on your guard lest you fall into the trap of favoring the child who is evidently more intellectually gifted than the others. Don’t do what some parents have done in the past and said to the children in the family who didn’t perform as well as their sister or their brother – “I wish you were like Angela, or I wish you were like Peter” It is all to easy to have a deeper feeling of love for and hence to be in danger of showing favoritism towards that child who is easy to rear, who doesn’t give you any trouble, who is very cooperative, always does what you say, is very appreciative of everything you give them or do for them, and who is quite the reverse in all these things of that other child of yours who is much more difficult, more disobedient, less cooperative and less appreciative. Brethren favoritism in a family is evil and the source of bitterness, jealously and sorrow. Each child will have a different disposition, different abilities, different character traits, and we must never allow any such differences, nor anything else for that matter to cause us to distinguish between them in our love for them. There must not only be perfect equity in our relationships with our children, there must be seen to be such. No one child should ever be identified as their parent’s “pet”. More often than not the “pet” of the family ends up becoming “petted”, ends up becoming haughty and arrogant towards the other children in the family and thus the children become alienated in their affections the one for the other with mummy or daddy’s favorite being despised by the rest. “Is that you pet” Said a father as he awoke and saw one of his children standing at the door of his bedroom in the early hours of the morning. “No it isn’t pet” came the sad reply “its only me, pet’s still sleeping in her bed”. The father was cut by the little boys reply and that was the last time that that word pet was used in that household.
Beware of favoritism within the family.
Well having considered Joseph – Favoured by His Father notice with me secondly
2) Joseph’s Hated by His Brothers:
How did Joseph’s brothers react to the fact that Joseph was evidently the favored son in the family? Did it have any effect upon them? Did it affect the relationships within that home? We read in v3 “when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him (Joseph) and could not speak a kind word to him.”
Joseph, the father’s pet, became the object of his brother’s hatred. They couldn’t even speak civily to the young lad. The very sight of him provoked feelings of animosity towards him. He may have been very close to Jacob’s heart but he was totally alienated from the rest of the members of the family. The other brothers were no doubt jealous of Joseph and their jealousy soon turned to resentment and resentment in turn produced feelings of hatred. Try to imagine the atmosphere in that home. It must have been like a powder Keg of dynamite just about to explode.
And as if the situation wasn’t bad enough Joseph made matters worse by telling his brothers about two recent dreams he had. In the first they were all out together in the field binding sheaves of corn and the sheaf he had been working on suddenly rose up and stood upright whereupon the sheaves that his brothers had been working on, all gathered round Joseph’s sheaf and bowed down to it. In the second dream the Sun the Moon and eleven stars were bowing down to him. Now you have to remember that in those days people regarded dreams as being very important and believed them to be a means by which a persons future was revealed. And in this case it seems quite clearly that this was what was happening here. God was revealing to Joseph, albeit in broad outline, his future plans for Joseph, plans which involved Joseph’s rise to some position of prominence. Joseph’s brothers didn’t need anyone to interpret the dreams for them. It was obvious to everyone that these dreams where pointing to Joseph occupying some future leadership role, and that they would in some way be subservient to him. And given their already exiting antagonism towards Joseph we are not surprised when we read in vs8,11 how they reacted to these dreams – “they hated him all the more because of his dream…his brothers were jealous of him.” In reporting these dreams Joseph was adding fuel to the fire of their jealousy, resentment and hatred towards him, a fire that was already well alight.
And those feelings of envy and resentment and hatred which were already manifesting themselves in various ways within that family circle were soon given full vent when one day a suitable opportunity arose to do so. The brothers were looking after the family flock of sheep quite a bit away from their home when one day who did they see in the distance coming towards them – Joseph. And what was he wearing? The very thing that symbolised everything that they resented about Joseph, that coat that daddy had given to his wee pet. And in that moment, as they saw Joseph coming towards them, the Vesuvius of their inner hatred erupted and they decided to take this opportunity to deal with him once and for all. So strong were their feelings of hatred towards him that they were quite prepared to kill him. V18 “they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them they plotted to kill him. Here comes THAT DREAMER (you can almost hear the resentment and hatred in their voices) come now let us kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we will see what becomes of his dreams."
That which began in the heart as Jealousy, in a very short space of time led to resentment and resentment to hatred and hatred to cruelty.
The fact that the brothers didn’t end up actually murdering him but instead selling him as a slave to the Midianites, owed more to God’s overruling providence in preserving Joseph with a view to the fulfillment of God’s purposes, than it did to any reduction in their intensity of the feelings of hatred towards him. They were not moved to pity as struggled and cried out for mercy when they tore that hated coat of his back and threw him into the pit. Their was no compassion in their heart, only hatred and an attitude of good riddance as they watched Joseph disappear in the distance behind the caravan of the Midianite traders.
Then having committed their evil deed they tried to cover it up by deceiving their father into thinking that Joseph had been mauled to death by a wild beast and by hypocritically trying to comfort him in his deeply felt pain and sorrow.
See brethren what havoc favoritism can reek in a family. Look at the jealousy and the hatred and the cruelty it spawned. See how it tore this family apart and brought pain and sorrow into it.
See what can happen when there is a breakdown in interpersonal relationships within a home. See what can happen when jealousy gets a foothold in a persons life. Yes it was wrong and foolish of Jacob to show favoritism towards Joseph but it was also wrong for the rest of the family to become Jealous. The root of all the sin in this chapter can be traced to envy. Stephen in Acts 7/9 gives a summary statement of the events recorded in Genesis 37 and says “Because the patriarchs were jealous of Joseph they sold him as a slave into Egypt.” Everything recorded here in this chapter of Joseph’s brothers, their resentment, their malice, their hatred, their conspiracy, their cruelty, their deceit, their hypocrisy, it all sprang originally from envy.
Brethren this narrative not only warns us about the dangers of favoritism within the family it also warns us against the danger and tells us to beware of the awful sin of envy.
Solomon was right when he said “jealousy is as cruel as the grave.” If Jealousy gets a hold of a persons life and it is allowed to grow and fester it can and usually does lead to disastrous consequences. It can do irreparable damage to relationships both within the home and within the Church. James tells us that “where you find envy, you find disorder and every evil work.”
Are you Jealous of someone? Someone in your family. Someone in this congregation. Someone in your school / work. Listen if you are deal with it. How? Recognise it for the ugly sin that it is. Realize how destructive a force it can be if it is allowed to get a hold in a persons life. And then go to God confess it, seek forgiveness and pray for help to overcome it.
But we don’t want to leave this narrative this evening with the thought of Joseph being the Object of his brothers hatred. Lets finish on a more positive note and notice with me in conclusion
3) Joseph – Protected By God:
Why did the brothers not kill Joseph as they had originally planned? Well the narrative explains top us the various human factors which contributed to them deciding to sell him instead. Reuben’s intervention. The appearance of the Ishmaelites just at that time and their willingness to pay a good price for the boy. The brothers greed and so on. But behind all these human factors there was the sovereign hand of God at work preserving and protecting Joseph because God had a predetermined plan for Joseph’s life. His brothers could only do to him that which God allowed them to do and that which was in keeping with his purposes of grace for his servant. Yes as we shall see that plan involved hardship and pain and suffering, but it ultimately led to the fulfillment of that which God had shown Joseph in those prophetic revelatory dreams, Joseph being exalted before and the savior of his brethren.
It is comforting and assuring to know that God so overrules each and every event in our life to in order to accomplish his predetermined and gracious purpose for each one of us. Even the sinful attitudes and actions of others towards us, even hard and difficult and painful personal experiences, God is in control of them and he works them for our ultimate good and for his glory.
Further sermons in series will be posted later or view them at our web site – www.limavadyrpc.co.uk.
e.mail our pastor revrobb@limavadyrpc.co.uk
