Genesis 37:1-11, Hatred in the House of Israel Remsen Bible Fellowship, 05/03/2026 Introduction They should have been excited. They should have been waiting for a kingly figure to appear. They should have remembered the promises given to their ancestors, promises of kings who would be descended from their line, of the Snake-Crushing Seed of the Woman. But when he came, they hated him. The Beloved Son came to his own, and his own did not receive him. He was despised and rejected. A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. I’m talking, of course, about Joseph and his brothers. We’ve already read the sermon text in the service, Genesis 37:1-11. Turn there with me in your bibles. Joseph was the 11th son of Jacob, and Jacob was the son of Isaac, son of Abraham. Jacob’s journey had been a long and winding one. Before his birth, he struggled together with his brother Esau inside of their mother, Rebekah. When she asked why she was in such turmoil, the Lord revealed to her that she was not only carrying two sons, but two nations. And, counter to the typical pattern in the Ancient Near East, it would not be the oldest son who would become the greater nation. Rather, the older would serve the younger. Jacob was the younger son. But though he was the child of promise, who, like his father Isaac, was chosen by God before his birth to be the one through whom God’s promises came, he was not the favorite of his father. And so, he accomplished his position, not through straightforward blessing, but by trickery and deceit. He purchased his brother’s birthright and stole the blessing of their father, a set of actions which infuriated his brother Esau, and led to Jacob fleeing for his life. And, while on the run, God appeared to Jacob. He showed him a staircase to heaven, promised to bring him back to the land he was at that moment fleeing, and promised to bless the world through Jacob and his descendants. In the years that followed, as Jacob lived in exile (as it were), it seemed that perhaps God’s promises would come to nothing. Jacob was the victim of another man’s scheming, He was out-Jacobed by Laban, the man who became his father-in-law—twice over, as Jacob was tricked into marrying Leah, and then married her younger sister Rachel, as well (whom he had wanted to marry in the first place). But then there arises a great rivalry between the sisters, who are having a competition for Jacob’s affection, which they viewed as being tied to their fertility, and so they enlisted the aid of their servants, and Jacob ended up having children by four different women. Not exactly the picture of a godly family and home life. Nonetheless, the Lord did continue to bless Jacob. Not because he deserved it, but because this was God’s promise to Jacob and to his fathers. Despite Laban’s schemes, despite the sins of Jacob and his wives, despite all that they tried to do to muck up God’s plan, God continued to bless Jacob. And eventually, God brought him back to the land of Canaan. That story is told in chapters 32-35, with the beginning of chapter 35 highlighting God’s renewed blessing for, and renaming of, Jacob. He now would have a second name, Israel—the one who wrestles with God. In chapter 36, the camera pans over to Israel’s brother Esau, and we get the generations of Esau, with a genealogy that spans hundreds of years—and a common theme in Genesis is reiterated: God’s promise to bless the nations through Abraham’s seed seems to be flowing through the wrong sons. Jacob had twelve sons—which is a lot—but not nearly as many as his brother’s multitudes listed in chapter 36. The author, Moses, wants us to feel the tension. Could the promises of God fail? But then, we remember: he had brought Jacob back to the land of his father’s sojournings, the land of Canaan (v1). Verse two begins by telling us that what we will now read “are the generations of Jacob.” Now, attentive hearer, you may remember that the phrase, “generations of Esau” had led into the genealogy in the previous chapter. Not so in chapter 37. This phrase, “the generations of” occurs 11 times in the book of Genesis, and this is the final occurrence. It functions as a form of literary marker, and breaks the book into sections. And this final section of the book isn’t a list of names—it is one of the most intriguing stories in the whole biblical narrative. It is intriguing not least of all because we are told these are “the generations of Jacob” and then the camera shifts immediately to one of his sons. In our text this morning we will look at three scenes, each of which focus primarily on one son of Jacob, the eleventh son, Joseph. And Joseph isn’t merely the main character in the next 11 verses, but he is the dominant figure through the rest of Genesis chapters 37-50. Don’t get me wrong: these are the generations of Jacob, and Jacob’s story is far from finished. There will also be some focus on Reuben, the oldest brother, and an increasing focus on Judah, the fourth brother. But Joseph is center-stage throughout the rest of this book. Scene One: The Beloved Son As we come to the story of Joseph, this first scene gives three hints that perhaps this is the king that we, the readers of Genesis, and, more importantly, the members of Jacob’s family, should have been waiting for. We are told in verse two that Joseph was seventeen years old, and that he was pasturing the flock with his brothers. The next sentence tells us that he had grown up with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, here referred to as his father’s wives, though technically we might refer to them as concubines. Now, bringing a bad report about your brothers, especially your older brothers, is not exactly a great way to win friends and influence people, as any older siblings in the room will attest. No older brother was glad when a younger sibling ratted him out. But what compounds the problem here is that Joseph was already more loved by his father than any of the other brothers. And so if anything is worse than “having a bad report” brought against you, it’s when dad’s favorite is the one doing the reporting. It seems that perhaps this was a pattern—that perhaps there were multiple bad reports about the brothers over the course of time, and eventually Jacob gives Joseph a coat. Now, we can read this today and think, “oh, favoritism, that’s bad” “don’t give a nice gift to one kid and not the others”—and sure, true enough. Probably not a great move on Jacob’s part. But probably this is more than simple favoritism. This coat is described in most English Bibles, following the tradition of the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate, as a “coat of many colors.” However, the phrase only occurs one other time in the OT, and there it refers to a long-sleeved garment. In either case, what this coat symbolizes is likely a place of prominence and authority, not simply in Jacob’s affections, but in the family and clan hierarchy. We can deduce this from the fact that Joseph seems to have a supervisory role in the family livestock operation, rather than being a shepherd like his brothers (v12ff). And we can assume that this is due, at least in part, to his genuine competence. The narrator never once portrays Joseph in a negative light—not because he was sinless, but because his role in the story is as an exemplary figure, and, as we shall see, as a righteous sufferer. Joseph was trustworthy and loved by Jacob. He was entrusted by his father to be a man of authority. But that didn’t lead to acceptance by his brothers. When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all the others, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him (v4). Joseph is given authority, but the response of his brothers is hatred. Scene Two: Grainy Dreams The second scene takes us to Joseph’s first dream. And “Joseph the hated” does not improve his cause with his brothers by telling them this dream. Moses hasn’t even told us the dream yet, and he feels the need to tell us this will not be well received by Rueben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, and company. Now, I just said a few moments ago that Joseph is never portrayed in a negative light—and part of that statement is based on how I take his actions here. In the ancient world dreams were counted as being of enormous symbolic value, something which was true earlier in the story of Jacob’s own life, and in the lives of his ancestors. So while some modern commentators claim that Joseph is being arrogant or a jerk by sharing these dreams, my understanding would be that he is simply sharing what seems to him to be very important information. He may be naive in doing so, or maybe his motives are less-than-pure—but this is never indicated by the text itself. And what is this first dream? In the dream, Joseph and his brothers were all binding sheaves in the field—a harvest time activity. Obviously they didn’t have combines to harvest grain, and so they would cut down the stalks and bind them together to dry, before eventually taking them to the threshing floor to separate the kernel of grain from the chaff. So Joseph is dreaming about work. Many of us could relate. But then, something strange happens—his brothers sheaves all gather round his and bow down. They pay him obeisance, as if he were the king of all the grain sheafs. The brothers immediately understood the symbolism—and are outraged. “Are you indeed to reign over us? Are you to rule over us?” They recognized that what Joseph was dreaming about was his authority and rule over them, and they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words. They already didn’t like him. He was the favorite son of the favored wife. Their father loved him more. He had been given authority over them. And now he had to go and tell them this dream. Whether he was socially dense or simply felt compelled to share what he had dreamed, he
