Genesis 37:1

Moses has no more to say of the Edomites, unless as they happen to fall in Israel's way; but now applies himself closely to the story of Jacob's family: These are the generations of Jacob. His is not a bare barren genealogy as that of Esau (Gen 36:1), but a memorable useful history. Here is, 1. Jacob a sojourner with his father Isaac, who has yet living, Gen 37:1. We shall never be at home, till we come to heaven. 2. Joseph, a shepherd, feeding the flock with his brethren, Gen 37:2. Though he was his father's darling, yet he was not brought up in idleness or delicacy. Those do not truly love their children that do not inure them to business, and labour, and mortification. The fondling of children is with good reason commonly called the spoiling of them. Those that are trained up to do nothing are likely to be good for nothing. 3. Joseph beloved by his father (Gen 37:3), partly for his dear mother's sake that was dead, and partly for his own sake, because he was the greatest comfort of his old age; probably he waited on him, and was more observant of him than the rest of his sons; he was the son of the ancient so some; that is, when he was a child, he was as grave and discreet as if he had been an old man, a child, but not childish. Jacob proclaimed his affection to him by dressing him finer than the rest of his children: He made him a coat of divers colours, which probably was significant of further honors intended him. Note, Though those children are happy that have that in them which justly recommends them to their parents' particular love, yet it is the prudence of parents not to make a difference between one child and another, unless there be a great and manifest cause given for it by the children's dutifulness or undutifulness; paternal government must be impartial, and managed with a steady hand. 4. Joseph hated by his brethren, (1.) Because his father loved him; when parents make a difference, children soon take notice of it, and it often occasions feuds and quarrels in families. (2.) Because he brought to his father their evil report. Jacob's sons did that, when they were from under his eye, which they durst not have done if they had been at home with him; but Joseph gave his father an account of their bad carriage, that he might reprove and restrain them; not as a malicious tale-bearer, to sow discord, but as a faithful brother, who, when he durst not admonish them himself, represented their faults to one that had authority to admonish them. Note, [1.] It is common for friendly monitors to be looked upon as enemies. Those that hate to be reformed hate those that would reform them, Pro 9:8. [2.] It is common for those that are beloved of God to be hated by the world; whom Heaven blesses, hell curses. To those to whom God speaks comfortably wicked men will not speak peaceably. It is said here of Joseph, the lad was with the sons of Bilhah; some read it, and he was servant to them, they made him their drudge.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Gen 37:1 And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan.

Ver. 1. In the land of his father’s sojournings (Marg.).] The dukes of Edom had habitations in the land of their possessions. {Gen 36:43} But Jacob, with his father Isaac, were pilgrims in the land of Canaan; content to dwell in tents here, that they might dwell with God for ever. Justin Martyr saith of the Christians of his time: They dwell in their own countries but as strangers; have fight to all, as citizens; but suffer hardship, as foreigners, &c. {a}

{a} Pατπιδας οικουσιν ιδιας, αλλ" ως παροικοι, &c. - Epist. ad Diognetum.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

- Joseph Was Sold into Egypt

17. דתין dotayı̂n Dothain, “two wells?” (Gesenius)

25. נכאת neko't “tragacanth” or goat’s-thorn gum, yielded by the “astragalus gummifer”, a native of Mount Lebanon. צרי tsērı̂y “opobalsamum,” the resin of the balsam tree, growing in Gilead, and having healing qualities. לט loṭ, λῆδον lēdon, “ledum, ladanum,” in the Septuagint στακτή staktē. The former is a gum produced from the cistus rose. The latter is a gum resembling liquid myrrh.

36. פוטיפר pôṭı̂yphar Potiphar, “belonging to the sun.”

The sketch of the race of Edom, given in the preceding piece, we have seen, reaches down to the time of Moses. Accordingly, the history of Jacob’s seed, which is brought before us in the present document, reverts to a point of time not only before the close of that piece, but before the final record of what precedes it. The thread of the narrative is here taken up from the return of Jacob to Hebron, which was seventeen years before the death of Isaac.

Gen 37:1-5

Joseph is the favorite of his father, but not of his brethren. “In the land of his father’s sojournings.” This contrasts Jacob with Esau, who removed to Mount Seir. This notice precedes the phrase, “These are the generations.” The corresponding sentence in the case of Isaac is placed at the end of the preceding section of the narrative Gen 25:11. “The son of seventeen years;” in his seventeenth year Gen 37:32. “The sons of Bilhah.” The sons of the handmaids were nearer his own age, and perhaps more tolerant of the favorite than the sons of Leah the free wife. Benjamin at this time was about four years of age. “An evil report of them.” The unsophisticated child of home is prompt in the disapproval of evil, and frank in the avowal of his feelings. What the evil was we are not informed; but Jacob’s full-grown sons were now far from the paternal eye, and prone, as it seems, to give way to temptation. Many scandals come out to view in the chosen family. “Loved Joseph.” He was the son of his best-loved wife, and of his old age; as Benjamin had not yet come into much notice. “A Coat of many colors.” This was a coat reaching to the hands and feet, worn by persons not much occupied with manual labor, according to the general opinion. It was, we conceive, variegated either by the loom or the needle, and is therefore, well rendered χιτὼν ποικίλος chitōn poikilos, a motley coat. “Could not bid peace to him.” The partiality of his father, exhibited in so weak a manner, provokes the anger of his brothers, who cannot bid him good-day, or greet him in the ordinary terms of good-will.

Gen 37:5-11

Joseph’s dreams excite the jealousy of his brothers. His frankness in reciting his dream to his brothers marks a spirit devoid of guile, and only dimly conscious of the import of his nightly visions. The first dream represents by a figure the humble submission of all his brothers to him, as they rightly interpret it. “For his dreams and for his words.” The meaning of this dream was offensive enough, and his telling of it rendered it even more disagreeable. A second dream is given to express the certainty of the event Gen 41:32. The former serves to interpret the latter. There the sheaves are connected with the brothers who bound them, and thereby indicate the parties. The eleven stars are not so connected with them. But here Joseph is introduced directly without a figure, and the number eleven, taken along with the eleven sheaves of the former dream, makes the application to the brothers plain. The sun and moon clearly point out the father and mother. The mother is to be taken, we conceive, in the abstract, without nicely inquiring whether it means the departed Rachel, or the probably still living Leah. Not even the latter seems to have lived to see the fulfillment of this prophetic dream Gen 49:31. The second dream only aggravated the hatred of his brothers; but his father, while rebuking him for his speeches, yet marked the saying. The rebuke seems to imply that the dream, or the telling of it, appears to his father to indicate the lurking of a self-sufficient or ambitious spirit within the breast of the youthful Joseph. The twofold intimation, however, came from a higher source.

Gen 37:12-17

Joseph is sent to Dothan. Shekem belonged to Jacob; part of it by purchase, and the rest by conquest. Joseph is sent to inquire of their welfare (שׁלום shālom “peace,” Gen 37:4). With obedient promptness the youth goes to Shekem, where he learns that they had removed to Dothan, a town about twelve miles due north of Shekem.

Gen 37:18-24

His brothers cast him into a pit. “This master of dreams;” an eastern phrase for a dreamer. “Let us slay him.” They had a foreboding that his dreams might prove true, and that he would become their arbitrary master. This thought at all events would abate somewhat of the barbarity of their designs. It is implied in the closing sentence of their proposal. Reuben dissuades them from the act of murder, and advises merely to cast him into the pit, to which they consent. He had a more tender heart, and perhaps a more tender conscience than the rest, and intended to send Joseph back safe to his father. He doubtless took care to choose a pit that was without water.

Gen 37:25-30

Reuben rips his clothes when he finds Joseph gone. “To eat bread.” This shows the cold and heartless cruelty of their deed. “A caravan” - a company of travelling merchants. “Ishmaelites.” Ishmael left his father’s house when about fourteen or fifteen years of age. His mother took him a wife probably when he was eighteen, or twenty at the furthest. He had arrived at the latter age about one hundred and sixty-two years before the date of the present occurrence. He had twelve sons Gen 25:13-15, and if we allow only four other generations and a fivefold increase, there will be about fifteen thousand in the fifth generation. “Came from Gilead;” celebrated for its balm Jer 8:22; Jer 46:11. The caravan road from Damascus to Egypt touches upon the land of Gilead, goes through Beth-shean, and passes by Dothan. “Spicery.” This gum is called tragacanth, or goats-thorn gum, because it was supposed to be obtained from this plant. “Balm,” or balsam; an aromatic substance obtained from a plant of the genus Amyris, a native of Gilead. “Myrrh” is the name of a gum exuding from the balsamodendron myrrha, growing in Arabia Felix. “Lot,” however, is supposed to be the resinous juice of the cistus or rock rose, a plant growing in Crete and Syria. Judah, relenting, and revolting perhaps from the crime of fratricide, proposes to sell Joseph to the merchants.

Midianites and Medanites Gen 37:36 are mere variations apparently of the same name. They seem to have been the actual purchasers, though the caravan takes its name from the Ishmaelites, who formed by far the larger portion of it. Midian and Medan were both sons of Abraham, and during one hundred and twenty-five years must have increased to a small clan. Thus, Joseph is sold to the descendants of Abraham. “Twenty silver pieces;” probably shekels. This is the rate at which Moses estimates a male from five to twenty years old Lev 27:5. A man-servant was valued by him at thirty shekels Exo 21:32. Reuben finding Joseph gone, rends his clothes, in token of anguish of mind for the loss of his brother and the grief of his father.

Gen 37:31-36

The brothers contrive to conceal their crime; and Joseph is sold into Egypt. “Torn, torn in pieces is Joseph.” The sight of the bloody coat convinces Jacob at once that Joseph has been devoured by a wild beast. “All his daughters.” Only one daughter of Jacob is mentioned by name. These are probably his daughters-in-law. “To the grave.” Sheol is the place to which the soul departs at death. It is so called from its ever craving, or being empty. “Minister.” This word originally means eunuch, and then, generally, any officer about the court or person of the sovereign. “Captain of the guards.” The guards are the executioners of the sentences passed by the sovereign on culprits, which were often arbitrary, summary, and extremely severe. It is manifest, from this dark chapter, that the power of sin has not been extinguished in the family of Jacob. The name of God does not appear, and his hand is at present only dimly seen among the wicked designs, deeds, and devices of these unnatural brothers. Nevertheless, his counsel of mercy standeth sure, and fixed is his purpose to bring salvation to the whole race of man, by means of his special covenant with Abraham.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Gen_37:1-2

Joseph

The history of Joseph

Josephs is one of the most interesting histories in the world.

He has the strange power of uniting our hearts to him, as to a well-beloved friend. He had the genius to be loved greatly, because he had the genius to love greatly, and his genius still lives in these Bible pages.

I. JOSEPH WAS A HATED BROTHER. The boy was his fathers pet. Very likely he was the perfect picture of Rachel who was gone, and so Jacob saw and loved in him his sainted wife. In token of love his father foolishly gave him a coat of many colours, to which, alas! the colour of blood was soon added. It was for no good reason that his brothers hated him. Joseph brought unto his father their evil report. Not that he was a sneaking tell-tale; but he would not do as they did, nor would he hide from his father their evil doings. God means the children of a family to feel bound together by bands that grapple the heart, and to stand true to one another to lifes end. Reverence the mighty ties of kindred which God has fashioned. Joseph also teaches you never to make any one your foe without a very good reason. The weakest whom you wrong may one day be your master.

II. JOSEPH WAS A BLAMELESS YOUTH. Though terribly tempted, he never yielded. He was shamefully wronged, yet he was not hardened or soured. His soul was like the oak which is nursed into strength by storms. In his heart, not on it, he wore a talisman that destroyed sins charms. The heavently plan of his piety disclosed all its beauty, and gave out its sweet odours in the wicked palaces of Potiphar and Pharaoh.

III. JOSEPH WAS A FAMOUS RULER. He entered Egypt as a Hebrew slave, and became its prime minister. He was the hero of his age, the saviour of his country, the most successful man of his day. He became so great because he was so good; he was a noble man because he was a thorough man of God.

IV. JOSEPH WAS A TYPE OF CHRIST. Joseph, like Jesus, was his fathers well-beloved son, the best of brothers, yet hated and rejected by his own; was sold from envy for a few pieces of silver, endured a great temptation, yet without sin; was brought into a low estate and falsely condemned; was the greatest of forgivers, the forgiver of his own murderers; and was in all things the son and hope of Israel. (J. Wells.)

The commencement of Josephs history

I. As DISTINGUISHED BY HIS EARLY PIETY. His conduct was not back-biting, but a filial confidential report to his father.

1. It showed his love of truth and right. He would not suffer his father to be deceived by a false estimate of the conduct of his sons. He must be made acquainted with the truth, however painful, or be the consequences what they might to all concerned.

2. It showed his unwillingness to be a partaker of other mens sins.

3. It showed a spirit of ready obedience. He knew that a faithful report of the conduct of his brethren was a duty he owed to his father.

II. As MARKED OUT FOR A GREAT DESTINY. III. AS THE OBJECT OF ENVY AND HATRED.

1. Because of his faithful testimony.

2. Because of his fathers partiality.

3. Because of the distinction for which God had destined him. (T. H.Leale.)

Jacob and Joseph

I. THE DIVISION FOUND IN JACOBS FAMILY. Four reasons for this.

1. Jacobs favouritism for Joseph.

2. The scandal-bearing of Joseph.

3. The polygamy of Jacob.

4. The envy of the brothers.

II. JOSEPHS MISSION TO SHECHEM. Observe here the bloodguiltiness of these brothers; they did not take Josephs life, but they intended to take it; they were therefore murderers. Let us make a distinction; for when we are told that the thought is as bad as the crime, sometimes we are tempted to argue thus: I have indulged the thought, I will therefore do the deed, it will be no worse. This sophistry can scarcely deceive the heart that uses it; yet, merely to put the thing verbally right, let us strip it of its casuistry. The thought is as bad as the act, because the act would be committed if it could. But if these brethren of Joseph had mourned over and repented of their sin, would we dare to say that the thought would have been as bad as the act? But we do say that the thought in this case was as bad as the act, because it was not restrained or prevented by any regret or repentant feeling; it was merely prevented by the coming in of another passion, it was the triumph of avarice over malice. But all these brothers were not equally guilty. Simeon and Levi and others wished to slay Joseph; Judah proposed his being sold into captivity; while Reuben tried to save him secretly, although he had not courage to save him openly. He proposed that he should be put into the pit, intending to take him out when the others were not by. His conduct in this instance was just in accordance with his character, which seems to have been remarkable for a certain softness. He did not dare to shed his brothers blood, neither did he dare manfully to save him. He was not cruel, simply because he was guilty of a different class of sin. It is well for us, before we take credit to ourselves for being free from that or this sin, to inquire whether it be banished by grace or only by another sin. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)

The fathers favourite, and the brothers censor

1. We are taught here the evil of favouritism in the family. The balance, as between the different children in the same household, must be held evenly by the parents. No one ought to be the pet of either father or mother, for the pet is apt to become petted, haughty, and arrogant towards the others; while the showing of constant favour to him alienates the affections of the rest, both from him and from the parents. Is that you, Pet? said a father from his bedroom to a little one who stood at the door in the early morning knocking for admission. No, it isnt Pet, its only me, replied a sorrowful little voice; and that was the last of pet in that family. See what mischief it occasioned here in Jacobs household!

2. We may learn from this narrative how bitter is the antagonism of the wicked to the righteous in the world. The real root of the hatred of Josephs brethren is to be traced to the fact that he would not consent to be one of them, and join in the doing of things which they knew that their father would condemn. His conscience was tender, his heart was pure, his will was firm. He was a Puritan and they were regardless, and they chose to set down his non-conformity to pride rather than to principle, and persecuted him accordingly. There is an immense amount of petty persecution of this sort going on in all our colleges, commercial establishments, and factories, of which the principals and the great world seldom hear, but which shows us that the human nature of to-day is in its great features identical with that which existed many centuries ago in the family of Jacob. What then? Are the upright to yield? are they to abate their protest? are they to become even as the others? No; for that would be to take the leaven out of the mass; that would be to let evil become triumphant, and so that must never be thought of. Let the persecuted in these ways hold out. Let them neither retaliate, nor recriminate, nor carry evil reports, but let them simply hold on, believing that he that endureth overcometh.

3. The case of Joseph here brings up the whole question of our responsibility in regard to what we see and hear that is evil in other people. I have come to the conclusion that Joseph was by his father placed in formal charge of his brokers, and that it was is duty to give a truthful report concerning them, even as to-day an overseer is bound in justice to his employer to state precisely the kind of service which those under him are rendering. That is no tale-bearing; that is simple duty. But now, suppose we are invested with no such charge over another, and yet we see him do something that is deplorably wrong, what is our duty in such a case? Are we bound to carry the report to his father or to his employer, or must we leave things alone and let them take their course? The question so put is a delicate one and very difficult to handle. But I think I see two or three things that cast some little light upon it.

(1) In the first place we are not bound by any law, human or divine, to act the part of a detective on our neighbour and lay ourselves out for the discovery of that in him which is disreputable or dishonest. We must have detectives in the department of police, and they are very serviceable there; but that every one of us should be closely watching every other to see what evil he can discover in him is intolerable, and we should discourage in all young people every tendency to such peering Paul Pryism.

(2) Then, in the second place, when, without any such deliberate inspection on our part, we happen to see that which is wrong, we should, in the way in which we treat the case, make a distinction between a crime and a vice. A crime is that which is a violation of the civil law; a vice is that which, without violating the civil law, is a sin against God. Now suppose that what we see is a crime--the man, let us say, is robbing his employer--then my clear duty, if I would not be a particeps criminis, is to give information to his master, and let him deal with the case as he sees fit. On the other hand, if the evil is a vice--say, for example, sensuality or the like, which does not, directly at least interfere with his efficiency as a servant--then I must deal with himself alone. If he hear me, then I have gained him; but if he refuse to hear me, then I may say to him that, as he has chosen to pay no heed to my expostulation, I shall feel it my duty to inform his father of the matter; and then, having acted out that determination, I may consider that my responsibility in regard to him is at an end, unless, in Gods providence, there is given me some other opening through which to approach him. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)

Joseph at home

I. THE OCCUPATION OF HIS EARLY YEARS. Trained from youth to healthy labour and useful employment. Idleness, like pride, was never made for man.

II. THE ACCOUNT WHICH HE GAVE TO HIS FATHER OF WHAT HE HAD SEEN WHILE WITH HIS BRETHREN. When open and undisguised sin has actually been committed before our eyes, we are on no account to wink at it. It is a time to speak when, by reporting what is amiss to those who have power to restrain and correct it, we may either put an end to that evil, or bring those to repentance who have committed it. This, however, is both a difficult and painful duty, and it requires much wisdom and grace to perform it aright.

III. ISRAELS SPECIAL LOVE FOR JOSEPH.

IV. THE MANNER IN WHICH HE SHOWED HIS PARTIALITY. Various ways may be found of showing our approbation of those that are good, without displaying those outward marks of distinction, which are almost certain to provoke the envy of others.

V. THE IMPROPER FEELINGS AWAKENED IN THE BREASTS OF HIS OTHER CHILDREN.

VI. JOSEPHS REMARKABLE DREAMS. He dreamt of preferment, but not of imprisonment. (C. Overton.)

Joseph the favourite son

1. Joseph, though the object of his fathers tenderest love, was not brought up to idleness. The young man who is desirous of rising in the world, should not forget that the worlds prizes are for those who win them on the field of toil.

2. It is impossible to determine whether it was Jacobs partiality and Josephs superior merit which secured for him the office of superintendent of his brethren. Whatever may have secured him the situation, he seems to have proved himself equal to it.

3. Jacobs ill-disguised partiality for the son of endeared Rachel prompted him to an act injurious at once to himself, to Joseph, and to his other children. (J. S. Van Dyke.)

Josephs first experience of life

I. This young man was taught to work.

II. He was placed in favourable circumstances.

III. He saw the iniquity of society.

IV. He remained uncontaminated in the midst of evil.

V. He sought to better society: (Homilist.)

Lessons

1. The Churchs line is drawn by Gods Spirit eminently opposite to the wicked.

2. The Churchs generations are best made out from the best of her children.

3. Youth is eminently memorable, when it is sanctified, and gracious.

4. Gracious parents are careful, though never so rich, to bring up their children in honest callings. So Jacob did Joseph, &c.

5. God can preserve some pure, though conversing with wicked brethren, and relations.

6. Gracious dispositions cannot bear or favour the sins of nearest relations.

7. Souls grieved with sins of other relations bring the discovery to such as can amend them (Gen_37:2.) (G. Hughes, B. D.)

Joseph

In Joseph we meet a type of character rare in any race, and which, though occasionally reproduced in Jewish history, we Should certainly not have expected to meet with at so early a period. For what chiefly strikes one in Joseph is a combination of grace and power, which is commonly looked upon as the peculiar result of civilising influences, knowledge of history, familiarity with foreign races, and hereditary dignity. In David we find a similar flexibility and grace of character, and a similar personal superiority. We find the same bright and humorous disposition helping him to play the man in adverse circumstances; but we miss in David Josephs self-control and incorruptible purity, as we also miss something of his capacity for difficult affairs of state. In Daniel this latter capacity is abundantly present, and a facility equal to Josephs in dealing with foreigners, and there is also a certain grace of nobility in the Jewish Vizier; but Joseph had a surplus of power which enabled him to be cheerful and alert in doleful circumstances, which Daniel would certainly have borne manfully but probably in a sterner and more passive mode. Joseph, indeed, seemed to inherit and happily combine the highest qualities of his ancestors. He had Abrahams dignity and capacity, Isaacs purity and power of self-devotion, Jacobs cleverness and buoyancy and tenacity. From his mothers family he had personal beauty, humour, and management. A young man of such capabilities could not long remain insensible to his own destiny. Indeed, the conduct of his father and brothers towards him must have made him self-conscious, even though he had been wholly innocent of introspection. The force of the impression he produced on his family may be measured by the circumstance that the princely dress given him by his father did not excite his brothers ridicule but their envy and hatred. In this dress there was a manifest suitableness to his person, and this excited them to a keen resentment of distinction. So too they felt that his dreams were not the mere whimsicalities of a lively fancy, but were possessed of a verisimilitude which gave them importance. In short, the dress and the dreams were insufferably exasperating to the brothers, because they proclaimed and marked in a definite way the feeling of Josephs superiority which had already been vaguely rankling in their consciousness. And it is creditable to Joseph that this superiority should first have emerged in connection with a point of conduct. It was in moral stature that the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah felt that they were outgrown by the stripling whom they carried with them as their drudge. Either are we obliged to suppose that Joseph was a gratuitous talebearer, or that when he carried their evil report to his father he was actuated by a prudish, censorious, or in any way unworthy spirit. That he very well knew how to hold his tongue no man ever gave more adequate proof; but he that understands that there is a time to keep silence necessarily sees also that there is a time to speak. And no one can tell what torture that pure young soul may have endured in the remote pastures, when left alone to withstand day after day the outrage of these coarse and unscrupulous men. An elder brother, if he will, can more effectually guard the innocence of a younger brother than any other relative can, but he can also inflict a more exquisite torture. (M. Dods, D. D.)

Feeding the flock

Joseph feeding his fathers flock

We have in the text various statements respecting Joseph.

I. His feeding his fathers flock.

II. His fathers great love for him.

III. His brethrens hatred of him.

IV. His keeping company more especially with the humbler children of Israel, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, the two handmaids.

1. The description of the youthful Joseph, as feeding his fathers flock, may well remind us of the great Shepherd and Bishop of our souls, who as the good Shepherd laid down His life for the flock of God, and leads His own sheep forth by the still waters of salvation, and makes them to lie down in the wholesome pastures of His Word (Psa_80:1-19; Psa_95:6-7; Isa_40:11; Eze_34:22-31; Zec_13:7).

2. We are now to consider Joseph as the dearest of his fathers sons, as a type of Jesus, the beloved Son of His Eternal Father. Joseph as he grew up was still more endeared to his father. The death of his mother would naturally lead Jacob to centre his affections still more absorbingly upon him. And it appears, that Joseph repaid the old mans warm affections by filial obedience and love. And parents value a dutiful and heavenly-minded child the more, when, like Joseph, he is preserved unpolluted by the bad example of his ungodly brothers. We have in the inspired narrative very early proofs of this partiality of the patriarch. And he put the two handmaids and their children foremost, and Leah and her children after, and Rachel and Joseph hindermost (Gen_33:1-2). But it is time we directed our attention to One greater than Joseph. The love of the Father to the Lord Jesus immeasurably exceeds every love of which we have any experience in our own breasts. It passeth knowledge. Of all the sons of God, Jesus is certainly the chiefest among ten thousand and the altogether lovely in the sight of His eternal Father. Jesus is indeed the only-begotten of the Father, His only-begotten Son. The obedience and love and filial sympathy of the Lord Jesus was, to use the language of men, the solace of Jehovahs heart when grieved with the ingratitude and vileness of the whole human family. He was a perfect Son, and the only perfect Son the world ever beheld. The zeal of His Fathers house consumed Him. Throughout His whole life He was, like Joseph, separate from His sinful brethren, and mourned with His Father over their wickedness. The obedience of Christ to His Father was well pleasing to Him, and we are again and again informed throughout the Gospels that the Father delighteth to honour the Son, and viewed every step of His work on earth with the highest satisfaction.

3. His keeping company with the humbler children of his father, the sons of Bilhah, and the sons of Zilpah, the two handmaids. In how much higher a sense must it have been indeed painful in the extreme for the meek and lowly Saviour to live in the polluted atmosphere of our guilty world. What wonderful condescension what humility, that He should stoop from heaven to mingle with vile stoners here! Learn a lesson of forbearance and patience with sinners from our dear Redeemer.

4. And now let us briefly consider the last particular respecting Joseph, mentioned in my text; viz., the envy with which his brethren regarded him. As this envy will come again under our notice as we proceed further into the life of Joseph, we will now simply consider the result of it mentioned in the text: They could not speak peaceably unto him. The higher a man rises in the estimation and friendship of some, the more he is hated and abhorred by others. The nearer a man lives and the closer a man walks with his heavenly Father, the more will he experience of this worlds envy and the anger of the old serpents seed. If Joseph drinks most fully of the sweets of his fathers love, he must also drink most deeply of the bitters of his brethrens hate. If anything could disarm opposition and rob envy of his fang, surely it was the mild meekness and humility of that Man of Sorrows. (E. Dalton)

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The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL NOTES.—

Gen_37:3. The son of his old age] He was ninety years old when Joseph was horn. A coat of many colours.] Heb. A tunic of parts. The expression occurs again in 2Sa_13:18, to describe the garment worn by kings’ daughters. “This was a coat reaching to the hands and feet, worn by persons not much occupied with manual labour, according to the general opinion. It was, we conceive, variegated either by the loom or the needle, and is therefore well rendered χιτὼν ποικίλος, a motley coat.” (Murphy.)—

Gen_37:4. And could not speak peaceably unto him.] The meaning is, that they refused to bid him good day, or to greet him with the usual salutation, “Peace be with thee.”—

Gen_37:9. The eleven stars.] Joseph himself being the twelfth. Knobel concludes from this that the signs of the Zodiac were not unknown to the Israelites.

Gen_37:11. But his father observed the saying.] Heb. “Kept the word, or the matter” The word observed, as rendered by the LXX., is very nearly the same word as that used by St. Luke, “His mother kept all these things.” (St. Luk_2:19.)—

Gen_37:12. Shechem. It was over fifty miles from Hebron. Jacob had formerly bought a piece of ground there. (Gen_33:19.)—

Gen_37:14. See whether it be well with thy brethren] Heb. “See the peace or the welfare,” i.e., Go and see how it fares with thy brethren and the flocks.—

Gen_37:17. Dothan.] A town about twelve miles north of Shechem. It is only mentioned in one other place, 2Ki_6:13-19.—

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Gen_37:1-17

THE COMMENCEMENT OF JOSEPH’S HISTORY

The history of Joseph commences at the opening of this chapter, and continues throughout the book. It is important, as showing how the Hebrew spirit came in contact with Egyptian culture and literature. Here we have Joseph brought before us—

I. As distinguished by his early piety. Even at this opening of Joseph’s history we can discover the signs of a high moral and devout tone of character. His brethren were of a different spirit. They were not only undevout, but were ready to commit the vilest wickedness. Joseph saw and heard things, when he was with them in the field, which vexed his righteous soul. He felt the duty laid upon him to bring report of their conversation and behavour to their father. This was not malicious tale-bearing, but the faithful performance of a sense of duty. For, where wickedness is done it ought not to be concealed. Joseph’s conduct was not back-biting, but a filial confidential report to his father.

1. It showed his love of truth and right. He would not suffer his father to be deceived by a false estimate of the conduct of his sons. He must be made acquainted with the truth, however painful, or be the consequences what they might to all concerned.

2. It showed his unwillingness to be a partaker of other men’s sins.

3. It showed a spirit of ready obedience. He knew that a faithful report of the conduct of his brethren was a duty he owed to his father. He had learned filial reverence and obedience. How readily he obeyed his father’s command when he was sent upon that long journey to Shechem. (Gen_37:14). He entered upon the journey in all the simplicity of his heart, expecting no evil. Joseph was not entirely a spoiled child, kept at home safe from all dangers. His father had a healthy confidence in a son who was accustomed to obey cheerfully. He believed that Joseph had some hardy virtues.

II. As marked out for a great destiny. Joseph relates two of his dreams. There was no difficulty in understanding their meaning. The first showed that his brethren were to be in subjection to him, and the second that he would even have a wider dominion—his father, his mother, and his brethren bowing down before him to the earth. These dreams must be regarded as Divine intimations of his future sovereign greatness, and they were remarkably fulfilled in Egypt twenty-three years afterwards. Though Jacob chided his son for the bold uttering of his dreams, yet we are told that he “observed the saying.” (Gen_37:10-11). He had a secret persuasion that those dreams were prophetic. And the hatred of his brethren shows a dreaded suspicion of the same prophetic import. It may not have been a shrewd policy in Joseph boldly to utter and declare these dreams before those with whom they were so intimately concerned. But he was a youth of genuine simplicity and transparency of character. He was openly honest. He had a natural fitness for future distinction and honour, and so the choice of God is justified to men.

III. As the object of envy and hatred.

1. Because of his faithful testimony. He did not join in the company of his brethren. They perceived that there was some alteration in their father’s conduct towards them, and would naturally suspect that his favourite son would be their accuser. So the world hated Jesus, because “He testified of it that the works thereof were evil.”

2. Because of his father’s partiality. (Gen_37:4.) There was much in this that was injudicious, but it was not altogether unreasonable. Joseph was the child of the wife most beloved. His disposition was of that kind which naturally wins affection. He was the only one among his brethren who had the fear of God, or knew the duty of a Song of Solomon

3. Because of the distinction for which God had destined him. They envied him the honour which they plainly saw God had intended for him. To take it away from Joseph would not have been of any benefit to them. But such is the spirit of envy which refuses to admire, or have any complacency in that which does not belong to self. How hard it is to submit to the decisions of Providence! That spirit of hatred and envy which his brethren showed towards Joseph was like that of Cain towards Abel, of Esau towards Jacob, of Saul towards David, and of the Scribes and Pharisees towards Our Lord.

SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES

Gen_37:1. The character of sojourners is common to all the patriarchs. Jacob afterwards claimed and confessed his character as a pilgrim before Pharaoh. “They who say such things plainly declare that they seek a country.”

The dukes of Edom had habitations in the land of their possessions. (Gen_36:43). But Jacob, with his father Isaac, were pilgrims in the land of Canaan; content to dwell in tents here that they might dwell with God for ever. Justin Martyr saith of the Christians of his time: “They dwell in their own countries but as strangers; have right to all, as citizens; but suffer hardship, as foreigners.”—(Trapp.)

Gen_37:2. The unsophisticated child of home is prompt in the disapproval of evil, and frank in the avowal of his feelings. What the evil was we are not informed; but Jacob’s full-grown sons were now far away from the paternal eye, and prone, as it seems, to give way to temptation. Many scandals came out to view in the chosen family.—(Murphy.)

Joseph only bore tidings to his father of conduct which had already become notorious and of ill-fame.

Gen_37:3-4. In God’s government there is election, but no favouritism; for God judges by character. But turning to the conduct of Jacob, we find something different. True, Joseph was superior to his brethren, but there was something more; he was the son of the favourite wife and therefore the favourite child. His coat was the badge of his father’s unjust love, and therefore upon it his brethren wreaked their fury.—(Robertson.)

I see in him not a clearer type of Christ than of every Christian. Because we are dear to our Father, and complain of sins, therefore we are hated of our carnal brethren. If Joseph had not meddled with his brother’s faults, yet he had been envied for his father’s affection; but now malice is met with envy.—(Bp. Hall.)

Gen_37:5-11. Joseph’s brethren hated him yet the more for his dreams. So the Jews did Jesus for His parables; especially when he spake of his exaltation.—(Trapp.)

The simplicity with which Joseph relates his dreams, reminds us of Isaac’s naïve question on the way to Mount Moriah: “but where is the lamb?” It stands in beautiful contrast with that moral earnestness which had already, in early age, made him self-reliant in presence of his brethren.—(Lange.)

The concealment of our hopes or abilities hath not more modesty than safety. He that was envied for his dearness, and hated for his intelligence, was both envied and hated for his dreams. Surely God meant to make the relation of these dreams a means to effect that which the dreams imported. We men work by likely means; God by contraries. Had it not been for his dreams he had not been sold; if he had not been sold, he had not been exalted. Full little did Joseph’s brethren think, when they sold him naked to the Ishmaelites, to have once seen him in the throne of Egypt. God’s decree runs on; and, while we either think not of it, or oppose it, is performed.—(Bp. Hall.)

Envy is a specially diabolical sin. “Through envy of the devil death entered into the world. (Wis_2:24).

1. It is purely a spiritual sin, it is purely a soul-sin, owing less than any other to the temptations of the flesh. He whose chief delight is in intellectual pleasures, and is free from vulgar appetites, may yet be full of this sin of envy.

2. It is most essentially evil. Almost every other passion has in it some good, or seeming good. Revenge may claim justification from some sense of wrong, and be regarded as of near kin to justice. Anger may throw the blame upon violent passions so easily aroused. Carnal passions of every kind may charge their sins upon the body. But envy is an evil, pure and simple. It needs no body, nor nerves, nor foul desires, but springs up within the soul.

3. Other sins yield some present pleasure, but envy has nothing but torment.

Gen_37:12-17. He stayed not at Shechem, whither his father sent him; but missing them there, he seeks farther, till he found them. This is true obedience, whether to God or man, when we look not so much to the letter of the law, as to the mind of the lawmaker.—(Trapp.)

That dream of Joseph’s regal sheaf, to which all the rest did homage, was remarkably fulfilled when his brethren came to him in Egypt for corn. They literally bowed down before him for this precious commodity.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

Gen 37:1-2

The statement in Gen 37:1, which introduces the tholedoth of Jacob, "And Jacob dwelt in the land of his father's pilgrimage, in the land of Canaan," implies that Jacob had now entered upon his father's inheritance, and carries on the patriarchal pilgrim-life in Canaan, the further development of which was determined by the wonderful career of Joseph. This strange and eventful career of Joseph commenced when he was 17 years old. The notice of his age at the commencement of the narrative which follows, is introduced with reference to the principal topic in it, viz., the sale of Joseph, which was to prepare the way, according to the wonderful counsel of God, for the fulfilment of the divine revelation to Abraham respecting the future history of his seed (Gen 15:13.). While feeding the flock with his brethren, and, as he was young, with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, who were nearer his age than the sons of Leah, he brought an evil report of them to his father (רעה intentionally indefinite, connected with דּבּתם without an article). The words נער והוּא, "and he a lad," are subordinate to the main clause: they are not to be rendered, however, "he was a lad with the sons," but, "as he was young, he fed the flock with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah."

Gen 37:3-4

"Israel (Jacob) loved Joseph more than all his (other) sons, because he was born in his old age," as the first-fruits of the beloved Rachel (Benjamin was hardly a year old at this time). And he made him פּסּים כּתנת: a long coat with sleeves (χιτὼν ἀστραγάλειος, Aqu., or ἀστραγαλωτός, lxx at Sa2 13:18, tunica talaris, Vulg. ad Sam.), i.e., an upper coat reaching to the wrists and ankles, such as noblemen and kings' daughters wore, not "a coat of many colours" ("bunter Rock," as Luther renders it, from the χιτῶνα ποικίλον, tunicam polymitam, of the lxx and Vulgate). This partiality made Joseph hated by his brethren; so that they could not "speak peaceably unto him," i.e., ask him how he was, offer him the usual salutation, "Peace be with thee."

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

THIRD PERIOD

The Genesis of the People of israel in egypt from the twelve branches of israel, or the history of joseph and his brethren. joseph the patriarch of the faith-dispensation through humiliation and exaltation.—Gen_37:1-36

——————

FIRST SECTION

Jacob’s inconsiderate fondness for Joseph. Joseph’s dreams. His brothers’ envy. Joseph sold into Egypt.

Gen_37:1-36

1And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan. 2These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren; and the lad was with the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives: and Joseph brought unto his father their evil report.1 3Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age2; and he made him a coat of many colors3 [a beautiful robe, Gen_27:15]. 4And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him. 5And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it to his brethren: and they hated him yet the more. 6And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed: 7For, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf. 8And his brethren said unto him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? and they hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words. 9And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it to his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance unto me. 10And he told it to his father, and to his brethren; and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth? 11And his brethren envied him; but his father observed [kept, preserved] the saying. 12And his brethren went to feed their father’s flock in Shechem. 13And Israel said unto Joseph, Do not thy brethren feed the flock in Shechem? come, and I will send thee unto them. 14And he said to him, Here am I. And he said to him, Go, I pray thee, see whether it be well with thy brethren, and well with the flocks; and bring me word again. So he sent him out of the vale of Hebron, and he came to Shechem. 15And a certain man found him, and, behold, he was wandering in the field: and the man asked him, saying, What seekest thou? 16And he said, I seek my brethren: tell me, I pray thee, where they feed their flocks. 17And the man said, They are departed hence; for I heard them say, Let us go to Dothan [the two wells]. And Joseph went after his brethren, and found them in Dothan. 18And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him. 19And they said one 20to another, Behold, this dreamer [man of dreams] cometh. Come now, therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit; and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him: and we will see what will become of his dreams. 21And Reuben heard it, and he delivered him [sought to deliver] out of their hands; and he said, Let us not kill him. 22And Reuben said unto them, Shed no blood, but cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, and lay no hand upon him; that he might rid him out of their hands, to deliver him to his father again. 23And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stripped Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colors that was on him. 24And they took him, and cast him into a pit: and the pit was empty, there was no water in it. 25And they sat down to eat bread: and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a company of Ishmaelites [a caravan] came from Gilead, with their camels bearing spices [tragakanth-gum], and balm, and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt. 26And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit is it if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood? 27Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother, and our flesh. And his brethren were content. 28Then there passed by Midianites, merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver: and they brought Joseph unto Egypt. 29And Reuben returned unto the pit; and, behold, Joseph was not in the pit: and he rent his clothes. 30And he returned unto his brethren, and said, The child is not; and I, whither shall I go? 31And they took Joseph’s coat, and killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the coat in the blood. 32And they sent the coat of many colors and they brought it to their father; and said, This have we found; know now whether it be thy son’s coat or no. 33And he knew it, and said, It is my son’s coat; an evil beast hath devoured him; Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces. 34And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days. 35And all his sons, and all his daughters, rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted; and he said, For I will go down into the grave [sheol]4 unto my son mourning. Thus his father wept for him. 36And the Midianites sold him into Egypt, unto Potiphar [Septuagint: Πετεφρῆς, belonging to the sun], an officer of Pharaoh’s [king; Lepsius: sun], and captain of the guard.

GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS

1. It is to be noted here, in the first place, that the history of Joseph is amplified beyond that of any of the patriarchs hitherto. This is explained by the contact which Joseph’s transportation gives rise to between the Hebrew spirit and the Egyptian culture and literature. A trace of this may be found in the history of Abraham; for after Abraham had been in Egypt, his history becomes more full. With the memorabilia of Joseph connects itself the account of Moses, who was educated in all the different branches of Egyptian learning, whilst this again points to Samuel and the schools of the prophets.

2. Knobel regards Joseph’s history as having grown out of the original Elohistic text connected with a later revision (p. 288). He supposes, however, in this case, two halves, which, taken separately, have no significance. That Joseph was sold into Egypt, according to the supposed original text, can only be explained from the fact mentioned in the supposed additions, that he had incurred the hatred of his brethren by reason of his aspiring dreams. Reuben’s proposition to cast Joseph into the pit, and which aimed at his preservation, was not added until afterwards, it is said. Even Joseph’s later declaration: I was stolen from the country of the Hebrews, is regarded as making a difference. Delitzsch, too, adopts a combination of different elements, without, however, recognizing the contradictions raised by Knobel (p. 517). He presents, also, as a problem difficult of solution, the usage of the divine names in this last period of Genesis: In Genesis 37 no name of God occurs, but in Genesis 38, it is Jehovah that slays Judah’s sons, as also, in Genesis 39, it is Jehovah that blesses Joseph in Potiphar’s house, and in person; as recognized by Potiphar himself. Only in Gen_37:9 we find Elohim,—the name Jehovah not being here admissible. From Genesis 40 onward, the name Jehovah disappears. It occurs but once between Genesis 40, 50, as in Genesis 18, when Jacob uses it: “I have waited for thy salvation, Jehovah.” For different interpretations of this by Keil, Drechsler, Hengstenberg, Baumgarten, and Delitzsch, see Delitzsch, p. 515. The three last agree in this, that the author of Genesis, in the oft-repeated Elohim, wished here to mark more emphatically, by way of contrast, the later appearance of the Jehovah-period, Exo_3:6. This would, indeed, be a very artificial way of writing books. The riddle must find its solution in actual relations. The simple explanation is, that in the history of a Joseph, which stands entirely upon an Elohistic foundation, this name Elohim predominantly occurs. Joseph is the Solomon of the patriarchal times.

3. The generations of Jacob connect themselves with those of Esau. Delitzsch justly remarks, p. 511, that the representation which follows (Genesis 37 to Genesis 50), was intended to be, not a mere history of Joseph, but a history of Jacob in his sons. Otherwise Judah’s history, Genesis 38, would appear as an interpolation. The twelve sons of Jacob constitute Israel’s new seed. The latter fact, of course, has the stronger emphasis. The generations of Jacob are the history and successions of his posterity—that is, his living on in his posterity, just as Adam’s tholedoth, Gen_5:1, represent the history of Adam, not personally, but historically, in his descendants.

4. Joseph’s history is considered in a triple relation: as the history of the genesis of the Israelitish people in Egypt; as an example of a special providence, such as often brings good out of evil, as ex-emplified in the book of Job; and as a type of the fundamental law of God in guiding the elect from suffering to joy, from humiliation to exaltation—a law already indicated in the life of Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but which, henceforth, develops itself more and more (especially in the history of David), to terminate, at last, in the life of Jesus, as presenting the very sublimity of the antithesis. Hence the appearance, in our history, of individual types representing the New-Testament history of Jesus, such as the jealousy and hatred of Joseph’s brethren, the fact of his being sold, the fulfilment of Joseph’s prophetic dreams in the very efforts intended to prevent his exaltation, the turning of his brothers’ wicked plot to the salvation of many, even of themselves, and of the house of Jacob, the spiritual sentence pronounced on the treachery of the brethren, the victory of pardoning love, Judah’s suretyship for Benjamin, his emulating Joseph in a spirit of redeeming resignation, Jacob’s joyful reviving on hearing of the life and glory of his favorite son, whom he had believed to be dead.

Concerning Israel’s genesis in Egypt, Delitzsch remarks: “According to a law of divine providences, to be found not only in the Old Testament, but also in the New (?), not the land of the promise, but a foreign country, is the place where the Church is born, and comes to maturity. This foreign country, to the Old-Testament Church, is the land of Egypt. To go before his people, to prepare a place for them, is Joseph’s high vocation. Sold into Egypt, he opens the way thither to the house of Jacob, and the same country where he matures to manhood, where he suffers in prison, and attains to glory, becomes, to his family, the land where it comes to the maturity of a nation,—the land of its servitude, and of its redemption. Thus far Joseph’s history is the overture of Jacob’s history—a type of the way of the Church; not of Jehovah only, but of Christ in his progress from humiliation to exaltation, from subjection to freedom, from sufferings to glory.” See Mat_2:15; Hos_11:1. Israel’s riches of election and endowment are to be developed by contact with different heathen nations, and especially with Egypt. Just as Christianity, the completed revelation of the new covenant, developed itself formally for the world, by its reciprocal intercourse with a Græco-Romanic culture, thus was it also with the faith of the old covenant in its reciprocal intercourse with the old Egyptian world-culture, as shown especially in the history of Joseph, Moses, and Solomon who became the son-in-law of one of the Pharaohs. More prominently does this appear, again, in the history of Alexandrian Judaism; in which, however, the interchange of influence with Egypt becomes, at the same time, one with that of the whole Orient, and of Greece.

The key of Joseph’s history, as a history of providence, is clearly found in the declaration made by him Gen_45:5-8, and Gen_50:20. The full explanation, however, of its significance, is found in the history of Christ as furnishing its perfect fulfilment. Permission of evil, counteraction and modification of evil, frustration of its tendency, its conversion into good, victory over evil, destruction of evil, and reconciliation of the evil themselves,—these are the forces of a movement here represented in its most concrete and most powerful relations. The evil is conspiracy, treachery, and a murderous plot against their innocent brother. The conversion of it is of the noblest kind. The plot to destroy Joseph is the occasion of his greatest glorification. But as God’s sentence against the trembling conscious sinner is changed into grace, so also the triumph of pardoning love overcoming hatred becomes conspicuous as a glorious omen in Joseph’s life.

“Inasmuch,” says Delitzsch, “as Israel’s history is a typical history of Christ, and Christ’s history the typical history of the Church, so is Joseph a type of Christ himself. What he suffered from his brethren, and which God’s decree turned to his own and his nation’s salvation, is a type of Christ’s sufferings, caused by his people, but which God’s decree turned to the salvation of the world, including, finally, the salvation of Israel itself.” Says Pascal (Pensées, ii. 9, 2): “Jesus Christ is typified in Joseph, the beloved of his father, sent by his father to his brethren, the innocent one sold by his brethren for twenty pieces of silver, and then becoming their Lord, their Saviour, the saviour of those who were aliens to Israel, the saviour of the world,—all which would not have been if they had not cherished the design of destroying him—if they had not sold and rejected him. Joseph, the innocent one, in prison with two malefactors—Jesus on the cross between two thieves; Joseph predicts favorably to the one, but death to the other; Jesus saves the one, whilst he leaves the other in condemnation. Thus has the Church ever regarded Joseph’s history.” Already is this intimated in the Gospels. What Pascal here says, and as is also held by the fathers, e.g., Prosper Aquitanus, de Promissionibus et Praedictionibus Dei, is but a brief statement of the pious thoughts of all believers, in the contemplation of the history. It is this which imparts to the wonderful typical light here presented its irresistible charm.

When, however, Joseph is made the exclusive centre of our history, and the patriarchal type of Christ (Kurtz, “History of the Old Testament,” i. p. 343), Keil presents, in opposition, some most important considerations. It is, indeed, no ground of difference (as presented by him), that Joseph became formally naturalized in Egypt; for Christ, too, was delivered to the heathen, and died out of the camp. Nor does it make any important difference that Joseph received no special revelations of God at the court of Pharaoh, as Daniel did at the court of Nebuchadnezzar; the gift of interpreting dreams he also, like Daniel, referred back to God. Of greater importance is the remark that Joseph is nowhere, in the Scriptures themselves, presented as a type of Christ; yet we must distinguish between verbal references and real relations, such as might be indicated in Zec_11:12, and in Christ’s declaration that one of his disciples should betray him. There is, however, a verbal reference in Stephen’s speech, Act_7:9. There is no mistaking the fact that the Messianic traces in our narrative are shared both by Joseph and Judah. Judah appears great and noble throughout the history of Joseph; the instance, however, in which he is willing to sacrifice himself to an unlimited servitude for Benjamin, makes him of equal dignity with Joseph. So in Abraham’s sacrifice, the Messianic typical is distributed between him and Isaac. Joseph’s glory is preëminently of a prophetic kind; the weight of a priestly voluntary self-sacrifice inclines more to the side of Judah. Benjamin, too, has his Messianic ray; for it is especially on his account that the brethren may appear before Joseph in a reconciling light. On Hiller’s “Typological Contemplation of Joseph,” see Keil, p. 242. Meinertzhagen, in his “Lectures on the Christology of the Old Testament” (p. 204), treats of the typical significance of Joseph with great fulness. It is also to be noted that ever afterwards Benjamin appears theocratically and geographically connected with Judah.

5. The disposition of Joseph’s history, and the settlement of the Israelites in Egypt, as well as its relation to the Hyksos of whom Josephus speaks (contra Apion, i. 14), in an extract from Manetho’s history, presents a question of great historical interest (see Delitzsch, p. 518). The extract concerning the Hyksos has a mythical look. Still darker are other things which Josephus gives us from Manetho and Chæremon (contra Ap., i. 26, 32). Different views: 1) The Hyksos and the Israelites are identical; so Manetho, Josephus, Hugo Grotius, Hofmann, Knobel (p. 301), and, in a modified form, Seyffarth, Uhlemann. 2) The Hyksos are distinct from the Israelites; they were another Shemitic tribe—Arabians, or Phœnicians; so Cunaeus, Scaliger, etc. This view, says Delitzsch, is now the prevailing one. So also Ewald, Lepsius, Saalschütz, jut with different combinations. On these see Delitzsch, p. 521. 3) The Hyksos were Scythians; so Champollion, Rossellini. The first view is opposed by the fact that the Israelites founded no dynasties in Egypt, as did the Hyksos; nor did they exist there under shepherd-kings, as the name Hyksos has been interpreted. Against the second view Delitzsch insists that the people of Egypt, into whose servitude Israel fell, appear as a people foreign to them, and by no means as one connected with them. The Shemitic idea, however, is so extended, that we cannot always suppose a theocratic element along with it. The most we can say is, that the Hyksos, who, no doubt, were a roving band of conquerors, came from Syria, or the countries lying north and east beyond Palestine. In the Egyptian tradition, their memory seems to have been so mingled with that of the Israelites, that it would seem almost impossible to separate the historical element from such a mixture. Since, however, the Israelitish history seems more obscured by that of the Hyksos than contradicted, it may be regarded as more probable that the latter came latest. The pressure of the Israelites upon the Canaanites, from the east, may have driven them in part to the south; and the weakening of Egypt by the destruction of Pharaoh and his army, forty years before, might have favored a conquest. The chronological adjustment, however, must be left to itself. For a fuller treatment of this subject, see E. Böhmer, “The First Book of the Thora” (Halle, 1862); appendix, p. 205, etc. According to Lepsius, the appearance of the Hyksos in Egypt preceded the history of Joseph. At all events, this dim tradition bears testimony to the Israelitish history in many particulars (e.g., that they founded Jerusalem in Judea). On the full confirmation of Joseph’s history by Greek historians and by Egyptian monuments, compare Delitzsch, p. 524, etc.; Hengstenberg, “The Pentateuch and Egypt,” Berlin, 1841.

6. The history of Israel’s settlement in Egypt extends through the sections that follow: 1) The corruption in Jacob’s house, the dispersion of his sons, the loss of Joseph (Genesis 38-39). 2) Joseph’s elevation, and the reconciliation and gathering of his brethren (Genesis 40-50). 3) Israel’s transplantation to Egypt (Gen_46:1 to Gen_47:26). 4) The keeping of the divine promise, and the longing of Israel to return home to Canaan (Gen_47:27–ch. 50).

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Contents: The conspiracy of Jacob’s sons against their brother Joseph, considered in its awful darkness, or the deep commotion and apparent destruction of Jacob’s house: 1. The occasion (Gen_37:1-11); 2. the opportunity, and the plot of murder (Gen_37:12-20); 3. Reuben’s attempt to rescue; 4. Judah’s effort to save, unknowingly crossing that of Reuben (Gen_37:25-27); 5. the crime, the beginning of mourning, the hiding of guilt (Gen_37:28-32); 6. Jacob’s deep grief, and Joseph apparently lost (Gen_37:33-36).

1. The occasion (Gen_37:1-11).—In the land of Canaan.—It seems to have been made already his permanent home, but soon to assume a different appearance.—The generations (see above).—Joseph being seventeen years old.—A statement very important in respect both to the present occurrence and the future history. In Gen_41:46, he is mentioned as thirty years old. His sufferings, therefore, lasted about thirteen years. At this age of seventeen he became a shepherd with his brethren. Jacob did not send his favorite son too early to the herds; yet, though the favorite, he was to begin to serve below the rest, as a shepherd-boy. At this age, however, Joseph had great naïveness and simplicity. He therefore imprudently tells his dreams, like an innocent child. On the other hand, however, he was very sedate; he was not enticed, therefore, by the evil example of some of his brethren, but considered it his duty to inform his father.—And the lad was with the sons of Bilhah.—For the sons of Bilhah Rachel’s servant stood nearer to him, while those of Leah were most opposed. He brought to his father את דבתם רעה, translated by Keil, evil reports concerning them. A direct statement of their offences would doubtless have been differently expressed. They were an offence to those living in the vicinity. This determined him to inform his father, but it does not exclude a conviction of his own. It is inadmissible to refer this to definite sins (as, e.g., some have thought of unnatural sins). That the sons of the concubines surpassed the others in rude conduct, is easily understood. Joseph’s moral earnestness is, doubtless, the first stumbling-block to his brethren, whilst it strengthens his father in his good opinion. The beautiful robe was the second offence. It is called כְּתֹנֶת פַּסִּים, “an outer garment of ends,” which extends, like a gown, to the hands and the ancles. The Septuagint, which Luther’s translation follows, renders it “a coat of many colors.” Comp. 2Sa_13:18. The common tunic extended only to the knees, and was without arms. Already this preference, which seemed to indicate that Jacob intended to give him the right of the first-born, aroused the hatred of his brethren. One who hates cannot greet heartily the one who is hated, nor talk with him frankly and peaceably. In addition to this, Joseph, by his dreams and presages (though not yet a prudent interpreter), was pouring oil upon the flames. At all events, the הנה (lo), as repeated in his narration, shows that he had a presentiment of something great. Both dreams are expressive of his future elevation. In Egypt he becomes the fortunate sheaf-binder whose sheaf “stood up” during the famine. The second dream confirms the first, whilst presenting the further thought: even the sun and moon—that is, according to Jacob’s interpretation, even his father and his mother—were to bow before him. Rachel died some time before this. On this account the word mother has been referred to Bilhah, or to Benjamin as representing Rachel, or else to Leah. The brethren now hated him the more, not merely as recognizing in his dreams the suggestions of ambition, but with a mingled feeling, in which there was not wanting a presentiment of his possible exaltation—as their declaration, Gen_37:20, betrays. In Jacob’s rebuke we perceive also mingled feelings. There is dissent from Joseph’s apparently pretentious prospects, a fatherly regard toward the mortified brethren, yet, withal, a deeper presentiment, that caused him to keep these words of Joseph in his heart, as Mary did those of the shepherds. As the naïvete of the shepherd-boy was evidence of the truthfulness of these dreams, so the result testifies to the higher origin of a divine communication, conditioned, indeed, by the hopefully presageful life of Joseph. These dreams were probably intended to sustain Joseph during his thirteen years of wretchedness, and, at the same time, to prepare him to be an interpreter. The Zodiac, as here brought in by Knobel, has no significance, nor the custom of placing a number of sheaves together.

2. The opportunity and the plot of murder (Gen_37:12-20).—In Shechem.—There is no ground for supposing another Shechem, as some have done, on account of what had formerly occurred there. It is more likely that Jacob’s sons courageously returned to the occupation of the parcel of land formerly acquired by them. This very circumstance, however, may have so excited the anxiety of the cautious parent that he sent Joseph after them. That Joseph could have lost his way at Shechem is easily explained, since he was so young when his father lived there.—In Dothan—The Septuagint has Δωθαεΐμ, Jdt_4:6; Jdt_7:3; Jdt_8:3; Δωθαΐμ. 2Ki_6:13, Dothan. It was a place above Samaria, towards the plain of Jezreel, according to Josephus and Hieronymus. “Thus it was found by Robinson and Smith in their journey of 1852, and also by Van de Velde, in the southeast part of the plain of Jabud, west of Genin. It is a beautiful green dell, always called Dothan, at whose south foot a fountain rises.” Delitzsch. Through the plain of Tell-Dothan a highway passes from the northwest to Ramleh and Egypt.—They conspired against him.—That Reuben and Judah were not concerned in this, is plain from what follows.—This dreamer cometh.—Spoken contemptuously—master of dreams, dream-man. The word הַלָּזֶה does not express contempt of itself, as is seen from Gen_24:65, the only other place in which it occurs. It denotes something unexpected and remarkable.—Into some pit.—Cisterns (see Winer: wells).—And we shall see.—They thought by their fratricide surely to frustrate his exaltation—a proof that his dreams alarmed them; but by this very deed, as controlled by God’s providence, they bring it about.

3. Reuben’s artful attempt at saving (Gen_37:21-24). The text states directly that Reuben made his proposition in order to save Joseph. Knobel, by a frivolous criticism, would foist a contradiction upon the text, namely, that Reuben made the proposition in order to let him perish in the pit; since a bloodless destruction of life seems, to have been regarded as less criminal than a direct killing. But, then, the Reviser must have imparted to Reuben’s proposition a different interpretation, by means of an addition. Reuben, it is true, had to express himself in such a way that the brothers might infer his intention to let him perish in the pit; but this was the only way to gain their consent.—They stripped Joseph out of his coat.—The object of their jealousy and their wrath.—And the pit was empty.—So that he did not perish. His cries for mercy they remembered many years afterwards (Gen_41:21).

4. Judah’s bold attempt to save him (Gen_37:25-27).—And they sat down.—Through this apparent insensibility their inward agony is betrayed; it appears in their agitated looking out, so that they espy the Ishmaelites already at a great distance.—And behold, a company of Ishmaelites.—A caravan, אֹרְחָה (Job_6:19). “This caravan (as Robinson’s description shows) had crossed the Jordan at Beisan, and followed the highway that led from Beisan and Zerin to Ramleh and Egypt, entering the plain of Dothan west of Genin.” Delitzsch. In Gen_37:25; Gen_37:27-28, the merchants are called Ishmaelites, whilst in the first part of Gen_37:28 they are styled Midianites, and in Gen_37:36 Medanites. Knobel, of course, regards them as different traditions (p. 293). Gen_37:28, however, would seem to tell us that the Ishmaelites were the proprietors of the caravan, which was made up, for the most part, of Midianitish people. In a similar manner, probably, as Esau made a number of the Horites subject to him, so had the Ishmaelites also brought under them a number of the Midianites. One hundred and fifty years, the time that had elapsed since Ishmael’s departure from Abraham, would give a sufficient increase for this (see Keil, p. 244). As merchants, they were transporting costly products of their country to Egypt. Gum-tragacanth is found in Syria; the balm of Gilead was especially renowned, and was sold to Phœnicia and Egypt; ladanum (myrrh), or the fragrant rose of the cistus, is found in Arabia and Syria, as well as in Palestine (see Schubert, iii. p. 114 and 174). Concerning the cisterns, or the artificially prepared reservoirs of rain-water, see the Dictionaries and geographical works. They might be full of water, or have mire at the bottom, or be entirely dry. They were frequently used as prisons (see Jer_38:6; Jer_40:15). Schröder: “On his way to Damascus, Robinson found Khân Jubb Jûsuf (a kind of inn), the khan of Joseph’s pit, so called after a well connected with it, and which for a long time, both among Christians and Mohammedans, was regarded as the cistern into which Joseph was thrown.”—And Judah said.—“Then Judah began to use the language of a hypocritical self-interest,” says Delitzsch. This, however, seems to be not at all justified by Judah’s after-history. It must be presupposed that Judah was unacquainted with Reuben’s intention. The brethren were so much excited that Judah alone could not have hoped to rescue Joseph from their hand. The ferocity, especially, of Simeon and Levi, is known to us from former history. Judah, therefore, could think no otherwise than that Joseph must die from hunger in the pit. As in opposition to this, therefore, and not as a counteraction of Reuben’s attempt at deliverance, is his proposal to be judged. He lived still, though a slave. There was a possibility of his becoming free. He might make his escape by the caravan routes that passed south through his home. Reuben, in his tenderness, had made a subtle attempt to save him. In the bolder policy of Judah we see that subtle attempt crossed by one more daring. No doubt both had some ill-feeling towards Joseph, and were, therefore, not capable of a mutual and open understanding. That both, however, preserved a better conscience than the rest, is evident from the later history. The unity of our story is not disturbed by Knobel’s remark, “that a further tradition is given, Euseb. Prœp. Evang., ix. 23, to the effect that, in order to escape the snares of his brethren, Joseph besought Arabians, who were near, to take him along with them to Egypt; which they did; so that, in this way, are the patriarchs still more exculpated.” What Joseph says of himself afterwards, that he was stolen out of the land of the Hebrews (Gen_40:15), does not contradict our narration. Was he to tell to the Egyptians the crime of his brethren?

5. Gen_37:28-32. The crime, the beginning of mourning, and the concealment of the guilt.—Twenty pieces of silver.—Comp. Gen_20:16. Twenty shekels of silver was the compensation that Moses appointed for a boy from five to twenty years old (Lev_27:5), whilst the average price of a slave was thirty shekels (Exo_21:32).—And Reuben returned unto the pit.—His absence may easily be accounted for: it was impossible for him to eat with his brethren in his then state of mind; and he probably resorted to solitude to think out a plan of deliverance—And he rent his clothes.—The later custom (Mat_26:65) originally sprung from vivid emotions of sorrow,—the rending as an expression of inward distraction. Afterwards came this rending of garments upon the others (Gen_44:13).—And I, whither shall I go?—Not only as the first-born was he especially responsible for the younger brother, but his tender feelings for him, and for the unhappy father, made him the bearer of the agony of the guilty confederacy; and this to such a degree that he knew not what to do.—And they took Joseph’s coat.—One transgression gives birth to another. With the consciousness that tried to conceal their guilt, there mingles the old grudge concerning the coat of many colors, which here turns itself even against the father. Doubtless, in some degree, they thought themselves justified in the thought that the father had given them cause of irritation by providing such a coat for Joseph. Reuben and Judah are, moreover, burdened by the ban of silence.

6. Jacob’s deep grief, and Joseph’s apparent loss (Gen_37:33-36).—It is my son’s coat.—Their deception succeeded. In his agony he does not discover the fraud; the sight of the blood-dyed garment led him to conclude: Surely an evil beast hath torn Joseph, and devoured him.—Sackcloth.—The sign of the deepest mourning (see Winer: Trauer-sack).—And mourned for his son.—Retaining also his garment of mourning.—And all his sons.—The criminals as comforters!—And all his daughters.—From this there arises the probability that Jacob had other daughters than Dinah, though the daughters-in-law may be so called.—For I will go down.—The כִּי is elliptical, implying, nothing can comfort me, for, etc.—Mourning unto my son.—There is, doubtless, something more here than grief merely for the loss; there is also self-reproach for having exposed the child to such danger.—Into the grave (sheol).—In this mournful mood of Jacob does this word sheol first occur. It was not the world beyond the grave considered as the gathering to the fathers, but the dark night of death and mourning. There are various derivations of this word. One that easily suggests itself is that which marks it from שָׁאַל, to demand—that place which inexorably demands all men back (Pro_30:15; Isa_5:14; Heb_2:5). [See Excursus below, especially p. 586 sq.—T. L.] Gen_37:36. The word סָרִים, according to its original significance, denotes an eunuch; its later and more general interpretation is courtier.—Captain of the guard.—Literally a slayer, that is, an executioner (see 2Ki_25:8; Jer_39:9). For particulars, see Delitzsch, p. 531. On the chronology as connected with the remark that Joseph was sold when he was seventeen years old, see also Delitzsch, p. 532. Joseph’s history here suffers an interruption by the insertion of an incident in the life of Judah. Ch. 38 Delitzsch ascribes this to literary art on the part of the author, but of that we may doubt. It is, of itself, just the time that we should expect to learn something more about Judah.

[Note on Gen_37:35. The Primitive Conception of Sheol.—This is the first place in which the word occurs, and it is very important to trace, as far as we can, the earliest conception, or rather emotion, out of which it arose. “I will go down to my son mourning to Sheol,”—towards Sheol, or, on the way to Sheol,—the reference being to the decline of life terminating in that unknown state, place, or condition of being, so called. One thing is clear: it was not a state of not-being, if we may use so paradoxical an expression. Jacob was going to his son; he was still his son; there is yet a tie between him and his father; he is still spoken of as a personality; he is still regarded as having a being somehow, and somewhere. Compare 2Sa_12:23, אֲנִי הֹלֵךְ אֵלָיו, “I am going to him, but he shall not return to me.” The him and the me in this case, like the I and the my son in Genesis, are alike personal. In the earliest language, where all is hearty, such use of the pronoun could have been no unmeaning figure. The being of the one who has disappeared is no less real than that of the one who remains still seen, still found,5 to use the Shemitic term for existence, or out-being, as a known and visible state (see note, p. 273). The LXX have rendered it here εἰς ̔́Αδου, into Hades; the Vulgate, ad filium meum in infernum. It was not to his son in his grave, for Joseph had no grave. His body was supposed to be lying somewhere in the desert, or torn in pieces, or carried off, by the wild beasts (see Gen_37:33). To resolve it all into figurative expressions for the grave would be simply carrying our meaningless modern rhetoric into ancient forms of speech employed, in their first use, not for the reflex painting, but for the very utterance of emotional conceptions. However indefinite they may be, they are too mournfully real to admit of any such explanations. Looking at it steadily from this primitive standpoint, we are compelled to say, that an undoubting conviction of personal extinction at death, leaving nothing but a dismembered, decomposing body, now belonging to no one, would never have given rise to such language. The mere conception of the grave, as a place of burial, is too narrow for it. It, alone, would have destroyed the idea in its germ, rather than have given origin and expansion to it. The fact, too, that they had a well-known word for the grave, as a confined place of deposit for the body (אֲחֻזַּת קֶבֶר, a possession, or property, of a grave, see Gen_23:9), shows that this other name, and this other conception, were not dependent upon it, nor derived from it.

The older lexicographers and commentators generally derived the word שְׁאוֹל (Sheol) from שָׁאַל (Sha-al), to ask, inquire, etc. This is a very easy derivation, so far as form is concerned; and why is it not correct? In any way the sense deduced will seem near, or far-fetched, according to our preconceptions in respect to that earliest view of extinct or continued being. Gesenius rejects it, maintaining that שְׁאוֹל is for שְׁעוֹל, and means cavity; hence a subterranean region, etc. He refers to שֹׁעַל, hollow of the hand, or fist, Isa_40:12; 1Ki_20:10; Eze_13:19; and שׁוּעָל, the name for fox or jackal, who digs holes in the earth,—this being all that can be found of any other use of the supposed root from which comes this most ancient word, so full of some most solemn significance. There is a reference, also, to the German hölle, or the general term of the northern nations (Gothic, Scandinavian, Saxon), denoting hole, or cavity; though this is the very question, whether the northern conception is not a secondary one, connected with that later thought of penal confinement which was never separable from the Saxon hell,—a sense-limitation, in fact, of the more indefinite and more spiritual notion primarily presented by the Greek Hades, and which furnishes the true parallel to the early Hebrew Sheol. Fürst has the same view as Gesenius. To make שְׁאוֹל and שְׁעוֹל equivalents, etymologically, there is supposed to be an interchange of א and ע, a thing quite common in the later Syriac, but rare in the Hebrew, especially the earlier writings, and which would be cited as a mark recentioris Hebraismi, if the rationalistic argument, at any time, required it. The ע has ever kept its place most tenaciously in the Arabic, as shown by Robinson in the numerous proper names of places in which it remains unchanged to this day. So it was, doubtless, in the most early Shemitic, though in the Syriac it became afterwards much weakened through the antipathetic Greek and Roman influence upon that language, and so, frequently passed into the more easily pronounced א. It is improbable that this should have taken place in the most ancient stage of the language, or at the time of the first occurrence of this word in the biblical writings. Gesenius would give to שָׁאִל, too, the supposititious primary sense of digging, to make it the ground of the secondary idea of search or inquiry; but this is not the primary or predominant conception of שאל; it is always that of interrogation, like the Greek ἐρωτάω, or of demand, like αἰτέω, ever implying speech, instead of the positive act of search, such as is denoted by the Hebrew חקר, to explore. Subsequent lexicographers and commentators have generally followed Gesenius, who seems to pride himself upon this discovery (see Robinson: “Lex. N. Test.” on the word Hades). Of the older mode of derivation he says: “Prior de etymo conjectura vix memoratu digna est.” By some it would be regarded as betraying a deficiency in Hebrew learning to think of supporting an etymology so contemptuously rejected. And yet it has claims that should not be lightly given up, especially as they are so intimately connected with the important inquiry in respect to the first conception of those who first used the word. “Was this, primarily, a thought of locality, however wide or narrow it may have been, or did the space-notion, which undoubtedly prevailed afterwards, come from an earlier thought, or state of soul rather, more closely allied to feeling than to any positive idea? This conception of locality in the earth came in very early; it grew naturally from something before it; but was it first of all? Lowth, Herder, etc., are, doubtless, correct in the representations they give of the Hebrew Sheol, as an imagined subterranean residence of the dead, and this is confirmed by later expressions we find in the Psalms and elsewhere, such as “going down to the pit” (compare יוֹרְדֵי בוֹר and similar language, Psa_28:1; Psa_30:4; Psa_88:5; Isa_14:19; Isa_38:10, etc.); yet still there is the best of reasons for believing that what may be called the emotional or ejaculatory conception was earlier than this, and that the local was the form it took when it passed from an emotion to a speculative thought. From what source, then, in this earlier stage, could the name more naturally have come than from the primitive significance of that word שאל, which, in the Arabic ׃ַُב, and everywhere in the Shemitic family, has this one old sense of appealing interrogation,—first, simple inquiry, secondly, the idea of demand? The error of the older etymologists, then, consisted, not in making it from שאל, but in connecting it with this secondary idea, and so referring it to Sheol itself as demanding, instead of the mourning, sighing survivors asking after the dead. They supposed it was called Sheol from its rapacity, or unsatiableness, ever claiming its victims,—a thought, indeed, common in the early language of mourning, but having too much of tropical artifice to be the very earliest. It belongs to that later stage in which language is employed, retroactively, to awaken or intensify emotion, instead of being its gushing, irrepressible utterance. In support of this view, the text constantly cited, as the standard one, was Pro_30:16, שְׁאוֹל--לֹא שָׂבְעָה לֹא אָמְרָה הוֹן, Sheol that is never satisfied, that never says, enough. See the old commentary of Martin Geier on the book of Proverbs. Corresponding to this is the manner in which Homer speaks of Hades, and its vast population:

κλυτὰ ἔθνεα νεκρῶν.

So the dramatic poets represent it as rapacious, carrying off its victims like a ferocious animal (see the “Medea” of Euripides, 1108), inexorable, νηλεής, pitiless, ever demanding, but hearing no prayer in return. Hence it had settled into the classical phrase rapax Orcus (see Catullus, ii. 28, 29). But this, whatever form might be given to it, was not the first thought that would arise in the mind respecting the state of the departed. Instead of such an objective attribute of Hades, or Sheol, as a place demanding to be filled, it was rather the subjective feeling of inquiring wonder at the phenomenon of death, at the thought of the one who had disappeared, and of that inexplicable state into which even the imagination failed to follow him. Shadowy as all such language is, it is only the stronger evidence of that feeling of continued being which holds on so firmly through it all, as though in spite of the positive appearances of sense testifying to the departure, or the negative testimony arising from the failure of the eye to pierce the darkness (whence the Greek Hades, the unseen), or of the ear to gather any report from the silence into which the dead had gone. See remarks in the note before referred to, p. 273, on the idea of death as a state, a state of being, the antithesis, not of being, but of the active life “beneath the sun.” Now the idea of extinction, of absolute not-being, of a total loss of individual personality, would have excluded all questioning; it would never have made such words as Hades, or Sheol, according to either conception, whether of inquiry or of locality, whether as denoting a state or a place, whether as demanding or as interrogated, whether as addressed to the unseen, or to the voiceless and unheard. The man was gone, but where? According to a most ancient and touching custom, they thrice most solemnly invoked his name, but no answer came back. Their belief in his continued being was shown by the voice that went after him, though no responding voice was returned to the living ear. שְׁאוֹל (the infinitive used as a noun), to ask, to inquire anxiously; he had gone to the land thus denoted, that “undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returned.” The key-text here is Job_14:10 : “Man dies, and wastes away; he giveth up the ghost (יִגְוַע הָאָדָם, yighwah ha-adam, man sighs, or gasps for breath), and where is he?” יְאַיֹּוֹ, weayyo, O, where is he? See Zec_1:5 : The fathers! אַיֵּה־הֵם, where are they? Compare also Job_7:21, and other places of a similar kind, all showing how natural is the connection between the wailing, questioning weayyo, and the word Sheol so immediately suggested by it.

The disappearance of Enoch from the earth was stranger than that of the ordinary death, but gave rise to the same feeling of inquiry, only in a more intensive degree. “He was not found,” οὐχ εὑρίσκετο, says the LXX, and this gives the real meaning of the Hebrew אֵינֶכּוּ, not denoting non-existence, for that would be directly contrary to what follows, but that he was nowhere to be found on earth.

Thus regarded, it is easy to see how the idea of some locality would soon attach itself to the primitive emotional conception, and in time become so predominant that the older germ of thought, that was in the etymology, would almost wholly disappear. Still the spirit of the word, its geist or ghost, to use the more emphatic German or Saxon, long haunts it after the conception has changed so as to receive into it more of the local and definite. Trench has shown how tenacious is this root-sense of old words, preserving them, like some guardian genius, from misusage and misapplication, ages after it has ceased to be directly conceptual, or to be known at all, except to the antiquarian philologist. Thus, although the cavernous or subterranean idea had become prominent in the Psalms and elsewhere, this old spirit of the word still hovers about it in all such passages; we still seem to hear the sighing weayyo; there yet lingers in the car the plaintive sheolah, denoting the intense looking into the world unknown, the anxious listening to which no answering voice is returned.

That Sheol, in its primary sense, did not mean the grave, and in fact had no etymological association with it, is shown by the fact, already mentioned, that there was a distinct word for the latter, of still earlier occurrence in the Scriptures, common in all the Shemitic languages, and presenting the definite primary conception of digging, or excavation (קבר, kbr, krb, גרב ,כרב, grb, grub, grav). There was no room here for expansion into the greater thought. The Egyptian embalming, too, to one who attentively considers it, will appear still less favorable. It was a dry and rigid memorial of death, far less suggestive of continued being, somehow and somewhere, than the flowing of the body into nature through decomposition in the grave, or its dispersion by fire into the prime elements of its organization. In the supposed case, however, of Joseph’s torn and dismembered corpse, there was nothing from any of these sources to aid the conception. Yet Jacob held on to it: I will go mourning to my son, אֶל בְּנִי, not עַל, or אֶל for עַל, on account of my son, as some would take it.6 Had Joseph been lying by the side of his mother in the field near Bethlehem Ephratah, or with Abraham and Sarah, and Isaac and Rebekah, in the cave of Machpelah, or in some Egyptian sarcophagus, embalmed with costliest spices and wrapped in aromatic linen, the idea of his unbroken personality would have been no more vivid, Joseph himself (his very ipse) would have been no nearer, or more real, to the mourning father, than as he thought of his body lying mangled in the wilderness, or borne by rapacious birds to the supposed four corners of the earth. I will go to my son mourning, sheolah (שְׁאֹלָה, with ה of direction), Sheol-ward,—on the way to the unknown land.

This view of Sheol is strongly corroborated by the parallel etymology, and the parallel connection of ideas we find in the origin and use of the Greek Hades. Some would seek its primary meaning elsewhere, but it is clearly Greek, and no derivation is more obvious than the one given long ago, and which would make this word ̔́Αιδης (Homeric ’Αΐδης, with the mild aspirate) from α privative and ἰδεῖν to see. We have the very word as an adjective, with this meaning of invisible or unseen, Hesiod: “Shield of Hercules,” 477. It denotes, then, the unseen world, carrying the idea of disappearance, and yet of continued being in some state unknown. The analogy between it and the Hebrew word is perfect. So is the parallelism, all the more striking, we may say, from the fact that in the two languages the appeal is to two different senses. In the one, it is the eye peering into the dark; in the other, it is the ear intently listening to the silence. Both give rise to the same question: Where is he? whither has he gone? and both seem to imply with equal emphasis that the one unseen and unheard yet really is. Sometimes a derivative from the same root, and of the same combination, is joined with Hades to make the meaning intensive, as in the “Ajax” of Sophocles, Genesis 607:

τὸν ἀπότροπον ἀΐδηλον ̔́Αιδαν—

The awful, unseen Hades.

From this use has come the adjective ἀΐδιος, rendered eternal, but having this meaning from the association of ideas (the Hadean, the everlasting), since it is not etymologically connected with αἰών (see Judges 6, δεσμοῖς ἀϊδίοις, where the two conceptions seem to unite). In truth, there is a close connection between these two sets of words (’Αΐδης and αἰών, עוֹלָם and שאול), one ever suggesting the other,—“the things that are seen are temporal (belong to time), the things that are unseen are eternal.” Hence we have in Greek the same idiom, in respect to Hades, that we have in Hebrew in relation to Olam (עוֹלָם), the counterpart of αἰών. Thus, in the former language we have the expressions, οἶκος ̔́Αιδου—δόμος ̔́Αιδου, etc., corresponding exactly to the Hebrew בֵּית עוֹלָם, the house of eternity, poorly rendered his long home, Ecc_12:5. Compare the οἰκίαν αἰώνιον, the “house eternal,” 2Co_5:1. Compare also Xenophon’sAgesilaus, at the close, where it is said of the Spartan king, τὴν ἀΐδιον οἴκησιν κατηγάγετο, “he was brought back, like one who had been away, to his eternal home.” Sec, too, a very remarkable passage, Diodorus Siculus, lib. i. Gen 51, respecting the belief of the most ancient Egyptians: “The habitations of the living they call inns, or lodging-places, καταλύσεις, since we dwell in them so short a time, but those of the dead they style οἴκους ἀϊδίους, everlasting abodes, as residing in them forever, τὸν ἄπειρον ἀιῶνα.” See also Pareau: De Jobi Notitiis, etc., on the early Arabian belief, p. 27.

Why should not Jacob have had the idea as well as these most ancient Egyptians? That his thought was more indefinite, that it had less of circumstance and locality, less imagery every way, than the Greek and Egyptian fancy gave it, only proves its higher purity as a divine hope, a sublime act of faith, rather than a poetical picturing, or a speculative dogma. The less it assumed to know, or even to imagine, showed its stronger trust in the unseen world as an assured reality, but dependent solely for its clearer revelation on the unseen God. The faith was all the stronger, the less the aid it received from the sense or the imagination. It was grounded on the surer rock of the “everlasting covenant” made with the fathers, though in it not a word was said directly of a future life. “The days of the years of my pil grimage,” says Jacob. He was “a sojourner upon earth as his fathers before him.” The language has no meaning except as pointing to a home, an ἀΐδιον οἴκησιν, an eternal habitation; whether in Sheol, or through Sheol, was not known. It was enough that it was a return unto God, “his people’s dwelling-place (מָעוֹן לָנוּ, see Psa_90:1) in all generations.” It was, in some way, a “living unto him,” however they might disappear from earth and time; for “he is not the God of the dead.” His covenant was an assurance of the continued being of those with whom it was made. “Because he lived they should, live also.” “Art thou not from everlasting, Jehovah, my God, my Holy One? we shall not (wholly) die.” “Thou wilt lay us up in Sheol; thou wilt call and we will answer; thou wilt have regard to the work of thy hands.” The pure doctrine of a personal God, and a belief in human extinction, have never since been found conjoined. Can we believe it of the lofty theism of the patriarchal ages?

Hades, like Sheol, had its two conceptual stages, first of state, and afterwards of locality. To the Greek word, however, there was added a third idea. It came to denote, also, a power; and so was used for the supposed king of the dead, ’Αΐδης, ̓́Αις, ’Αϊδωνεύς,—ἄναξ ἐνέρων (Iliad, 20:61); and this personification appears again in the later Scripture, 1Co_15:55, O Hades, where is thy victory? and in Rev_6:8; Rev_20:13-14, where Hades becomes limited to Gehenna, and its general power, as keeper of souls, is abolished.—T. L.]

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. Jacob’s fondness for the younger son forms the other extreme to Isaac’s predilection for the first-born. He had, it is true, better reasons than Isaac; for Joseph is not only the son of his beloved Rachel, but also the Nazarite (the consecrated or separate one) among his brethren,—a fact to which he testifies upon his death-bed (see Gen_49:22). But then he began to see clearly that Judah surpassed Joseph in what pertained to the future. The struggle between his predilection and his love of justice appears in more than one instance. Joseph must enter service as a shepherd’s boy; nevertheless, his father provides for him a showy garment, and keeps him at home longer than the others. He ventures his favorite upon a distant and dangerous mission, and this is a reason why he refuses to be comforted at his loss. He rebukes him for his apparently presumptuous dream, but feels compelled to keep the presaging omens in his vaticinating heart.

2. The Scriptures make no palliation of the sins of the twelve patriarchs—the fathers of the very people to whom they are sent. This shows their super-earthly origin.

3. By his dreams Joseph gets into misery, and by their interpretations he is delivered from it. The first fact would give him occasion to think closely on the ground-laws that regulate the symbolic language of dreams; and both he, and the New-Testament Joseph, are witnesses to the fact that there is a significance in them. Elsewhere have we shown the circumstances favorable to this that were possessed by both.

4. The simplicity with which Joseph relates his dreams, reminds us of Isaac’s naïve question on the way to Mount Moriah: but where is the lamb? It stands in beautiful contrast with that moral earnestness which had already, in early age, made him self-reliant in presence of his brethren.

5. Here, too, in the history of Joseph’s brethren, is there an example showing how envy passes over to animosity, animosity to fixed hatred, and hatred to a scheme of murder, just as in the history of Cain, and in that of Christ. The allegorical significance of our history, as typical of that of Christ, appears in the most diversified traits.

6. As the murderous scheme was prevented by Reuben’s plan of deliverance, and modified by Judah’s proposal, so, in the life of our Lord, the scheme of the Sanhedrin was changed more than once by arresting circumstances. Thus providence turned the destructive plots to a beneficent end. It was the chief tendency of these schemes to promote the highest glory of the hated one, whose glory they aimed to destroy.

7. Concerning the way in which these plans of Reuben and Judah cross each other, see the Exegetical and Critical. We have no right to suppose that Reuben behaved as he did in this case in order to appease his father for the wrong done in the case of Bilhah. The weakness, which, according to Gen_49:4, was the great reproach of his character, had also its good side. Equally false is the supposition that Judah maliciously frustrated Reuben’s good intentions. Both remind us of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, who did not consent to the sentence of the Sanhedrin; but they were less inclined to the right, and their half-measures remind us of Pilate’s attempt to save, though they had not, like him, the power in their hands; since being implicated by their former animosity towards Joseph, they could only weakly oppose their angry brethren.

8. The “coat of many colors” dipped in blood, reminds us of the deception that Jacob, in Esau’s raiment, practised upon his father. Yet it must not be overlooked, that Jacob became reconciled at Peniel. Had he been sanctified, indeed, as well as reconciled, he would not, after such bitter experience, have repeated his father’s error of an arbitrary preference of one son to another. And, in this respect, he even now atoned for a sin which had been already pardoned.

9. Jacob’s mourning shows how deeply his peace was shaken. The self-examination occasioned in pious souls, in consequence of the loss or sufferings of dear ones, especially of children, becomes a grievous self-condemnation. From this there arises a longing after death. But here, too, there must be an unconditional surrender to God’s grace. We see here, also, how “the congregation of the fathers” beyond the grave becomes a Sheol to the pre-Christian consciousness through the feeling it gives of death, of his power, of the effect of mourning as extending even to the other world. Luther has frequently translated Sheol by Hell (we find it also thus in Apost. Symb.); but a careful distinction should be made between Sheol and Gehenna.

10. These Ishmaelitish-Midianitish merchantmen are the first Ishmaelites with whom we become acquainted. They remind us of the caravan of Mohammed, that most renowned of all Ishmaelitish merchants. They testify to the outward increase and spiritual decrease of the descendants of Ishmael. They are witnesses to a heart-rending scene, but coolly pay their twenty pieces of silver, reminding us of the thirty paid by Judas, then go their way with the poor lad, who passes his home without hope of deliverance, and is for a long time, like Moses, David, and Christ, reckoned among the lost.

11. Jacob’s house shaken, burdened with a curse, given over, apparently, to destruction, and yet wonderfully saved by God’s grace and human placability (see Genesis 50).

12. Joseph’s character. Presageful of the future, like a prophet; simple as a child; the extraordinarily prudent son of the prudent Rachel and the prudent Jacob, yet noble-minded, and so generous that he becomes a type of New-Testament love for enemies,—God-fearing in a distant land, and yet so liberal in his universalism that he can reconcile himself to Egyptian culture, holding himself free, even to bitterness, in respect to home remembrances (see the name he gave his son Manasseh (make to forget, oblivioni tradens), and yet, at last, homesick after Canaan,—renowned for chastity, and yet not without ambition, full of high-minded and proud anticipations, and yet prepared to endure all humiliations by which Jehovah might aim to purify him. Calumniated by many, by others hastily canonized as a saint. A man of spirit and a man of action in the highest sense.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

The whole chapter. Joseph sold. The sins of men and the providence of God. The character of our narrative. The chain of circumstances. The significance often of things apparently small. 1. Of Jacob’s weakness (in the case of the coat); 2. of Joseph’s dreams; 3. of his thoughtlessness; 4. of Reuben’s absence; 5. of the appearing of the Ishmaelites.—Man proposes, God disposes.—“My thoughts are not your thoughts,” etc. The sublimity of the divine decrees as compared with human schemes.

Section First. (Gen_37:1-12.) Starke: Although Jacob had his reasons for specially loving Joseph, yet he did not act prudently in allowing it to become noticed. Parents should guard against it. Ambrose: Jungat liberos equalis gratia quos junxit (œqualis natura. Envy is a diabolical vice (Wis_2:24).7—Hall: Suffering is the road to honor.—The same: When we are loved by our Heavenly Father, and weep over our sins, we will be hated by our brethren in the flesh (1Pe_4:4).—Bibl. Tub.: Do not unnecessarily tell your enemy what may be for your advantage.—Calwer Handbuch: Gen_37:2. No malicious information was it, but coming from an innocent free-heartedness and a dutiful abhorrence of evil.—Lisco, on the contrary: A child-like and injudicious tale-telling.—Gerlach: As a spoiled child, he accuses his brethren to his father. [The boundary between the malicious and the dutiful here may be drawn with difficulty; yet it is to be observed, that Joseph told the father what was already spoken of by the people, that is, when it had already become an ill-fame.]—Schröder: Luther says, that Joseph narrated his dreams “like a child,” not from malice, but in simplicity and innocence.—Richter: Mark it; young Joseph saw in his dreams only his exaltation, not the humiliation that preceded it.—Heim (“Bible Studies”): The difference between the two dreams. In the first there could be only ten sheaves besides Joseph’s, since Benjamin was not present, and Joseph said to his brethren, Your sheaves. In the second, however, he beholds definitely eleven stars, therefore himself as the twelfth included.

Section Second. (Gen_37:12-20.) Starke: Gen_37:15. Joseph enters upon his journey in the simplicity of his heart, expecting no evil; and thus God lets him run into the net against which he could have easily warned him. God’s ways, however, are secret. Whom he wishes to exalt he first tries, purifies, tempts, and humbles. [The Rabbins and one of the Targums tell us that this man, who directed Joseph in the field, was the angel Gabriel in the form of a man.]—Hall: God’s decree precedes and is fulfilled, whilst we have no thought about it, yea, even fight against it. Though a Christian does not always prosper, though difficulties beset his way, he must not be confounded, but ever continue firm and steadfast in his calling. Gen_37:18. Here Moses shows what kind of ancestors the Jews had (comp. Act_7:9, etc.). Thus they fell from one sin into another. Perhaps Simeon was the ringleader; since he afterwards was bound as hostage for his brethren.—Schröder: Joseph goes in search of his brethren, and finds sworn enemies, bloodthirsty murderers.—Heim (“Bible Studies”): Shechem is about twenty-five leagues from Hebron. Joseph’s mission to this remote and dangerous country is a proof, at the same time, that Jacob did not treat him with too much indulgence, and that he did not keep him home from any feelings of tenderness. Joseph’s willing obedience, too, and his going alone, an inexperienced youth, upon such a dangerous journey, is a proof that he was accustomed to obey cheerfully—a habit not acquired in an effeminate bringing-up.

Section Third (Gen_37:21-24). Starke: So goes the world. Pious people ponder the welfare of the godless, whilst the latter are conspiring for their destruction (1Sa_19:5). God can raise up, even among enemies, helpers of the persecuted. “Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of vanity and sin, as it were with a cart-rope” (Isa_5:18).

Section Fourth (Gen_37:25-27). Starke: Luther: They take their seats as though they had well done their work. Conscience is secure; sin is asleep; yet God sees all.—Schröder: [Unfavorable judgment of Judah.] Luther: O, Judah, thou art not yet purified. In Calwer Handbuch Judah is even compared to Judas, who sold the Lord. But it is allegorising merely, when we are determined in our judgment by mere outward resemblances. See the Exegetical and Critical. Judah’s proposition arose from the alternative: He must either starve to death in the pit, or he must be sold as a slave.

Section Fifth (Gen_37:28-32). Starke: No matter what hindrances Joseph’s brethren might put in the way of the dreams’ fulfilment, against their will were they made to promote it (Psa_55:10).—Bibl. Tub.: Thus, there is yet a spark of good in nature. If only man would not suppress this small light, he would be preserved from the greatest sins.—The same: Joseph is a type of Christ in his exaltation, in his humiliation, and especially in his being sold for thirty [twenty] pieces of silver. Gen_37:29. Josephus thinks that Reuben came by night so as not to be detected. [One of the Targums adds, that Reuben, on account of the incest committed, had been fasting among the mountains, and, in order to find grace before his father, had intended to bring Joseph again to him.] Gen_37:32. Thus Joseph’s brothers add sin to sin.

Section Sixth (Gen_37:33-36). Starke: This was a punishment of God. Jacob had deceived his father Isaac by putting around his neck and hands the skin of a kid; he is himself now deceived by Joseph’s coat dipped in the blood of a kid.—Hall: One sin is made to cover another; godless men, it is true, ever try to conceal their malignity, but it comes to light at last, and is punished.—Osiander: Seldom does misfortune come alone. It is but a short time since Jacob was deprived of Rachel; now he has lost Joseph. In such a concealment of guilt they pass twenty-two years. And his father wept for him. [Luther: This was Isaac, Joseph’s grandfather, who lived still twelve years after this event.] He himself (Jacob) had several things to reproach him in his conscience: Why did he let the boy go alone on such a journey? Why did he send him into a country abounding in wild beasts?—Bibl. Wirt.: In grief we are inclined to overdo.—Osiander: Pious parents often blame themselves when things go badly with their children, even when there is the least ground for it.—Calwer Handbuch: After the crime, comes the lie; after the lie, a hypocritical comforting of the father.—Schröder: Luther: During all this time, the brethren were unable to pray to God with a good conscience.—Observe, each one of the three patriarchs was to sacrifice his dearest son.

To the whole chapter. Taube: The selling of Joseph by his brethren: 1. From what sources this horrible deed arose; 2. how the divine mouth remains silent, whilst the divine hand so much the more strongly holds; 3. the types that lie concealed.

Footnotes:

[1][Gen_37:2.—דִּבָּתָם רָעָה. LXX., ψόγον πονηρόν; Vulgate, more strongly, accusavit fratres suos apud patrem crimine pessimo. From דבב, an onomatope (dabab—dab—dabble), denoting a light, oft-repeated sound (tap-tap), or motion, like the Arabic ֿَ ָٌ leniter incessit, reptavit. In either way the noun דִּבָּה would come to mean, a rumor whispered, or creeping round. It does not mean that Joseph made accusations against them, as the Vulgate has it, but that, in boyish simplicity, he repeated what he had heard about them. The root דבב occurs only Son_7:10, where Gesenius gives it the sense of lightly flowing, which hardly seems consistent with the radical idea of repetition. The light motion of the lips, like one muttering, or faintly attempting to speak in sleep, as our translators have given it, is more in accordance with the nature of the root.—T. L.]

[2][Gen_37:3.—בֶּן זְקֻנִים. Rendered, son of his old age, τηλύγετος. But, as Maimonides well remarks, this could not have been the case with Joseph in a degree much exceeding the relation to the father of Issachar and Zebulon. He thinks, therefore, that he was so called, not because he was late born, but because he stayed at home, and thus became his father’s principal stay and support—“as is the custom of old men to retain one son, in this manner, whether the youngest or not—בעבור ישרת לזקוניו—that is, be to him γηροτρόφος or γηροβοσκός, as the Greeks called it.” In this view the plural form would be intensive, denoting extreme old age, to which the other places where the form occurs would well agree, Gen_21:2; Gen_44:20. After Joseph, Benjamin performed this duty. The Targum of Onkelos seems to have had something of this kind in view, when it renders it בר חכים לה, his wise son—his careful son, who provided for him.—T. L.]

[3][Gen_37:3.—כְּתֹנֶת פַּסִּים, coat of many colors,—rather, coat of pieces. The context shows that it was something beautiful and luxurious; the other passage where it occurs, 2Sa_13:18, shows that it may denote a garment for either sex, and the plural form indicates variety of construction or material. The primary sense of the root, פסם, is diminution, not diffusion, as Gesenius says (see פִּסָּה). This is inferred from the use of אֶפֶם for something small, as the end or extremity of anything, and the parallelism of the verb, Psa_12:2,—a garment distinguished for small spots, stripes, or fringes.—T. L.]

[4][Gen_37:35.—On the etymology of שְׁאוֹל see Excursus, p. 585 sqq.—T. L.]

[5][Compare the Hebrew נִמֻצָא, as used Psa_46:1, from which comes the frequent rabbinical use of the term for existence as that which is somehow present. Comp. also the Arab. זּזב and ַבדזּזב ַ = τὰ ὄντα, entia. Lit., things to be found.—T. L.]

[6][In proof that אֶל may have the sense of עַל, Rosenmüller refers to 1Ki_14:5; and Rashi to 2Sa_21:1; 1Sa_4:21. But these do not bear out the inference. The sense of direction, so clear everywhere else in the hundreds of cases where this preposition אֶל occurs, is not lost even in these. “Gone is the glory of Israel” (the glory that was). It is broken, impassioned language, and we may suppose an ellipsis: she said this (looking) to the taking of the ark, etc. So, in the chief case cited, it is most vividly rendered by taking it elliptically—to the house of Saul, 2Sa_21:1—that is, “look not to me for the cause,” says the oracle, but “to Saul and his bloody house.” At the utmost, these very few doubtful cases cannot invalidate the clear sense that the common rendering makes here.—T. L.]

[7] [Φθόνῳ δὲ διαβόλου θάνατος εἰσῆλθεν εἰς τὸν κόσμον, through envy of the devil death entered into the world. There is something very peculiar about this sin of envy, fully justifying the epithet diabolical. In the first place, it is preeminently spiritual. It is a pure soul-sin, having least connection with the material or animal nature, and for which there is the least palliation in appetite, or in any extrinsic temptation. Its seat and origin is wholly supercarnal, except as the term carnal is taken, as it sometimes is by the Apostle, for all that is evil in humanity. A man may be most intellectual, most free from every vulgar appetite of the flesh; he may be a philosopher, he may dwell speculatively in the region of the abstract and the ideal, and yet his soul be full of this corroding malice, which the author of the book of Proverbs, describing it in its effect rather than its origin, calls “rottenness in the bones” (Pro_14:30), presenting it as the opposite of that “sound heart which is the life of the flesh.” In the second place, it is the most purely evil. Almost every other passion, even acknowledged to be sinful, has in it somewhat of good, or appearance of good. Revenge assumes to have, at its foundation, some sense of wrong, that allies it to justice. Nemesis claims relationship to Themis. Anger makes a similar plea, and, with some show of reason, lays part, at least, of the blame upon the nervous irritability. These, and other human passions, trace a connection, in their spiritual genealogy, between themselves and pure affections that might have belonged to man’s psychical or sensitive nature before the fall. But envy, or hatred of a man for the good that is in him, or in any way pertains to him, is evil unalloyed. To use the imagery of John Bunyan, its descent is simply Diabolonian, without any cross or mixture with anything that might allege a title to citizenship in Mansoul before it revolted from king Shaddai. Neither can it be laid, where we are so fond of charging our sins, upon the poor body. It would seem to have no natural growth from Mansoul’s material corporation, ruined as it is. It is the breath of the old serpent. It is pure devil, as it is, also, purely spiritual. It needs no body, no concupiscent organization, no appetites or fleshly motions, no nerves even, for the exercise of its devilish energies. It is a soul-poison, yet acting fearfully upon the body itself, bringing more death into it than seemingly stronger and more tumultuous passions that have their nearer seat in the fleshly nature. “It is rottenness in the bones.” We may compare this proverb of Solomon with a terrific description of envy by Æschylus, Agamem., Genesis 833:

τὸν εὐτυχοῦντα σὺν φθόνῳ βλέπειν,

δύσφρων μὲν ’ΙΟ ìΣ καρδίαν προσήμενος,

ἄχθος διπλοίζει τῷ πεπαμμένῳ νόσον ̇

τοις τ’ αὐτὸς αὑτοῦ πήμασιν βαρύνεται,

καὶ τὸν θυραῖον ὄλβον εἰσορῶν—στένει.

Envy at others’ good is evermore

Malignant poison sitting on the soul;

A double woe to him infected with it.

Of inward pain the heavy load he bears,

At sight of joy without, he ever mourns.

What inspired the Greek poets in such truthful description of the most intense evils of the soul? All bad passions are painful, but envy has a double barb to sting itself.—T. L.]

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Genesis

THE TRIALS AND VISIONS OF DEVOUT YOUTH

Gen 37:1 - Gen 37:11.

‘The generations of Jacob’ are mainly occupied with the history of Joseph, because through him mainly was the divine purpose carried on. Jacob is now the head of the chosen family, since Isaac’s death {Gen 35:29}, and therefore the narrative is continued under that new heading. There may possibly be intended a contrast in ‘dwelt’ and ‘sojourned’ in Gen 37:1, the former implying a more complete settling down.

There are two principal points in this narrative,-the sad insight that it gives into the state of the household in which so much of the world’s history and hopes was wrapped up, and the preludings of Joseph’s future in his dreams.

As to the former, the account of it is introduced by the statement that Joseph, at seventeen years of age, was set to work, according to the wholesome Eastern usage, and so was thrown into the company of the sons of the two slave-women, Bilhah and Zilpah. Delitzsch understands ‘lad’ in Gen 37:2 in the sense in which we use ‘boy,’ as meaning an attendant. Joseph was, then, told off to be subordinate to these two sets of his rough brothers. The relationship was enough to rouse hatred in such coarse souls. And, indeed, the history of Jacob’s household strikingly illustrates the miserable evils of polygamy, which makes families within the family, and turns brothers into enemies. Bilhah’s and Zilpah’s sons reflected in their hatred of Rachel’s their mothers’ envy of the true wife of Jacob’s heart. The sons of the bondwoman were sure to hate the sons of the free.

If Joseph had been like his brothers, they would have forgiven him his mother. But he was horrified at his first glimpse of unrestrained young passions, and, in the excitement of disgust and surprise, ‘told their evil report.’ No doubt, his brothers had been unwilling enough to be embarrassed by his presence, for there is nothing that wild young men dislike more than the constraint put on them by the presence of an innocent youth; and when they found out that this ‘milk-sop’ of a brother was a spy and a telltale, their wrath blazed up. So Joseph had early experience of the shock which meets all young men who have been brought up in godly households when they come into contact with sin in fellow-clerks, servants, students, or the like. It is a sharp test of what a young man is made of, to come forth from the shelter of a father’s care and a mother’s love, and to be forced into witnessing and hearing such things as go on wherever a number of young men are thrown together. Be not ‘partaker of other men’s sins.’ And the trial is doubly great when the tempters are elder brothers, and the only way to escape their unkindness is to do as they do. Joseph had an early experience of the need of resistance; and, as long as the world is a world, love to God will mean hatred from its worst elements. If we are ‘sons of the day,’ we cannot but rebuke the darkness.

It is an invidious office to tell other people’s evil-doing, and he who brings evil reports of others generally and deservedly gets one for himself. But there are circumstances in which to do so is plain duty, and only a mistaken sense of honour keeps silence. But there must be no exaggeration, malice, or personal ends in the informer. Classmates in school or college, fellow-servants, employees in great businesses, and the like, have not only a duty of loyalty to one another, but of loyalty to their superior. We are sometimes bound to be blind to, and dumb about, our associates’ evil deeds, but sometimes silence makes us accomplices.

Jacob had a right to know, and Joseph would have been wrong if he had not told him, the truth about his brothers. Their hatred shows that his purity had made their doing wrong more difficult. It is a grand thing when a young man’s presence deprives the Devil of elbow-room for his tricks. How much restraining influence such a one may exert!

Jacob’s somewhat foolish love, and still more foolish way of showing it, made matters worse. There were many excuses for him. He naturally clung to the son of his lost but never-forgotten first love, and as naturally found, in Joseph’s freedom from the vices of his other sons, a solace and joy. It has been suggested that the ‘long garment with sleeves,’ in which he decked the lad, indicated an intention of transferring the rights of the first-born to him, but in any case it meant distinguishing affection; and the father or mother who is weak enough to show partiality in the treatment of children need not wonder if their unwise love creates bitter heart-burnings. Perhaps, if Bilhah’s and Zilpah’s sons had had a little more sunshine of a father’s love, they would have borne brighter flowers and sweeter fruit. It is fatal when a child begins to suspect that a parent is not fair.

So these surly brothers, who could not even say ‘Peace be to thee!’ {the common salutation} when they came across Joseph, had a good deal to say for themselves. It is a sad picture of the internal feuds of the house from which all nations were to be blessed. The Bible does not idealise its characters, but lets us see the seamy side of the tapestry, that we may the more plainly recognise the Mercy which forgives, and the mighty Providence which works through, such imperfect men. But the great lesson for all young people from the picture of Joseph’s early days, when his whiteness rebuked the soiled lives of his brothers, as new-fallen snow the grimy cake, hardened and soiled on the streets, is, ‘My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.’ Never mind a world’s hatred, if you have a father’s love. There is one Father who can draw His obedient children into the deepest secrets of His heart without withholding their portion from the most prodigal.

Joseph’s dreams are the other principal point in the narrative. The chief incidents of his life turn on dreams,-his own, his fellow-prisoners’, Pharaoh’s. The narrative recognises them as divinely sent, and no higher form of divine communication appears to have been made to Joseph, He received no new revelations of religious truth. His mission was, not to bring fresh messages from heaven, but to effect the transference of the nation to Egypt. Hence the lower form of the communications made to him.

The meaning of both dreams is the same, but the second goes beyond the first in the grandeur of the emblems, and in the inclusion of the parents in the act of obeisance. Both sets of symbols were drawn from familiar sights. The homeliness of the ‘sheaves’ is in striking contrast with the grandeur of the ‘sun, moon, and stars.’ The interpretation of the first is ready to hand, because the sheaves were ‘your sheaves’ and ‘my sheaf.’ There was no similar key included in the second, and his brothers do not appear to have caught its meaning. It was Jacob who read it. Probably Rachel was dead when the dream came, but that need not make a difficulty.

Note that Joseph did not tell his dreams with elation, or with a notion that they meant anything particular. It is plainly the singularity of them that makes him repeat them, as is clearly indicated by the repeated ‘behold’ in his two reports. With perfect innocence of intention, and as he would have told any other strange dream, the lad repeats them. The commentary was the work of his brothers, who were ready to find proofs of his being put above them, and of his wish to humiliate them, in anything he said or did. They were wiser than he was. Perhaps they suspected that Jacob meant to set him at the head of the clan on his decease, and that the dreams were trumped up and told to them to prepare them for the decision which the special costume may have already hinted.

At all events, hatred is very suspicious, and ready to prick up its ears at every syllable that seems to speak of the advancement of its object.

There is a world of contempt, rage, and fear in the questions, ‘Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us?’ The conviction that Joseph was marked out by God for a high position seems to have entered these rough souls, and to have been fuel to fire. Hatred and envy make a perilous mixture. Any sin can come from a heart drenched with these. Jacob seems to have been wise enough to make light of the dreams to the lad, though much of them in his heart. Youthful visions of coming greatness are often best discouraged. The surest way to secure their fulfilment is to fill the present with strenuous, humble work. ‘Do the duty that is nearest thee.’ ‘The true apprenticeship for a ruler is to serve.’ ‘Act, act, in the living present.’ The sheaves may come to bow down some day, but ‘my sheaf’ has to be cut and bound first, and the sooner the sickle is among the corn, the better.

But yet, on the other hand, let young hearts be true to their early visions, whether they say much about them or not. Probably it will be wisest to keep silence. But there shine out to many young men and women, at their start in life, bright possibilities of no ignoble sort, and rising higher than personal ambition, which it is the misery and sin of many to see ‘fade away into the light of common day,’ or into the darkness of night. Be not ‘disobedient to the heavenly vision’; for the dreams of youth are often the prophecies of what God means and makes it possible for the dreamer to be, if he wakes to work towards that fair thing which shone on him from afar.

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

XII. THE GENERATIONS OF JACOB

CHAPTER 37 The Story of Joseph

1. Jacob dwelling in Canaan (Gen 37:1)

2. Joseph’s character and feeding the flock (Gen 37:2)

3. Beloved of his father (Gen 37:3)

4. Hated by his brethren (Gen 37:4)

5. The dream of the sheaves (Gen 37:5-8)

6. The dream of the sun, moon and stars (Gen 37:9-11)

7. Joseph seeks his brethren (Gen 37:12-17)

8. The plot against Joseph (Gen 37:18-22)

9. Joseph in the pit and sold (Gen 37:23-28)

10. Reuben’s grief (Gen 37:29-30)

11. The deception of Jacob’s sons (Gen 37:31-32)

12. The grief of Jacob (Gen 37:33-35)

13. Joseph in Egypt (Gen 37:36)

The story of Joseph is one of the most interesting in the whole Bible. The Holy Spirit has devoted more space to the life of Joseph than He devoted to Abraham. The reason for this must be sought in the fact that the story of Joseph foreshadows the story of Christ. Some critics have made out that the story of Joseph is an invention and that the record was written hundreds of years after Moses. However, archeological evidence has fully and completely established the historical character of Joseph. Two of the El Amarna tablets show that a Semite held such a high position as attributed to Joseph. Others, while they believe in the historicity of Joseph, deny that his life is typical of our Lord. Such a denial is akin to spiritual blindness. It is true nowhere is a statement made that Joseph typifies Christ, but throughout this age all teachers of the Word have treated the life of Joseph as foreshadowing Christ. Stephen in his great address before the Jewish council mentions Joseph (Act 7:9-14); the Messianic application must have been in his mind.

The life of Joseph falls into two periods; his humiliation and his exaltation. In these two parts the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow are blessedly foreshadowed. There is no other type so perfect as that of Joseph. In our annotations we shall not be able to point out all the comparisons; only the leading ones we give as a hint.

Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons and that reminds us of Him who is the Father’s delight. Joseph was separated from evil, even as Christ was. Joseph had a coat of many colors, the expression of the Father’s love; thus God honored His Son. And as Joseph was hated by his brethren without a cause, so Christ was hated (Joh 15:25). The dreams foretold Joseph’s future exaltation; he saw things in heaven and things on earth bowing before him, even as before Christ things in heaven and on earth must bow the knee.

Then the father sent forth his beloved Joseph to seek his brethren who were lost. Israel put Joseph into their hands. All this foreshadows God’s unspeakable gift in sending His only begotten Son into this world to seek what is lost.

Then note the following typical suggestions. When he came to his brethren, they conspired against him to slay him. “Come now therefore let us slay him, and cast him in some pit.” And in Joh 5:16 it is written that the Jews sought to slay Christ. The brethren stripped Joseph of his coat, as our Lord was stripped of His garment. He was cast into the pit and they sat down to eat bread. And the Pharisees who had delivered up the Lord Jesus sat down to eat the Passover, while the soldiers, who had parted the garments sat down to watch them. They sold him as the Lord was sold and Judah was the one who said “let us sell him.” This brings the betrayal by Judas to our mind.

And Jacob is deceived by his sons as he deceived his father. The coat stained by the blood of a kid reminds us of the skin of the kid with which he had deceived Isaac.

Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Genesis 37

Joseph’s is one of the most interesting histories in the world. He has the strange power of uniting our hearts to him, as to a well-beloved friend. He had "the genius to be loved greatly," because he had the genius to love greatly, and his genius still lives in these Bible pages. We discover in Joseph—

I. A hated brother. The boy was his father’s pet. Very likely he was the perfect picture of Rachel who was gone, and so Jacob saw and loved in him his sainted wife. In token of love his father foolishly gave him a coat of many colours, to which, alas! the colour of blood was soon added. It was for no good reason that his brothers hated him. Joseph brought unto his father their evil report. Not that he was a sneaking tell-tale; but he would not do as they did, nor would he hide from his father their evil doings. God means the children of a family to feel bound together by bands that grapple the heart, and to stand true to one another to life’s end. Reverence the mighty ties of kindred which God has fashioned. Joseph also teaches you never to make any one your foe without a very good reason. The weakest whom you wrong may one day be your master.

II. Joseph was also a blameless youth. Though terribly tempted, he never yielded. He was shamefully wronged, yet he was not hardened or soured. His soul was like the oak which is nursed into strength by storms. In his heart, not on it, he wore a talisman that destroyed sin’s charms. The heavenly plant of his piety disclosed all its beauty, and gave out its sweet odours in the wicked palaces of Potiphar and Pharaoh.

III. Joseph was also a famous ruler. He entered Egypt as a Hebrew slave, and became its prime minister. He was the hero of his age, the saviour of his country, the most successful man of his day. He became so great because he was so good; he was a noble man because he was a thorough man of God.

IV. Joseph was a type of Christ. Joseph, like Jesus, was his father’s well-beloved son, the best of brothers, yet hated and rejected by his own; was sold from envy for a few pieces of silver, endured a great temptation, yet without sin; was brought into a low estate and falsely condemned; was the greatest of forgivers, the forgiver of his own murderers; and was in all things the son and hope of Israel.

J. Wells, Bible Children, p. 35.

References: Gen 37—F. W. Robertson, Notes on Genesis, p. 135; M. Dods, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, p. 139. Gen 37:1-11, A. Craig, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 358; R. S. Candlish, Book of Genesis, vol. ii., p. 113; W. M. Taylor, Joseph the Prime Minister, p. 7. Gen 37:1-36.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iv., p. 99. Gen 37:3—S. Cox, Expositor’s Notebook, p. 31.

Gen 37:3, etc.

Jacob was wrong in making a favourite of Joseph. The coat of many colours was the dress the firstborn child was to wear. In giving it to Joseph, Jacob was making him like the firstborn son. It was a beautiful white tunic, with a great many pieces bound upon it—not many colours like a rainbow.

I. Joseph’s coat must have been a snare to him, for we read that he was a tell-tale. He told his father about the wrong things that his brothers did. Never tell of others till you have used every possible persuasion. If you try to do good to others, you must be very good yourself.

II. Just at that time Joseph had two dreams. Perhaps it was the wearing of the coat that made him have these dreams. He was a little proud about the coat, so he had proud dreams.

III. When his father sent him to Dothan, we find that Joseph was very obedient and very brave. He went at once. He lost his way, but he was so persevering he would not go back, because he was determined not to return without doing what his father told him; and even after his brothers had sold him, we find that he was patient and forgiving. The reason was that he loved God and tried to please Him. God took care of him and blessed him through life.

J. Vaughan, Sermons to Children, 4th series, p. 317.

References: Gen 37:12, Gen 37:35.—W. M. Taylor, Joseph the Prime Minister, p. 20; R. S. Candlish, Book of Genesis, vol. ii., p. 120. Gen 37:18.—Parker, Hidden Springs, p. 140. Gen 37:19.—Parker, vol. i., p. 287; Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvii., p. 262. Gen 37:25-36.—R. S. Candlish, Book of Genesis, vol. ii., p. 128. Gen 37:33.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. xii., p. 139. Gen 37:36.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vii., p. 167. Gen 38—R. S. Candlish, Book of Genesis, vol. ii., p. 128. Gen 39—F. W. Robertson, Notes on Genesis, p. 140; Parker, vol. i., p. 294; M. Dods, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, p. 165; R. S. Candlish, Book of Genesis, vol. ii., p. 138. Gen 39:1.—Ibid., p. 128. Gen 39:1-7.—W. M. Taylor, Joseph the Prime Minister, p. 33. Gen 39:2.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvii., No. 1610; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 369. Gen 39:2-21.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xiv., p. 96. Gen 39:7-23.—W. M. Taylor, Joseph the Prime Minister, p. 48.

The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

37:1 In ch 36, Esau was well on his way to power and prosperity; by contrast, Jacob, still waiting for the promise, settled in the land as a foreigner, like his father. He was still a temporary resident with a single family. Worldly greatness often comes more swiftly than spiritual greatness. Waiting for the promised spiritual blessing while others prosper is a test of patience, faith, and perseverance.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

the land where his father was staying, in the land of Canaan

"in the land of Canaan where his father had lived"

These were the events concerning Jacob

This sentence introduces the account of Jacob's children in Genesis 37:1-50:26. Here "Jacob" refers to his whole family. AT: "This is the account of Jacob's family" (See: Synecdoche)

seventeen years old

"17 years old" (See: Numbers)

Bilhah

This is the name of Rachel's female servant. See how you translated this name in Genesis 29:29. (See: How to Translate Names)

Zilpah

This is the name of Leah's female servant. See how you translated this name in Genesis 29:24. (See: How to Translate Names)

wives

These women were servants of Leah and Rachel whom they had given to Jacob to produce children.

an unfavorable report about them

"a bad report about his brothers"

translationWords

Jacob

ancestor

Canaan

Joseph (OT)

flocks

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

CHAPTER XXXVII

Jacob continues to sojourn in Canaan, 1.

Joseph, being seventeen years of age, is employed in feeding

the flocks of his father, 2.

Is loved by his father more than the rest of his brethren, 3.

His brethren envy him, 4.

His dream of the sheaves, 5-7.

His brethren interpret it, and hate him on the account, 8.

His dream of the sun, moon, and eleven stars, 9-12.

Jacob sends him to visit his brethren, who were with the flock

in Shechem, 13, 14.

He wanders in the field, and is directed to go to Dothan, whither

his brethren had removed the flocks, 15-17.

Seeing him coming they conspire to destroy him, 18-20.

Reuben, secretly intending to deliver him, counsels his brethren

not to kill, but to put him into a pit, 21, 22.

They strip Joseph of his coat of many colours, and put him into

a pit, 23, 24.

They afterwards draw him out, and sell him to a company of

Ishmaelite merchants for twenty pieces of silver, who carry him

into Egypt, 25-28.

Reuben returns to the pit, and not finding Joseph, is greatly

affected, 29, 30.

Joseph's brethren dip his coat in goat's blood to persuade his

father that he had been devoured by a wild beast, 31-33.

Jacob is greatly distressed, 34, 35.

Joseph is sold in Egypt to Potiphar, captain of Pharaoh's guard, 36.

NOTES ON CHAP. XXXVII

Verse 1. Wherein his father was a stranger] מגורי אביו megurey abiv, Jacob dwelt in the land of his father's sojournings, as the margin very properly reads it. The place was probably the vale of Hebron, see Ge 37:14.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

1. And Jacob dwelt. Moses confirms what he had before declared, that, by the departure of Esau, the land was left to holy Jacob as its sole possessor. Although in appearance he did not obtain a single clod; yet, contented with the bare sight of the land, he exercised his faith; and Moses expressly compares him with his father, who had been a stranger in that land all his life. Therefore, though by the removal of his brother to another abode, Jacob was no little gainer; yet it was the Lord’s will that this advantage should be hidden from his eyes, in order that he might depend entirely upon the promise.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

XXXVII.

(1) And Jacob . . . —This verse is not the beginning of a new section, but the conclusion of the Tôldôth Esau. In Gen_36:6, we read that Esau went into a land away from Jacob. Upon this follows in Gen_37:8, “And Esau dwelt in Mount Seir;” and now the necessary information concerning the other brother is given to us, “And Jacob dwelt in the land . . . of Canaan.” In the Hebrew the conjunctions are the same.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1. sojournings] Cf. Gen_17:8, Gen_28:4, Gen_36:7 (P).

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger,.... And this stands opposed unto, and is distinguished from the case and circumstances of Esau and his posterity, expressed in the preceding chapter, who dwelt in the land of their possession, not as strangers and sojourners, as Jacob and his seed, but as lords and proprietors; and so these words may be introduced and read in connection with the former history; "but Jacob dwelt", &c. (a); and this verse would better conclude the preceding chapter than begin a new one. The Targum of Jonathan paraphrases the words, "and Jacob dwelt quietly"; or peaceably, in tranquillity and safety; his brother Esau being gone from him into another country, he remained where his father lived and died, and in the country that by his blessing belonged to him:

in the land of Canaan, and particularly in Hebron, where Isaac and Abraham before him had dwelt.

(a) "at habitavit", Schmidt.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Sojourned at Hebron and the environs. (Haydock)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Joseph is Hated by his Brethren and Sold into Egypt

With the exception of a few passages chiefly in Genesis 46, 49, the rest of the book of Genesis is taken from the Primitive source.

The chief event with which the rest of Genesis is concerned, namely, the migration of Israel to Egypt, displays the working out of God's purposes declared in Genesis 15. In Egypt the chosen race grew in peace from a tribe to a nation, instead of having to encounter the hostility of the Canaanites as their numbers increased and their aspirations became known. In Egypt, too, they came in contact with a highly civilised and law-abiding nation, and learnt from them much of the highest value for the future.

There are many points in the history of Joseph which remind us of Christ, e.g. in his being the loved son of his father, in his being sent to his brethren who hated and rejected him, in his humiliation and glory, and in the benefits he conferred on those among whom he came to dwell.

2. The generations of Jacob] i.e. the history of Jacob's descendants, especially of Joseph. Their evil report] RV 'the evil report of them.' The sins of Jacob's sons in Genesis 34, 37, 38 afford plain evidence of their lawless characters.

3. A coat of many colours] RM 'a long garment with sleeves,' i.e. reaching to the ankles and wrists, and worn by persons of distinction. The ordinary coat had no sleeves and reached only to the knees.

5. Joseph dreamed] The fact of the dreams indicates a contemplative disposition in Joseph: their character foreshadows his future pre-eminence among his brethren.

10. Thy mother] According to Gen_35:19, Rachel was already dead: but critics assign that passage to a different source.

13. Jacob was living at Hebron, but he had land at Shechem: see Gen_33:18, Gen_33:19.

15. In the field] i.e. in the open country.

17. Dothan] 12 m. N. of Shechem. It was on the caravan route between Syria and Egypt. This explains the passing of the merchants.

21f. The narrative in this chapter appears to be drawn from two sources which give somewhat varying accounts of the way in which Joseph was rescued and sold without any attempt to harmonise them. In one it is Judah who defends him and Ishmaelites who buy him; in the other it is Eeuben and Midianites.

24. A pit] These pits or, rather, cisterns are generally dry except in the rainy season. They are much smaller at top than bottom, that they may be the more easily closed. Some are 80 to 100 ft. deep: cp. Jer_38:6.

25. Spicery, balm, and myrrh] fragrant gums from various trees, used in Egypt for making incense, and for embalming.

28. Twenty pieces of silver] 'The price, in later times, of a male slave from five to twenty years old, the medium price being thirty shekels of silver or £4' (Edersheim).

29. Reuben had evidently been absent during this transaction.

34. Sackcloth] a coarse material made of goats' hair, and worn next the skin in token of the affliction of the soul.

35. The grave] the Heb. 'Sheol' means the place of departed souls.

36. Sold him] Syrian slaves were highly valued by the Egyptians. Potiphar] probably means 'the gift of Ra,' the sun-god of the Egyptians.

Captain of the guard] i.e. of the bodyguard who protected Pharaoh's person and executed criminals: but some render 'chief of the butchers.'

J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1. In the land wherein his father was a stranger — Rather, in the land of the sojournings of his father. This verse serves to acquaint us with the location of Jacob at this period of his history. It marks the transition between the generations of Esau and Jacob. Esau had now departed (according to Gen_36:6) to the land which was to become known as the land of Edom, and Jacob is recognised as the true successor in the inheritance of his father.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger (literally, in the land of the sojourning, s of his father), in the land of Canaan. This verse is not the commencement of the ensuing (Keil, Kalisch, Lange, &c.), but the concluding sentence of the present, section, the adversative particle w, corresponding to the de of the LXX, introducing a contrast between Esau, who dwelt in Mount Seir, and Jacob, who dwelt in the land of Canaan, and the following verse beginning the next division of the book with the customary formula, "These are the generations" (LXX, some MS., Quarry, p. 523). Rosenm less happily connects the present verse with Gen_35:29; the Vulgate begins the next section with ver. 3. A similar division of verses to that proposed will be found in Gen_25:11.

HOMILIES BY R.A. REDFORD

Gen 37:2-50:26)

CHAPTER 37:2-11

1. HAVING disposed, in the preceding section, of the line of Esau by a brief sketch of its historical development during the two and a half centuries intervening between the founding of the Edomite empire by Esau"s withdrawing to Mount Seir, and the days of Moses, the narrative reverts to the fortunes of the house of Jacob, the story of which, after having suffered a temporary interruption, it likewise carries forward to the same point of rest, viz., to the period of the sojourn in Egypt. Commencing with a glance at the inner family life of the patriarch at Mature in the vale of Hebron, where, on returning from Padanaram, he had finally established himself beside his aged and bedridden father Isaac, it recites the tragic

2. incidents connected with the sale of Joseph by his brethren, after which, first rehearsing the further wickedness of Jacob"s sons in the matter of Tamar, it pursues his eventful career from the moment of his entering Egypt as a Slave in the household of Potiphar to the time when, arrayed in fine linen and decorated with a golden necklace, he rode in the second state chariot as Pharaoh"s prime minister and ruler over all the land. Then, detailing the various circumstances arising from the famine which led to his discovery of his brethren, it ends by describing the descent of Jacob and his sons into Egypt and their settlement in Goshen, the death of Jacob after delivering his last prophetic blessing to his sons, and finally the decease of Joseph himself at the age of 110 years, when, as we learn from the subsequent narrative in Exodus, having lost their protector at the Court, and a dynastic change having taken place upon the throne, of Pharaoh, the sons of Israel gradually sank into oppressive and exhausting bondage.

3. By those who repudiate the Mosaic authorship of Genesis the present section is variously distributed among the alleged candidates for the honor of its composition. Beyond the ascription of Genesis 38., to the Jehovist, there is the most complete absence of unanimity among partitionists as to whom the different portions are to be assigned. Gen_37:2-36, which Tuch declares to be the work of the Elohist, Bleek affirms to have been tampered with by the Jehovist, while Davidson divides it between a younger Elohist, the Jehovist, and a subsequent redactor. Genesis 39, is, according to Davidson, almost exclusively the composition of the Jehovist; while, according to Bleek, it has proceeded nearly entire from the pen of the Elohist, and Tuch divides it pretty evenly between the two. Tuch again thinks that Genesis 40-50, have been supplied by the fundamental document, and Bleek recognizes alterations by the hand of the supplementer; but Davidson apportions most of them to the Jehovist, giving the fragments that remain to the younger Elohist and the late redactor. The insufficient character of the grounds on which such assignments are made will be noted in the opposition; in the mean time the,remark is pertinent that their very diversity is one of the strongest indirect proofs of the Mosaic authorship of the entire composition. These are the generations of Jacob. The opening of a new section (cf. Gen_2:4 Gen_5:1 &c.); Joseph, the son of Rachel, and born in Padan-aram (Gen_30:24) being seventeen years old, literally, a son of seventeen years, thus making Jacob 108was feeding the flock with his brethren; literally, was shepherding; not his brethren (Bush), but with his brethren, in, or among, the flockand the lad was literally, and he a lad, aetate, moribus et innocentia (Lyra), non tantum aetate sed et ministerio (Poole), but most probably designed simply as a note of his age. Pererius, following the Vulgate, connects the clause with what precedes; Calvin, Dathius, Lange, Murphy, Kalisch, and others conjoin it with the words that follow; the LXX, Willet, Rosenm Keil, Ainsworth, Bush, &c. regard it as a parenthetical statement;with not in the capacity of a servant (Vatablus) or of a ward (Kalisch), but of a companionthe sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father"s wives. With these rather than the sons of Leah, as being less supercilious and haughty than the children of the first wife (Lawson), or as being less opposed to him than they (Lange), or more probably as being nearer to his own age than they (Keil), or perhaps as having been brought more into contact with the handmaids" children, and in particular with those of Bilhah, Rachel"s maid, who may have been to him as a mother after Rachel"s death (Rosenm And Joseph brought unto his (rather, their) father their evil report. Not accusavit fratres suos apud patrem crimine pessimo (Vulgate), or kathlon ponhron prov Israhl tora aujtwn (LXX), as if Joseph drew down upon himself their calumnious reports, but carried to his father an evil report concerning them (Kalisch); not informed him of what he himself saw of their evil deeds (Lawson), though this need not be excluded, but repeated the hB; Di, or fama, always of a bad character (Rosenm which was circulating in the district respecting themtunics rumores qui subinde de iis spargebantur (Dathius); the noun being derived from an onomatopoetic root, bbD; signifying to go slowly, or to creep about.

HOMILETICS Vers. 2-11.

Joseph in his father"s house.

I JOSEPH EMPLOYED WITH HIS BRETHREN.

1. With them in the sense of as well as them. That is to say, Joseph no more than the other sons of his father was trained to indolence. It is the duty of parents to educate their children in some useful and honorable calling. Even when not required for procuring daily bread, it is of advantage as a means of withdrawing one from temptations which would otherwise beset him, while it largely enhances the enjoyment of existence, and enables one to contribute more or less directly to the sum of human happiness. Adam. Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and even Laban, all brought up their sons to honest toil.

2. With them in the sense of like them. That is, he was, as they had been before him, instructed in the business of a husbandman and shepherd. There is evidence that Jacob combined the callings of an agriculturist as well as sheep-farmer, and trained his boys to sow and reap and bind sheaves as well as tend the flocks and herds on his estate. From this, however, it were wrong to argue that all the children in a family should be trained alike, or put to learn the same craft or profession. In Jacob"s day and Joseph"s there was little choice of openings for young men who had aspirations above the crook or the plough. But in these times the avocations of men are as diverse as their gifts; and in all respects it is better more beneficial to society at large, and more advantageous for theindividual-that a wise discrimination be exercised by parents and guardians in selecting spheres of labor for those dependent on or entrusted to them that shall be suited to their gifts and tastes.

3. With them in the sense of beside them. Joseph accompanied his brethren when they tended the flocks or reaped the ripened grain, and in particular associated himself, for reasons suggested in the Exposition, with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah. It was a privilege which Joseph enjoyed that he did not need to go from home to learn his trade; and doubtless Joseph"s amiable disposition would make the society of his father"s sons more agreeable to him than the company of strangers.

II JOSEPH PREFERRED ABOVE HIS BRETHREN.

1. By his father.

(1) The ground of Jacob"s partiality for Joseph. He was the son of Jacob"s old age. However this expression may be explained (vide Exposition), the amount of it seems to be that Joseph had come to gladden Jacob"s heart after a considerable period of waiting, and at a time when Jacob was beginning to feel himself an old man. Hence more than to any of his other children Jacob"s affections went out to the firstborn of Rachel, and this affection could not fail to strengthen after Rachel"s death. It is just possible also that it was kept alive and fostered by a reminiscence of Rachel"s beauty, which he saw reproduced in the well-proportioned frame and finely-cut features of the growing lad. Anyhow, Jacob"s fondness for Joseph was palpable; and without affirming that it was right, it may at least be contended that it was natural, the more especially when Joseph"s piety is contrasted with the notorious wickedness of Jacob"s other sons.

(2) The exhibition of Jacob"s partiality for Joseph. Many parents who find themselves in Jacob"s Situation, drawn to one child more than another in their families, make an effort at least to conceal a preference which in their inmost hearts they cannot but feel to be justifiable. But Jacob, with a sad lack of prudence, displayed his superior estimation of Rachel"s son by presenting him with a rich and valuable coat of ends or pieces (vide Exposition). As might have been expected, such a mark of preference was distasteful to his other children, and, had it not been for Joseph"s superior character, might have been morally hurtful to Joseph himself. As it was, it was no kindness to Joseph, but only a foolish gratification to Joseph"s father.

2. By God. Joseph was honored to receive dreams prophetic of his future greatness. The first, the dream of the bowing sheaves, was a Divine foreshadowing of his advancement above his brethren; and the second, the dream of the nodding orbs, of his elevation above all the members of his family. Even had they not concerned himself at all, to have been made the recipient of Divine communications was an honor; much more when these communications related to his own exaltation. This preference of Joseph was unquestionably gracious, but it was also natural (1Sa_2:30)

III JOSEPH HATED BY HIS BRETHREN.

1. The cause of their hatred. This was

(1) The superior place which he enjoyed in their father s affection (ver. 4). Parents may here observe the danger of cherishing, and especially of manifesting, a preference of one member of the family above another. Unless in very exceptional circumstances, all are equally entitled to a father"s care and a mother"s love.

(2) The superior piety he displayed above themselves. It is difficult to credit the actors in the Shechemite and Dothan tragedies with anything in the shape of religion. Certainly they were not looked upon as exemplary characters by those who had the misfortune to live beside them. Out of their father"s sight they shook off any little restraint which his presence may have inspired. Their scandalous behavior became the talk of every neighborhood they chanced to visit; and Joseph hearing it, as in duty bound, reported it to Jacob. Not that the mere reporting of it at home would much concern these reckless youths. Possibly it would exasperate their minds against their brother. But the thing which would incense them most would be the disinclination which he showed to run with them into the same excess of riot.

(3) The superior honor he received from God. The brethren clearly enough understood the dreams to contain a prognostication of Joseph"s future, else why did they allow themselves to become inflamed with anger on account of a foolish boy s fancies? At least they believed Joseph regarded them in this light, and they hated him on that account.

2. The progress of their hatred.

(1) They omitted to give him the customary salutation of Shalem. It is a bad sign when a man declines to exchange friendly greetings with his neighbor, and much more with his brother.

(2) They passed on to deep and bitter hatred. They hated him yet the more for his dreams and Iris words. Evil passions have a tendency to grow, and should be nipped in the bud. Obsta principiis.

(3) They envied him; the fierce malignity of their enraged spirits burning in their bosoms, suffusing their countenances with ominous looks and angry scowls, and generally expressing itself in dislike, irritation, and annoyance.

3. The end of their hatred. It was impossible that the gathering storm should continue long without bursting. All things mundane, evil as well as good, strive after completeness. "Lust, when it hath conceived, bringeth forth sin: sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death". (Jam_1:15) Hence, "whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer"; (1Jn_3:15) initially in thought, and ultimately, granting time and opportunity, in deed. The murderous feeling of Joseph"s brethren very speedily found occasion to become the fratricidal act.

HOMILIES BY F. HASTINGS

Vers. 2-4.

Joseph at home.

being seventeen years old," &c. Picturesque scene is the encampment of Jacob. How well the dark camel-hair tents harmonize with the general character of the spots in which they are pitched. Peace and purity should dwell there. Ten men of the tribe of Jacob are most depraved, but their characters only threw into brighter prominence that of Joseph. It is probable that Jacob gave greater attention to the training of Joseph than to that of his brethren. He showed favoritism also. His act of giving him a garb of varied color may not altogether have been so foolish and weak as sometimes it has been supposed to be. It was simply an ordinary Eastern way of indicating that Joseph was to be the future leader and sheik of the encampment. Think of Joseph"s home life, and learn;

I THAT AT HOME WE SHOULD, LIKE JOSEPH, LEARN TO PREPARE FOR FUTURE LIFE. Doubtless Jacob would tell Joseph of the promises of God to Abraham, of the tradition of the Deluge and the Fall; probably also of his own fleeing from home, and his dream in the desert, when he saw "the great altar-stair sloping through darkness up to God," and the angels ascending and descending. Joseph always afterwards has great faith in dreams. No book had he. The Bible was not written. Traditions and oral teaching formed his mental training.

II AT HOME WE SHOULD ALWAYS HAVE SOME EMPLOYMENT. His father loved him too dearly to allow him to grow up in habits of idleness. He learned to handle the crook and to become a faithful messenger. No work is to be despised, for all may be a preparation for future usefulness.

III AT HOME WE SHOULD NOT WILLINGLY BE WITNESSES OF WRONGDOING. The lives of Joseph"s brethren were sinful, and their doings deceitful. Some things he is obliged to know about of which it is dangerous to keep silence. The welfare of the whole tribe was being risked by the elder brothers, and Joseph, fearing that, tells his father, or seeks counsel that he may be strengthened to resist evil influence.

IV AT HOME WE MAY HAVE GLOWING VISIONS OF THE FUTURE. The two dreams concerning the sheaves, and the sun and moon and stars, brought hate from his brethren, but they had an influence on Joseph"s after life. They were remarkably fulfilled. We all have some such visions. We build "castles in the air." The stern realities of life tone down our dreams. It is well to have some such dreams. Without them few make any advance in life. We are not to be like mere senseless stones, but growing plants. Better is it to bear fruit than to wait to become only the sport of circumstances. H.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

At this chapter begins the story of Joseph, Jacob's eldest son, by his beloved wife Rachel. It is so remarkably divided between his humiliation and his exaltation, that we cannot avoid seeing something of Christ in it, who was first humbled and then exalted; it also shews the lot of Christians, who must through many tribulations enter into the kingdom. In this chapter we have,

I. The malice his brethren bore against him: they hated him, (1.) Because he informed his father of their wickedness, ver. 1, 2. (2.) Because his father loved him, ver. 3, 4. (3.) Because he dreamed of his dominion over them, ver. 5-11.

II. The mischiefs his brethren designed, and did to him. (1.) His visit he made them gave an opportunity, ver. 12-17. (2.) They designed to slay him, but determined to starve him, ver. 18-24. (3.) They changed their purpose, and sold him for a slave, ver. 25- 28. (4.) They made their father believe that he was torn in pieces, ver. 29-35. (5.) He was sold in Egypt to Potiphar, ver. xxxvi, And all this was working together for good.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Genesis 37 - 50

On which we shall dwell more particularly. There is not in scripture a more perfect and beautiful type of Christ than Joseph. Whether we view Christ as the object of the Father’s love, the object of the envy of His own, - in His humiliation, sufferings, death exaltation, and glory, in all we have Him strikingly typified by Joseph.

In Gen. 37 we have Joseph’s dreams, the statement of which draws out the enmity of his brethren. He was the object of his father’s love, and the subject of very high destinies, and inasmuch as the hearts of his brothers were not in communion with these things, they hated him. They had no fellowship in the father’s love. They would not yield to the thought of Joseph’s exaltation. In all this they represent the Jews in Christ’s day. He came to His own and his own received him not." He had "no form nor comeliness in their eyes." They would neither own Him as the Son of God, nor king of Israel. Their eyes were not open to behold "his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of "grace and truth." They would not have Him; yea, they hated Him.

Now, in Joseph’s case, we see that he, in no wise, relaxed his testimony in consequence of his brethren’s refusal of his first dream. "And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it to his brethren;" and they hated him yet the more....And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it to his brethren." This was simple testimony founded upon divine revelation; but it was testimony which brought Joseph down to the pit. Had he kept back his testimony, or taken off ought of its edge and power, he might have spared himself; but no; he told them the truth, and therefore they hated him.

Thus was it with Joseph’s great Antitype. He bore witness to the truth - He witnessed a good confession He kept back nothing - He could only speak the truth because He was the truth, and His testimony to the truth was answered, on man’s part, by the cross, the vinegar, the soldier’s spear. The testimony of Christ, too, was connected with the deepest, fullest, richest grace. He not only came as "the truth," but also as the perfect expression of all the love of the Father’s heart:" grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." He was the full disclosure to man of what God was. Hence man was left entirely without excuse. He came and showed God to man, and man hated God with a perfect hatred. The fullest exhibition of divine love was answered by the fullest exhibition of human hatred. This is seen in the cross; and we have it touchingly foreshadowed at the pit into which Joseph was cast by his brethren.

"And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him. And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh; come now, therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit; and we will say, some evil beast hath devoured him; and we shall see what will become of his dreams." These words forcibly remind us of the parable in Matthew 22. "But, last of all, he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son. But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir, come let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance. And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him." God sent His Son into the world with this thought, "They will reverence my son;" but, alas! man’s heart had no reverence for the "well beloved" of the Father. They cast him out. Earth and heaven were at issue in reference to Christ; and they are at issue still. Man crucified Him; but God raised Him from the dead. Man placed Him on a cross between two thieves; God set Him at His own right hand in the heavens. Man gave Him the very lowest place on earth; God gave Him the very highest place in heaven, in brightest majesty.

ALL this is shown out in Joseph’s history. "Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well, whose branches run over the wall. The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him; but his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob, (from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel;) even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breast and of the womb; the blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors, unto the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills; they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren." (Gen. 49: 22-26)

These verses beautifully exhibit to our view "the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow." "The archers" have done their work; but God was stronger than they. The true Joseph has been shot at and grievously wounded in the house of his friends; but "the arms of his hands have been made strong" in the power of resurrection, and faith now knows Him as the basis of all God’s purposes of blessing and glory in reference to the Church, Israel, and the whole creation. When we look at Joseph in the pit, and in the prison, and look; at him afterwards as ruler over all the land of Egypt, we see the difference between the thoughts of God and the. thoughts of men; and so when we look at the cross, and at "the throne of the majesty in the heavens," we see the same thing.

Nothing ever brought out the real state of man’s heart toward God but the coming of Christ. "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin." (John 15: 22) It is not that they would not have been sinners. No; but "they had not had sin." So He says, in another place, "If ye were blind, ye should have no sin." (John 9: 41) God came near to man in the Person of His Son, and man was able to say, "this is the heir;" but yet he said, "come, let us kill him." Hence, "they have no cloak for their sin." Those who say they see, have no excuse. confessed blindness is not at all the difficulty, but professed sight. This is a truly solemn principle for a professing age like the present. The permanence of sin is connected with the mere profession to see. A man who is blind, and knows it, can have his eyes opened; but what can be done for one who thinks he sees, when he really does not?

C. H. Mackintosh, Notes on the Pentateuch — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joseph Hated by his Brothers

v. 1. And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan. He had now entered upon the inheritance of his father, he was the bearer of the patriarchal blessing; although a stranger in the land of Canaan, he knew that eventually the entire country would belong to his children.

v. 2. These are the generations of Jacob; the remainder of the book is devoted to the history of Jacob and his family. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren; having reached this age, he was considered strong enough to serve, with the rest, as a shepherd-boy. And the lad was with the sons of Bilhah and with the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives, since the sons of his mother’s hand-maid and those of Leah’s servant stood nearer to him than the sons of Leah. And Joseph brought unto his father their evil report. He was not an idle, conceited tale-bearer, but he did his duty in informing his father when, evil reports concerning his brothers became persistent, when they had given offense to him and to others by their wickedness.

v. 3. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age. With the exception of Benjamin, who was then still in his infancy, Joseph had been his last son, and Rachel’s son at that. And he made him a coat of many colors, a fine tunic, or mantel-like garment, with long sleeves, such as was worn by rich people and members of the nobility.

v. 4. And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him. They believed that Jacob’s preference for Joseph indicated that the right of the first-born was to be conferred upon him. As a result, their envy and hatred grew to the point that they were no longer able to greet him kindly nor to talk with him frankly and peaceably. Envy very often grows into hatred and results in manifold sins.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

JOSEPHS DREAMS

Genesis 37

"Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee."- Psa_76:10

THE migration of Israel from Canaan to Egypt was a step of prime importance in the history. Great difficulties surrounded it, and very extraordinary means were used to bring it about.

The preparatory steps occupied about twenty years, and nearly a fourth of the Book of Genesis is devoted to this period. This migration was a new idea. So little was it the result of an accidental dearth, or of any of those unforeseen calamities which cause families to emigrate from our own country, that God had forewarned Abraham himself that it must be. But only when it was becoming matter of actual experience and of history did God make known the precise object to be accomplished by it. This He makes known to Jacob as he passes from Canaan; and as, in abandoning the land be had so painfully won, his heart sinks, he is sustained by the assurance, "Fear not to go down into Egypt; I will there make thee a great nation."

The meaning of the step, and the suitableness of the time and of the place to which Israel migrated, are apparent. For more than two hundred years now had Abraham and his descendants been wandering as pilgrims, and as yet there were no signs of Gods promise being kept to them. That promise had been of a land and of a seed. Great fecundity had been promised to the race; but instead of that there had been a remarkable and perplexing barrenness, so that after two centuries one tent could contain the whole male population. In Jacobs time the population began to increase, but just in proportion as this part of the promise showed signs of fulfilment did the other part seem precarious. For, in proportion to their increase, the family became hostile to the Canaanites, and how should they ever get past that critical point in their history at which they would be strong enough to excite the suspicion, jealousy, and hatred of the indigenous tribes, and yet not strong enough to defend themselves against this enmity? Their presence was tolerated, just as our countrymen tolerated the presence of French refugees, on the score of their impotence to do harm. They were placed in a quite anomalous position; a single family who had continued for two hundred years in a land which they could only seem in jest to call theirs, dwelling as guests amid the natives, maintaining peculiar forms of worship and customs. Collision with the inhabitants seemed unavoidable as soon as their real character and pretensions oozed out, and as soon as it seemed at all likely that they really proposed to become owners and masters in the land. And, in case of such collision, what could be the result, but that which has ever followed where a few score men, brave enough to be cut down where they stood, have been exposed to mass after mass of fierce and bloodthirsty barbarians? A small number of men have often made good their entrance into lands where the inhabitants greatly outnumbered them, but these have commonly been highly disciplined troops, as in the case of the handful of Spaniards who seized Mexico and Peru; or they have been backed by a power which could aid with vast resources, as when the Romans held this country, or when the English lad in India left his pen on his desk and headed his few resolute countrymen, and held his own against unnumbered millions. It may be argued that if even Abraham with his own household swept Canaan clear of invaders, it might now have been possible for his grandson to do as much with increased means at his disposal. But, not to mention that every man has not the native genius for command and military enterprise which Abraham had, it must be taken into account that a force which is quite sufficient for a marauding expedition or a night attack, is inadequate for the exigencies of a campaign of several years duration. The war which Jacob must have waged, had hostilities been opened, must have been a war of extermination, and such a war must have desolated the house of Israel if victorious, and, more probably by far, would have quite annihilated it.

It is to obviate these dangers, and to secure that Israel grow without let or hindrance, that Jacobs household is removed to a land where protection and seclusion would at once be secured to them. In the land of Goshen, secured from molestation partly by the influence of Joseph, but much more by the caste-prejudices of the Egyptians, and their hatred of all foreigners, and shepherds in particular, they enjoyed such prosperity and attained so rapidly the magnitude of a nation that some, forgetful alike of the promise of God and of the natural advantages of Israels position, have refused to credit the accounts given us of the increase in their population. In a land so roomy, so fertile, and so secluded as that in which they were now settled, they had every advantage for making the transition from a family to a nation. Here they were preserved from all temptation to mingle with neighbours of a different race, and so lose their special place as a people called out by God to stand alone. The Egyptians would have scorned the marriages which the Canaanites passionately solicited. Here the very contempt in which they were held proved to be their most valuable bulwark. And if Christians have any of the wisdom of the serpent, they will often find in the contempt or exclusiveness of worldly men a convenient barrier, preventing them, indeed, from enjoying some privileges, but at the same time enabling them, without molestation, to pursue their own way. I believe young people especially feel put about by the deprivations which they have to suffer in order to save their religious scruples; they are shut off from what their friends and associates enjoy, and they perceive that they are not so well liked as they would be had they less desire to live by conscience and by Gods will. They feel ostracized, banished, frowned upon, laid under disabilities; but all this has its compensations: it forms for them a kind of Goshen where they may worship and increase, it runs a fence around them which keeps them apart from much that tempts and from much that enfeebles.

The residence of Israel in Egypt served another important purpose. By contact with the most civilised people of antiquity they emerged from the semi-barbarous condition in which they had previously been living. Going into Egypt mere. shepherds, as Jacob somewhat plaintively and deprecatingly says to Pharaoh; not even possessed, so far as we know, of the fundamental arts on which civilisation rests, unable to record inwriting the revelations God made, or to read them if recorded; having the most rudimentary ideas of law and justice, and having nothing to keep them together and give them form anal strength, save the one idea that God meant to confer on them great distinction; they were transferred into a land where government had been so long established and law had come to be so thoroughly administered that life and property were as safe as among ourselves to-day, where science had made such advances that even the weather-beaten and time-stained relics of it seem to point to regions into which even the bold enterprise of modern investigation has not penetrated, and where all the arts needful for life were in familiar use, and even some practised which modern times have as yet been unable to recover. To no better school could the barbarous sons of Bilhah and Zitpah have been sent; to no more fitting discipline could the lawless spirits of Reuben, Simeon, and Levi have been subjected. In Egypt, where human life was sacred, where truth was worshipped as a deity, and where law was invested with the sanctity which belonged to what was supposed to have descended from heaven, they were brought under influences similar to those which ancient Rome exerted over conquered races.

The unwitting pioneer of this great movement was a man in all respects fitted to initiate it happily. In Joseph we meet a type of character rare in any race, and which, though occasionally reproduced in Jewish history, we should certainly not have expected to meet with at so early a period. For what chiefly strikes one in Joseph is a combination of grace and power, which is commonly looked upon as the peculiar result of civilising influences, knowledge of history, familiarity with foreign races, and hereditary dignity. In David we find a similar flexibility and grace of character, and a similar personal superiority. We find the same bright and humorous disposition helping him to play the man in adverse circumstances; but we miss in David Josephs self-control and incorruptible purity, as we also miss something of his capacity for difficult affairs of state. In Daniel this latter capacity is abundantly present, and a facility equal to Josephs in dealing with foreigners, and there is also a certain grace or nobility in the Jewish Vizier; but Joseph had a surplus of power which enabled him to be cheerful and alert in doleful circumstances, which Daniel would certainly have borne manfully, but probably in a sterner and more passive mood. Joseph, indeed, seemed to inherit and happily combine the highest qualities of his ancestors. He had Abrahams dignity and capacity, Isaacs purity and power of self-devotion, Jacobs cleverness and buoyancy and tenacity. From his mothers family he had personal beauty, humour, and management.

A young man of such capabilities could not long remain insensible to his own powers or indifferent to his own destiny. Indeed, the conduct of his father and brothers towards him must have made him self-conscious, even though he had been wholly innocent of introspection. The force of the impression he produced on his family may be measured by the circumstance that the princely dress given him by his father did not excite his brothers ridicule but their envy and hatred. In this dress there was a manifest suitableness to his person, and this excited them to a keen resentment of the distinction. So too they felt that his dreams were not the mere whimsicalities of a lively fancy, but were possessed of a verisimilitude which gave them importance. In short, the dress and the dreams were insufferably exasperating to the brothers, because they proclaimed and marked in a definite way the feeling of Josephs superiority which had already been vaguely rankling in their consciousness. And it is creditable to Joseph that this superiority should first have emerged in connection with a point of conduct. It was in moral stature that the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah felt that they were outgrown by the stripling whom they carried with them as their drudge. Neither are we obliged to suppose that Joseph was a gratuitous tale-bearer, or that when he carried their evil report to his father he was actuated by a prudish, censorious, or in any way unworthy spirit. That he very well knew how to hold his tongue no man ever gave more adequate proof; but he that understands that there is a time to keep silence necessarily sees also that there is a time to speak. And no one can tell what torture that pure young soul may have endured in the remote pastures, when left alone to withstand day after day the outrage of these coarse and unscrupulous men. An elder brother, if he will, can more effectually guard the innocence of a younger brother than any other relative can, but he can also inflict a more exquisite torture.

Joseph, then, could not but come to think of his future and of his destiny in this family. That his father should make a pet of him rather than of Benjamin, he would refer to the circumstance that he was the oldest son of the wife of his choice, of her whom first he had loved, and who had no rival while he lived. To so charming a companion as Joseph must always have been, Jacob would naturally impart all the traditions and hopes of the family. In him he found a sympathetic and appreciative listener, who wiled him on to endless narrative, and whose imaginativeness quickened his own hopes and made the future seem grander and the world more wide. And what Jacob had to tell could fall into no kindlier soil than the opening mind of Joseph. No hint was lost, every promise was interpreted by some waiting aspiration. And thus, like every youth of capacity, he came to have his clay-dreams. These day-dreams, though derided by those who cannot see the Caesar in the careless trifler, and though often awkward and even offensive in their expression, are not always the mere discontented cravings of youthful vanity, but are frequently instinctive gropings towards the position which the nature is fitted to fill. "Our wishes," it has been said, "are the forefeeling of our capabilities"; and certainly where there is any special gift or genius in a man, the wish of his youth is predictive of the attainment of manhood. Whims, no doubt, there are, passing phases through which natural growth carries us, flutterings of the needle when too near some powerful influence; yet amidst all variations the true direction will be discernible and ultimately will be dominant. And it is a great art to discover what we are fit for, so that we may settle down to our own work, or patiently wait for our own place, without enviously striving to rob every other man of his crown and so losing our own. It is an art that saves us much fretting and disappointment and waste of time, to understand early in life what it is we can accomplish, and what precisely we mean to be at; "to recognise in, our personal gifts or station, in the circumstances and complications of our life, in our relations to others, or to the world-the will of God teaching us what we are, and for what we ought to live." How much of life often is gone before its possessor sees the use he can put it to and ceases to beat the air! How much of life is an ill-considered but passionate striving after what can never be attained, or a vain imitation of persons who have quite different talents and opportunities from ourselves, and who are therefore set to quite another work than ours.

It was because Josephs dreams embodied his waking ambition that they were of importance. Dreams become significant when they are the concentrated essence of the main stream of the waking thoughts, and picturesquely exhibit the tendency of the character. "In a dream," says Elihu, "in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed; then He openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction, that He may withdraw man from his purpose." This is precisely the use of dreams: our tendencies, unbridled by reason and fact, run on to results; the purposes which the business and other good influences of the day have kept down act themselves out in our dreams, and we see the character unimpeded by social checks, and as it would be were it unmodified by the restraints and efforts and external considerations of our conscious hours. Our vanity, our pride, our malice, our impurity, our deceit, our every evil passion, has free play, and shows us its finished result, and in so vivid and true though caricatured a form that we are startled and withdrawn from our purpose. The evil thought we have suffered to creep about our heart seems in our dreams to become a deed, and we wake in horror and thank God we can yet refrain. Thus the poor woman, who in utter destitution was beginning to find her child a burden, dreamt she had drowned it, and woke in horror at the fancied sound of the plunge-woke to clasp her little one to her breast with the thrill of a grateful affection that never again gave way. So that while no man is so foolish as to expect instruction from every dream any more than from every thought that visits his waking mind, yet every one who has been accumulating some knowledge of himself is aware that he has drawn a large part of this from his unconscious hours. As the naturalist would know but a small part of the animal kingdom by studying the creatures that show themselves in the daylight, so there are moles and bats of the spirit that exhibit themselves most freely in the darkness; and there are jungles and waste places in the character which, if you look on them only in the sunshine, may seem safe and lovely, but which at night show themselves to be fall of all loathsome and savage beasts.

With the simplicity of a guileless mind, and with the natural proneness of members of one family to tell in the morning the dreams they have had, Joseph tells to the rest what seems to himself interesting, if not very suggestive. Possibly he thought very little of his dream till he saw how much importance his brothers attached to it. Possibly there might be discernible in his tone and look some mixture of youthful arrogance. And in his relation of the second dream, there was discernible at least a confidence that it would be realised, which was peculiarly intolerable to his brothers, and to his father seemed a dangerous symptom that called for rebuke. And yet "his father observed the saying"; as a parent has sometimes occasion to check his child, and yet, having done so, feels that that does not end the matter; that his boy and he are in somewhat different spheres, so that while he was certainly justified in punishing such and such a manifestation of his character, there is yet something behind that he does not quite understand, and for which possibly punishment may not be exactly the suitable award.

We fall into Jacobs mistake when we refuse to acknowledge as genuine and God-inspired any religious experience which we ourselves have not passed through, and which appears in a guise that is not only unfamiliar, but that is in some particulars objectionable. Up to the measure of our own religious experience, we recognise as genuine, and sympathise with, the parallel experience of others; but when they rise above us and get beyond us, we begin to speak of them as visionaries, enthusiasts, dreamers. We content ourselves with pointing again and again to the blots in their manner, and refuse to read the future through the ideas they add to our knowledge. But the future necessarily lies, not in the definite and finished attainment, but in the indefinite and hazy and dream-like germs that have yet growth in them. The future is not with Jacob, the rebuker, but with the dreaming, and, possibly, somewhat offensive Joseph. It was certainly a new element Joseph introduced into the experience of Gods people. He saw, obscurely indeed, but with sufficient clearness to make him thoughtful, that the man whom Goal chooses and makes a blessing to others is so far advanced above his fellows that they lean upon him and pay him homage as if he were in the place of God to them. He saw that his higher powers were to be used for his brethren, and that the high destiny he somehow felt to be his was to be won by doing service so essential that his family would bow before him and give themselves into his hand. He saw this, as every man whose love keeps pace with his talent sees it, and he so far anticipated the dignity of Him who, in the deepest self-sacrifice, assumed a position and asserted claims which enraged His brethren and made even His believing mother marvel. Joseph knew that the welfare of his family rested not with the Esau-like good-nature of Reuben, still less with the fanatical ferocity of Simeon and Levi, not with the servile patience of Issachar, nor with the natural force and dignity of Judah, but with some deeper qualities which, if he himself did not yet possess, he at least valued and aspired to.

Whatever Joseph thought of the path by which he was to reach the high dignity which his dreams foreshadowed, he was soon to learn that the path was neither easy nor short. Each man thinks that, for himself at least, an exceptional path will be broken out, and that without difficulties and humiliations he will inherit the kingdom. But it cannot be so. And as the first step a lad takes towards the attainment of his position often involves him in trouble and covers him with confusion, and does so even although he ultimately finds that it was the only path by which he could have reached his goal; so, that which was really the first step towards Josephs high destiny, no doubt seemed to him most calamitous and fatal. It certainly did so to his brothers, who thought that they were effectually and for ever putting an end to Josephs pretensions. "Behold, this dreamer cometh; come now therefore, and let us slay him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams." They were, however, so far turned from their purpose by Reuben as to put him in a pit, meaning to leave him to die, and doubtless they thought themselves lenient in doing so. The less violent the death inflicted, the less of murder seems to be in it; so that he who slowly kills the body by only wounding the affections often counts himself no murderer at all, because he strikes no blood-shedding blow, and can deceive himself into the idea that it is the working of his victims own spirit that is doing the damage.

The tank into which Josephs brethren cast him was apparently one of those huge reservoirs excavated by shepherds in the East, that they may have a supply of water for their flocks in the end of the dry season, when the running waters fail them. Being so narrow at the mouth that they can be covered by a single stone, they gradually widen and form a large subterranean room; and the facility they thus afford for the confinement of prisoners was from the first too obvious not to be commonly taken advantage of. In such a place was Joseph left to die under the ground, sinking in mire, his flesh creeping at the touch of unseen slimy creatures, in darkness, alone: that is to say, in a species of confinement which tames the most reckless and maddens the best balanced spirits, which shakes the nerve of the calmest, and has sometimes left the blankness of idiocy in masculine understandings. A few wild cries that ring painfully round his prison show him he need expect no help from without; a few wild and desperate beatings round the shelving walls of rock show him there is no possibility of escape; he covers his face, or casts himself on the floor of his dungeon to escape within himself, but only to find this also in vain, and to rise and renew efforts he knows to be fruitless. Here, then, is what has come of his fine dreams. With shame he now remembers the beaming confidence with which he had related them; with bitterness he thinks of the bright life above him, from which these few feet cut him so absolutely off, and of the quick termination that has been put to all his hopes.

Into such tanks do young persons especially get cast: finding themselves suddenly dropped out of the lively scenery and bright sunshine in which they have been living, down into roomy graves where they seem left to die at leisure. They had conceived a way of being useful in the world; they had found an aim or a hope; they had, like Joseph, discerned their place and were making towards it. when suddenly they seem to be thrown out and are left to learn that the world can do very well without them, that the sun and moon and the eleven stars do not drop from their courses or make wail because of their sad condition. High aims and commendable purposes are not so easily fulfilled as they fancied. The faculty and desire in them to be of service are not recognised. Men do not make room for them, and God seems to disregard the hopes He has excited in them. The little attempt at living they have made seems only to have got themselves and others into trouble. They begin to think it a mistake their being in the world at all; they curse the day of their birth. Others are enjoying this life, and seem to be making something of it, having found work that suits and develops them; but, for their own part, they cannot get fitted into life at any point, and are excluded from the onward movement of the world. They are again and again flung back, until they fear they are not to see the fulfilment of any one bright dream that has ever visited them, and that they are never, never at all, to live out the life it is in them to live, or find light and scope for maturing those germs of the rich human nature that they feel within them.

All this is in the way to attainment. This or that check, this long burial for years, does not come upon you merely because stoppage and hindrance have been useful to others, but because your advancement lies through these experiences. Young persons naturally feel strongly that life is all before them, that this life is, in the first place, their concern, and that God must be proved sufficient for this life, able to bring them to their ideal. And the first lesson they have to learn is, that mere youthful confidence and energy are not the qualities that overcome the world. They have to learn that humility, and the ambition that seeks great things, but not for ourselves, are the qualities really indispensable. But do men become humble by being told to become so, or by knowing they ought to be so? God must make us humble by the actual experience we meet with in our ordinary life. Joseph, no doubt, knew very well, what his aged grandfather must often have told him, that a man must die before he begins to live. But what could an ambitious, happy youth make of this, till he was thrown into the pit and left there? as truly passing through the bitterness of death as Isaac had passed through it, and as keenly feeling the pain of severance from the light of life. Then, no doubt, he thought of Isaac, and of Isaacs God, till between himself and the impenetrable dungeon-walls the everlasting arms seemed to interpose, and through the darkness of his death-like solitude the face of Jacobs God appeared to beam upon him, and he came to feel what we must, by some extremity, all be made to feel, that it was not in this worlds life but in God he lived, that nothing could befall him which God did not will, and that what God had for him to do, God would enable him to do.

The heartless barbarity with which the brethren of Joseph sat down to eat and drink the very dainties he had brought them from his father, while they left him, as they thought, to starve, has been regarded by all later generations as the height of hard-hearted indifference. Amos, at a loss to describe the recklessness of his own generation, falls back upon this incident, and cries woe upon those "that drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointment, but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph." We reflect, if we do not substantially reproduce, their sin when we are filled with animosity against those who usher in some higher kind of life, effort, or worship, than we ourselves as yet desire or are fit for, and which, therefore, reflects shame on our incapacity; and when we would fain, without using violence, get rid of such persons. There are often schemes set on foot by better men than ourselves, against which somehow our spirit rises, yet which, did we consider, we should at the most say with the cautious Gamaliel, Let us beware of doing anything to hinder this; let us see whether, perchance, It be not of God. Sometimes there are in families individuals who do not get the encouragement in well-doing they might expect in a Christian family, but are rather frowned upon and hindered by the other members of it, because they seem to be inaugurating a higher style of religion than the family is used to, and to be reflecting from their own conduct a condemnation of what has hitherto been current.

This treatment, who among us has not extended to Him who in His whole experience so closely resembles Joseph? So long as Christ is to us merely, as it were, the pet of the family, the innocent, guileless, loving Being on whom we can heap pretty epithets, and in whom we find play for our best affections, to whom it is easier to show ourselves affectionate and well.-disposed than to the brothers who mingle with us in all our pursuits; so long as He remains to us as a child whose demands it is a relaxation to fulfil, we fancy that we are giving Him our hearts, and that He, if any, has our love. But when He declares to us His dreams, and claims to be our Lord, to whom with most absolute homage we must bow, who has a right to rule and means to rule over us, who will have His will done by us and not our own, then the love we fancied seems to pass into something like aversion. His purposes we would fain believe to be the idle fancies of a dreamer which He Himself does not expect us to pay much heed to. And if we do not resent the absolute surrender of ourselves to Him which He demands, if the bowing down of our fullest sheaves and brightest glory to Him is too little understood by us to be resented; if we think such dreams are not to come true, and that He does not mean much by demanding our homage, and therefore do not resent the demand; yet possibly we can remember with shame how we have "anointed ourselves with the chief ointment," lain listlesly enjoying some of those luxuries which our Brother has brought us from the Fathers house, and yet let Himself and His cause be buried out of sight-enjoyed the good name of Christian, the pleasant social refinements of a Christian land, even the peace of conscience which the knowledge of the Christians God produces, and yet turned away from the deeper emotions which His personal entreaties stir, and from those self-sacrificing efforts which His cause requires if it is to prosper.

There are, too, unstable Reubens still, whom something always draws aside, and who are ever out of the way when most needed; who, like him, are on the other side of the hill when Christs cause is being betrayed; who still count their own private business that which must be done, and Gods work that which may be done-work for themselves necessary, and Gods work only voluntary and in the second place. And there are also those who, though they would be honestly shocked to be charged with murdering Christs cause, can yet leave it to perish.

William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.

וישב יעקב AND JACOB ABODE — After it (Scripture) has described to you the settlements of Esau and his descendants in a brief manner — since they were not distinguished and important enough that it should be related in detail how they settled down and that there should be given an account of their wars and how they drove out the Horites (see Deuteronomy 2:12) — it explains clearly and at length the settlements made by Jacob and his descendants and all the events which brought these about, because these are regarded by the Omnipresent as of sufficient importance to speak of them at length. Thus, too, you will find that in the case of the ten generations from Adam to Noah it states “So-and-so begat so-and-so”, but when it reaches Noah it deals with him at length. Similarly, of the ten generations from Noah to Abraham it gives but a brief account, but when it comes to Abraham it speaks of him more fully. It may be compared to the case of a jewel that falls into the sand: a man searches in the sand, sifts it in a sieve until he finds the jewel. When he has found it he throws away the pebbles and keeps the jewel (Midrash Tanchuma, Vayeshev 1). Another explanation of וישב יעקב AND JACOB ABODE: The camels of a flax dealer once came into a city laden with flax. A blacksmith asked in wonder where all that flax could be stored, and a clever fellow answered him, “A single spark caused by your bellows can burn up all of it.” “So, too, when Jacob saw (heard of) all these chiefs whose names are written above he said wonderingly, “Who can conquer all these?” What is written after the names of these chieftains? — and in this may be found the reply to Jacob’s question: These are the generations of Jacob — Joseph. For it is written (Obadiah 1:18) “And the house of Jacob shall be a fire and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau, for stubble: one spark issuing from Joseph will burn up all of these (descendants of Esau) (Genesis Rabbah 84:5). The passage beginning “Another explanation” is found in an old Rashi text.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

AND JACOB DWELT IN THE LAND OF HIS FATHERS. The meaning of the verse is that since Scripture had said that the chiefs of Esau dwelt in the land of their possessions. — that is to say, the land which they took to themselves as a possession forever — it now says that Jacob, however, dwelt as his father had, as a stranger in a land which was not their own but which belonged to the Canaanites. The purport is to relate that they elected to dwell in the Chosen Land, and that G-d’s words to Abraham, That thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, were fulfilled in them but not in Esau, for Jacob alone shall be called their progeny.

Ramban (Nachmanides) on the Tanakh — English translation: “Commentary on the Torah by Ramban (Nachmanides). Translated and annotated by Charles B. Chavel. New York, Shilo Pub. House, 1971-1976” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

וישב יעקב בארץ מגורי אביו בארץ כנען. We have already commented on the meaning of this on 35,27.

Radak on the Tanakh — English translations: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash” (CC BY 4.0); “Rabbi Mike Feuer, Jerusalem Anthology” (CC BY 4.0); and “R. David Kimhi on the first book of Psalms, Translated by R.G. Finch, London, 1919” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.