This week, we are looking at a story that is recorded for
us in the very first letter in the Bible, called the book of Genesis.
Yesterday, we saw Moses expose a problem within Jacob’s family in that Joseph’s
brothers were jealous of him. Joseph’s brothers wanted want Joseph had and did
not want Joseph to have what he did have.
Joseph’s brothers wanted to be daddy’s favorite. Joseph’s brother’s
viewed him as a spoiled rotten brat who was a tattle tale and a braggart.
And while Jacob filed away Joseph’s dream in the back of
his mind, Joseph’s brothers fumed in anger. They fumed in anger over their
father’s favoritism: they fumed in anger over their bratty brother who they
were jealous of. Joseph’s brothers anger fumed until an event occurred that
would radically change the trajectory of the entire family. Today, we will look
at that event in history that Moses records for us in Genesis 37:12:
Then his brothers went to pasture their
father's flock in Shechem. Israel said to Joseph, "Are not your brothers
pasturing the flock in Shechem?
Come, and I will send you to them." And he said to him, "I will
go." Then he said to him, "Go now and see about the welfare of your
brothers and the welfare of the flock, and bring word back to me." So he
sent him from the valley of Hebron, and he came to Shechem. A man found him,
and behold, he was wandering in the field; and the man asked him, "What
are you looking for?" He said, "I am looking for my brothers; please
tell me where they are pasturing the
flock." Then the man said, "They have moved from here; for I
heard them say, 'Let us go to
Dothan.'" So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan.
After hearing Joseph share his dreams with them, Moses
tells us that Joseph’s brothers went to pasture the family flock in Shechem.
Now to fully grasp the significance of this, we first need to understand where
Shechem was located. Shechem was approximately 50 miles north of Hebron, which
is where Jacob and his family were living. And as we discovered last week,
Shechem was the place where Jacobs’ sons Simeon and Levi
responded to the wrong that was done to their sister Dinah by slaughtering
every male in the city, while the rest of Jacob’s sons followed behind and
looted the city.
Jacob, out
of concern for the safety of his sons and whether or not his sons were doing
what they were supposed to be doing, sends his favorite son Joseph to check up
on his brothers. Jacob basically tells Joseph to “go see how your brothers and the flock are doing”.
Joseph then makes the 50 mile trip to Shechem, but is
unable to find his brothers. As Joseph wanders around looking for his brothers,
he is informed by a man that his brothers had headed to Dothan, which was
around 14 miles further north of Shechem. Joseph responded to this news by
heading to Dothan in order to check up on his brothers.
Now a natural question that arises here is “well Dave,
why would the brothers travel so far with the family flock? What would possess
them to go over 60 miles away from home?” If those questions are running
through your mind, I want to let you know those are great questions to be
asking. From this story, there is no mention of a drought or famine, so the
issue was not one of a lack of resources. So why go so far from home?
I believe the reason why Joseph’s brothers traveled so
far from home is because Joseph’s brothers wanted to get as far away as
possible from their father and brother. Imagine yourself as one of Joseph’s
brothers. Place yourself in their shoes. Would you want to be around your
father who played favorites? Would you want to be around your tattle tale
younger brother who was daddy’s favorite? Would you even want to look at your
little brother as he wore his fancy coat and talked about his dreams of ruling
over you?
Of course you wouldn’t. You would want to get as far away
as possible. You see, the brother’s jealousy over their father’s favoritism was
driving them away. And their hatred and jealousy of Joseph would drive them to
something else, as we see in verse 18:
When they saw him from a distance and before
he came close to them, they plotted against him to put him to death. They said
to one another, "Here comes this dreamer! "Now then, come and let us
kill him and throw him into one of the pits; and we will say, 'A wild beast
devoured him.' Then let us see what will become of his dreams!"
As they saw Joseph and his multicolored robe in the
distance, the brothers fuming anger over their father’s favoritism toward their
bratty little brother overflowed into a conversation that gave birth to a plan.
This conversation, if communicated in the language we us in our culture today
would have sounded like this: “Oh look, here comes this master of dreams. Yah,
I can’t stand him. You know what we should just kill him and cast him into this
empty well. We’ll just tell dad that he was killed and eaten by a wild beast. Yah,
that’s a good idea. Let’s show him how wrong his dreams are. Let’s kill him,
and then let’s see how his dreams will come true.” While the brothers plotted
how to put an end to Joseph’s life, there was one who had a different plan,
which Moses reveals for us in verse 21:
But Reuben
heard this and rescued him out
of their hands and said, "Let us not take his life." Reuben further
said to them, "Shed no blood. Throw him into this pit that is in the
wilderness, but do not lay hands on him"-- that he might rescue him out of
their hands, to restore him to his father. So it came about, when Joseph
reached his brothers, that they stripped Joseph of his tunic, the varicolored
tunic that was on him; and they took him and threw him into the pit. Now the
pit was empty, without any water in it.
Now a natural question that
arises here is “why would Rueben feel a need to attempt to rescue Joseph from
the rest of his brothers?” As the oldest Rueben felt a special responsibility
to take care of his brothers. In addition, by rescuing Joseph, Rueben would
have the opportunity to get back in the good graces of his father. You see, Rueben was in the doghouse with his
father after he had slept with one of his wives. Now who says the Bible is
boring.
So Rueben basically says to his
brothers “don’t kill him yourself by your hand, instead just throw him in this
empty well and let him die that way”.
Moses tells us that the brothers agreed with Rueben’s plan and stripped
Joseph of the robe that signified his favorite status with his father and cast
him into the empty well. Rueben then left his brothers to take care of some
business, confident that his plan had saved Joseph and would get brownie points
with his dad.
However, like so many plans,
this plan was by no means foolproof, which we will see on Friday…
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