Boyd's Commentary. R.H. Boyd Publishing Corporation
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Название: Boyd's Commentary
Автор: R.H. Boyd Publishing Corporation
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Религия: прочее
isbn: 9781681677590
isbn:
As if inherited by the next generation, hatred in the family again revealed its ugly head among Jacob and his twelve sons. Similar to the favoritism that plagued his family of origin, Jacob favored his second youngest son, Joseph, more than the rest of his sons. Jacob’s older sons hated Joseph like his brother Esau hated him, and their hatred for him resulted in tragedy.
Known by many scholars as Joseph’s narrative or Joseph’s Novella, Genesis 37 opens with a brief introduction of Joseph as a young man. At the time of the lesson, he was seventeen years old and enjoying the life of entitlement and privilege. But that would soon change.
EXPOSITION
I. HATE IN THE FAMILY (GENESIS 37:2–11)
Joseph was the firstborn of Jacob’s favorite wife Rachel. This is why he loved Joseph more than all his other children and also because he was the son born in his old age, the eleventh son. Being favored and showing favoritism was part of Jacob’s legacy. He was favored by his mother Rebekah, and his father Isaac favored his older brother Esau over him. Jacob favored his second wife Rachel over his first wife Leah. Actually, Jacob never wanted Leah as a wife but was tricked by the sisters’ father, Laban, into marrying her. He then was given Rachel in marriage after a total of fourteen years of labor. This history of parental relationships certainly played out in the way in which their offspring were treated. Thus Jacob favored Joseph heavily for the reasons mentioned above.
Sibling rivalry and parental favoritism are a repeated theme within the stories of the families of Genesis. As mentioned, Jacob was favored by his mother and rivaled with his brother Esau. This pattern, however, was entrenched as it was three generations deep. Abraham favored his son of his wife, Isaac, over his son of his slave, Ishmael, ultimately leading to Ishmael and Hagar’s removal from their home. Parental favoritism and sibling rivalry have catastrophic results as forecasted by the stories mentioned above and the Cain and Abel narrative of Genesis 4.
Jacob overtly flaunted his favoritism for his younger son by gifting Joseph a specially-made tunic. This further spurred ire and rage against Joseph when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than them. They hated him and could not speak peaceably to him to the extent that their resentment could not be abated. Their anger toward Joseph was kindled by sight. The Hebrew in this text indicates that as they saw Jacob’s bias, as they saw the tunic representing Jacob’s favoritism, their hatred for Joseph was renewed each time they saw him. It was a cycle of close quarters—at each turn they saw something so that whenever they saw Joseph, they could not stand the sight of him.
Joseph didn’t help matters when he pressed his brothers to hear the dream God gave him. In his artlessness and infantilism, he shared the dream, not to offend or boast but hopefully to impress. His brothers, however, were not impressed. Instead they disdained him all the more. In one of his dreams, the sheaves of Joseph and his brothers were symbols of their lives and what was to come. Joseph’s sheaf stood upright while the sheaves of his brothers stood all around and bowed low in symbolic subjection to Joseph’s. In the second of Joseph’s dreams, the sun, moon, and eleven stars all were bowing to him. Whatever Joseph’s intent in telling the dreams, wisdom dictated he should have been quiet.
Joseph’s dreams gave evidence to his special purpose, but he was most naive in thinking his brothers would rejoice along with him. This was only another reminder for them. His father rebuked him when Joseph told his dreams again in front of him and his brothers. The content of the second dream undermined Jacob’s position as head of household and indicated he and Joseph’s mother along with his brothers would bow down before Joseph in subjugation. The end result of the dream episode was the hot jealousy of the brothers. Jacob, however, guarded the conversation without passing judgment and instead kept the matter close to his heart. Ironically the brothers, who reacted in an emotionally charged manner against the dream, were the ones who ended up fulfilling it. While Jacob, who did not react poorly, did not end up being part of its fulfillment in later chapters.
II. THE RESULT OF HATE (GENESIS 37:23–24, 28)
The brothers carried out a plot against Joseph when he came to them in verse 23. Their plan included forcibly taking the special coat. The brothers stripped Joseph and threw him into a pit. Their initial plan was to kill Joseph, but Reuben thought it better to keep him hostage in a pit. The text reveals he wanted to take Joseph back to their father to restore himself to Jacob’s good graces (Gen. 37:21–22). Reuben had slept with Bilhah, Jacob’s concubine, and was on the periphery of his father’s graces (35:22). When Reuben slept with Bilhah, it was an affront to Jacob’s status as head of household. Interestingly, it also may be that Reuben had some sense of kinship with Joseph as he would have understood the boy’s ambition. The brothers thought following Reuben’s plan was the better of two (plus he was the oldest) and threw Joseph into a pit until they could figure out what to do with him. The aggressive way they stripped the coat off Joseph describes a violent act that infers the forceful removal of a garment. Meaning, they did it with extreme cruelty. The pit where they threw him, though it spared his life, only prolonged his agony, as he was left to rot. When the Midianite traders passed by. Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery. According to the original Hebrew, the way the brothers pulled Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit was with the same aggressive contempt they had throwing him in the pit.
Joseph’s selling into slavery is a parallel for many African Americans, as it is understood we were sold to lands and people unknown for personal gain by those later considered our kinsmen and women. It is important to bear in mind a major difference. Even as it was Africans selling Africans, there was no such thing as an African identity. Smaller groups of people were ruled by kings, queens, and chieftains who did what they thought best for themselves, families, people, lands, and kingdoms. They sold their enemies, not kinsmen and women. Joseph’s story differs in that the brothers sold their kinsman who was their perceived enemy. Perhaps we can learn who our kinsmen and women are or, as Jesus put it, our neighbor.
The brothers sold Joesph for a mere twenty shekels of silver. According to extrabiblical material, this was the going rate for slaves in the second millennium B.C. According to Leviticus 27:2–7, it was the price for redeeming people/property for a young male of five to twenty years old. Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery, and because of his youth and vitality, there is little doubt the traders believed Joseph would fetch a greater price and profit in Egypt.
Joseph’s entrance to Egypt was an interesting turn of the plot. Israelite tension with Egyptian power is well-documented in the Old Testament. That tension was represented well by Joseph’s great-grandfather, Abraham. Abraham went to Egypt to escape a famine and while there failed to acknowledge Sarai as his wife. Sarai was then taken for the pharaoh’s wife. As a result, a plague came over Pharaoh’s household. Then pharaoh dismissed Abraham and Sarai upon learning she was his wife and sister, not just the latter (Gen. 12:10–20). This earlier story intersects with our current lesson in two important ways. First, Abraham was escaping famine in Egypt, which portends the brothers’ later descent to Egypt for the same reason. The famine eventually caused Joseph’s rise to power in this same Egypt. Second, the Abrahamic story seems to serve as a backdrop to the continued tension between Israelites and Egyptians. By the book of Exodus, the Egyptians had enslaved the Israelites and even after their emancipation were a looming political and military power in the region. This story demonstrates their relative geographic proximity and interconnectedness. Joseph was going to lands known and unknown, where Israelite safety was in question, as shown by Abraham’s fear and subsequent statement (Gen. 12:12–13). СКАЧАТЬ