Genesis 37

I am going to speak on minor details of this story that struck me. If you do not know the story well, go down to the bottom of this blog and read it.

Exodus 37: This is the beginning of the Joseph saga.

The story of Joseph's kidnapping and selling into slavery has lots of details thay become important later. It's like one of those fictional mysteries that DW and I like to read. The details can help the reader to understand the ending of the book if not actually figure out who did it before the revelation. (Most authors really are not fair in that way.) It's almost good to take notes.

The brothers are jealous and angry that he would tell them that they would bow down to him. He has these dreams you know. When it comes to getting their revenge remember they are not full brothers. They do not feel the same kinship to him that a full brother might. Most of them are children of the maids, not an actual wife. So they may fear that they will be passed over for the inheritance. Jacob, their dad, might decide to give him the portion of the first born. So what Jacob is saying rings with truth. Actually this is what does happen in the end, Joseph gets a double portion through his two sons.

How old is Joseph here anyway? Kids grow up quick in an agrarian society. From the description of his traveling to meet his brothers I'm picturing about 12. He is still a youth, not full size. He is just now beginning to leave his mother's society.

This is a society that looks out for one another and know each other's business, like some lower class neighborhoods today and like the neighborhood I grew up in the 1950's.

So when Joseph gets to Shechem and he cannot find his brothers it is not that he asks someone. He is too small and insignificant to do that. He cannot talk to adults as equals. No, a man notices he is lost and offers to help. Amazingly he actually knows where his brothers are. He may not know this boy but he does know the minor business of a family of shepherds who are from several valleys over. This is a people that takes care of one another.

Thinking of Joseph as a boy barely out of childhood makes sense of his naively sharing his dreams with his older brothers. He is still not old enough to understand how the dreams will effect them.

In his second dream he includes his mother and father with those who will bow to him. His father rebukes him and his brothers mutter angrily. But 37:11 "His father keeps this saying mind." Where do we hear this later? We are reminded of Mary, Jesus' mother, who takes the prophesies of the Wise Men, Anna, and Simeon in mind. She holds them in her heart. So does Jacob.