Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
9th of August 2026
Genesis 37:1-4,12-28
‘Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he had made him a long robe with sleeves. But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him.’
It is a pity that the Revised Common Lectionary gives us only two short extracts from the amazing ‘family dynamics’ novel that is the story of Joseph, his father Jacob, and his eleven brothers. I learned more about this story from the Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice musical than from the Scriptures. Maybe the creators of the Lectionary rely on our knowledge of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat with its central song ‘Any Dream Will Do’ because today’s reading cuts out the story of Joseph’s dreams of his family bowing down to him. (Genesis 37:5-11) The author tells us that these dreams make Joseph’s brothers hate him even more, but the dreams do not cause their hatred. That is caused by their father’s favouritism, and his singling out of Joseph by making him ‘a long robe with sleeves.’ If you remember my description of this ‘long robe’ as a ‘princess dress’ three years ago, you will remember another reason for his brothers’ hatred of Joseph; he is not a hard-working manly man spending time in the fields. In fact, when he does go into the fields with his brothers, he tells their father tales of them.
Joseph does not come across as an attractive character in the first part of this story. In her Reader’s Guide to the Book of Genesis, Mary Steele asked her readers: ‘Do you think Joseph merited his father’s love or was he a spoiled brat? Or perhaps a “gifted child”?’ Biblical scholar Meg Warner sees something of herself in Joseph; she was a bright child in a rural Australian school who was not intelligent enough to hide her intelligence. Meg describes being bullied by her classmates and even by some of her teachers, although in her case her family were completely on her side. But the solution they found to her problem was to send her to a boarding school in a bigger town and, as Meg writes, ‘I wasn’t bundled off to the highest bidder and taken away by camel train – but, like Joseph, I was sent away.’[1]
No one could be surprised at Joseph’s brothers’ dislike of their father’s favouritism. Jacob loves Joseph as the long-awaited firstborn son of his beloved wife Rachel; he loves Joseph not for anything he does but for who he is, and there is no way that Joseph can change that. Admittedly, bringing up dreams of his family bowing down to him over the breakfast table was not going to endear Joseph to those who already hated him, but if God sent the dreams, then, again, Joseph would have had little choice. This is why girly swots and queer folk often see ourselves in Joseph: he is both loved and hated for things that are beyond his control.
Had the circumstances and the brothers been different, Jacob’s favouritism would not have mattered. It is possible to imagine a scenario in which Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, and Zebulun looked at Jacob’s love for Joseph and said, ‘Well, our father is getting old, Joseph is the son of his old age, the youngest in every family tends to be a spoiled brat, but we can live with that.’ The trouble is, Jacob and his family were living in times when birthrights and blessings were of the greatest importance; Jacob, who had stolen both from his older brother, Esau, might overturn convention again and leave everything to Joseph. So, the elder brothers plan to get rid of their annoying younger sibling.
What happens next is a little confusing. There may have been two versions of the next scene: one in which Judah convinced his brothers not to kill Joseph but to sell him directly to the Ishmaelites; and one in which Reuben convinced his brothers to put Joseph in a pit, meaning to release him later, except that while the brothers were eating ‘some Midianite traders passed by, they drew Joseph up, lifting him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver.’ Either way, the actions of Joseph’s brothers have ensured that Joseph is now on his way to Egypt as a slave.
I do not know if you noticed, but there was no mention of God in today’s reading. There is, in fact, very little mention of God in the Joseph novel. Compared to other parts of the Book of Genesis, in which God walks and talks with human beings like Adam and Eve, and Abraham, God acts at a distance, indirectly, in Joseph’s story. We are told that Joseph prospered in Egypt, even when in prison, because the Lord was with him. (Genesis 39:2-3, 21-23) When Joseph interprets dreams, he says it is God who gives him the interpretation. (Genesis 40:8, 41:16) But God is not an onscreen character. The hiddenness of God was such a problem for some Jewish commentators that they decided that the man in Shechem who told Joseph that his brothers were in Dothan was an angel. When Joseph is finally reconciled with his brothers, he twice tells them that it was God who was behind their actions: ‘And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.’ (Genesis 45:5) ‘Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today.’ (Genesis 50:20) But the brothers’ actions were still their own. They did sell Joseph into slavery, and they intended to harm him, even if God’s mysterious and overwhelming providence turned their harm into good.
The Joseph novel is an astonishing story to find in the Hebrew Scriptures. Both the hero and the villains are the sons of Jacob; the descendants of all the brothers will make up the twelve tribes of Israel. While it is one of Joseph’s two sons, Ephraim, whose descendants will become the dominant tribe in the northern kingdom of Israel, it is the descendants of Judah, who saved Joseph’s life only by suggesting that instead they make a profit out of selling him, who will dominate the southern kingdom of Judea that bears his name. In the same way that Jacob, from whom Israel takes its name, is a conniving thief, the men from whom ten of the tribes of Israel take their names are only saved from being fratricides by the mysterious, hidden actions of God.
A phrase often used to describe Jewish festivals is ‘they tried to kill us; we survived; let’s eat!’ and certainly Passover, which celebrates the liberation of the Israelites from slavery after ‘a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph’ (Exodus 1:8), would fit that pattern. But here at the beginning of the Israelites’ time in Egypt, it is the Egyptians and Joseph, who now has an Egyptian name, an Egyptian wife, and who dresses like an Egyptian (Genesis 41:41-45), who save them from dying in a famine, after Israel’s ten sons have acted as villains. If there were to be a festival to celebrate this occasion, its theme would be: ‘we tried to kill Joseph; he survived and is now feeding us; let’s eat!’ That has a slightly different ring.
As Christians, the Hebrew Scriptures are part of our Bible; we are theologically descended from Jacob and his sons; this story is our story, too. I wonder whether in our personal lives we are more likely to see ourselves as Joseph, a bit annoying, sure, but more sinned against than sinning, rather than as any of his brothers. Hate is not a pleasant emotion, and one we might deny feeling, but have there been times when we have been so filled with anger towards someone else that we cannot ‘speak peaceably’ to them? Are there things for which we need to ask forgiveness of those close to us? It is unlikely that any of us has sold a sibling into slavery, but we know what Jesus said:
if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment, and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council, and if you say, “You fool,” you will be liable to the hell of fire. So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.’ (Matthew 5:22-24)
After Jacob dies, Joseph’s brothers worry, ‘What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back in full for all the wrong that we did to him?’ So, they beg Joseph to ‘please forgive the crime of the servants of the God of your father,’ and they weep, fall down before him, and tell him, ‘We are here as your slaves.’ (Genesis 50:15-18) I do not suggest that you kneel before anyone you have wronged and offer yourselves to them as their slave. But I do suggest we all ponder whether there are times when we have been Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, or Zebulun, rather than Joseph.
If you do find that you have been more sinning than sinned against in a relationship, and you apologise, I hope that you receive the same forgiveness that Joseph offered his brothers: ‘he reassured them, speaking kindly to them.’ (Genesis 50:21) May we all speak kindly to one another.
[1] Meg Warner, Joseph: A Story of Resilience (2020), p. 15.
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