Chapter 37 is an account or Joseph, the youngest son of Israel. What I love about the Bible is that it is God's word, even though secular criticisms like contradictions, repeated stories, pagan sources of the Hebrew faith, etc. are all true, but the Bible has the divine fingerprints all over it, despite its flaws. There is a deep love of truth. The writers write openly about the Jewish people, the chosen people, warts and all, and that, is most impressive, that one tells the objective truth about one's own people. God is truth, and one does not love truth, oneself, or others unless one seeks after the truth with one's whole heart and soul.
People are born evil, and the chosen people, the Hebrews, are just as petty, nasty, selfish, cowardly, and petulant as their pagan neighbors. We are born evil, but, with God or Christ's divine grace bestowed upon us, we can be saved, and can be renewed, so habitually, morally, and spiritually good, that our acquired nature is good, more or less.
Joseph is the favorite son. He is the noblest, the most favored by God and his father, but he brothers cannot compete so these joiners hate him and plan to murder him. These genetic and cultural descendants of Cain have not learned a darn thing.
Joiners are obsessed with what great-souled loners are doing in their midst, and they deny the superiority of the great-souled loner (the superiority is based on merit, not innate superiority), and then they get jealous, and then they go way beyond that, and justify seeking to harm or kill the innocent loner that has done nothing to them. It sounds like Joseph was a goody two-shoes snitching to Daddy about his older brothers, and that would not endear him to those older brothers.
The jealous and homicidal joiners did not get the memo not to wat their time comparing themselves to the Josephs of their generation, but should strive mightily and enthusiastically to mind their own business and individual, and that is a contribution that all c
The verses below capture this fundamental human dynamic unfolding in five lines; here it is from The New American Bible: "Jacob settled in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan. This is his family history. When Joseph was seventeen years old, he was tending the flocks with his brothers; he was an assistant to the sons of his father's wives Bilhah and Zilpah, and he brought his father bad reports about them.
Israel loved Joseph best of all his sons, for he was the child of his old age; and he made for him a long tunic. When his brothers saw that their father loved him best of all his sons, they hated him so much they would not even greet him.
Once Joseph had a dream, which he told to his brothers: 'Listen to the dream I had. There we were, binding sheaves in the field, when suddenly my sheave rose to an upright position, and your sheaves formed a ring around my sheaf and bowed down to it,' 'Are you going to make yourself king over us?' his brothers asked him. So, they hated him all the more, because of his talk about his dreams."
Joseph would appear to be an anointed favorite of great Yahweh himself, and this powerful, prediction in a dream prophesied his future success and prominence. To tell older brother openly that he, Joseph, was superior to them, and they would come to accept his superiority, and actually bow down to him. No wonder they hated him and plotted his demise.
Let me share these verses from the Holy Bible (KJV): "And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan.
These 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 Zilpah, his father's wives; and Joseph brought unto his father their evil report.
Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colors. And when his brothers saw his father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him.
And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren: and they hated him yet the more. And he said unto them, this dream which I have dreamed: For, behold, we are 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.
And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed rule over us? And they hated him, yet the more for his words and for his dreams."
Now the Hebrews were God's chosen people, but that did not mean He did not see them as they were, and tell the truth in sacred writing about their shortcomings and sins. They were special and chosen in that they were called to go a bit farther morally and spiritually shine their light for the world, which they often did subsequently but also failed to do often in history, and they did in their treatment of Joseph.
He was God's and Jacob's favorite, and he was way ahead of the rest of them, but rather than be successful individuals and individuators copying his hard work and success orientation, they turned jealous, resentful and felt victimized; then they could justify murdering him or selling him into slavery.
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