টীকা বর্তমানে শুধুমাত্র ইংরেজিতে উপলব্ধ। বাংলা অনুবাদ চলছে।
Genesis 37 — The Coat of Many Colours
Joseph at seventeen is favored by his father, given a coat of many colors, hated by his brothers. He dreams of being exalted above them. Sent to check on them, they conspire to kill him; Reuben intervenes; Judah proposes selling him. He is sold to Ishmaelites and taken to Egypt. The brothers deceive Jacob with the bloody coat.
“We shall see what will become of his dreams.”
— Genesis 37:20
- v.1-4 Joseph favored; his brothers' hatred
- v.5-11 The two dreams of supremacy
- v.12-22 Joseph sent to his brothers; the plot to kill
- v.23-28 Sold to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver
- v.29-36 The brothers' deception of Jacob; Joseph in Potiphar's house
Joseph's dreams were prophetic. The brothers hated him not for fabricating them but for receiving them. The thing God showed him was the thing that drove their hatred.
Many a man who receives a divine vision discovers the same. The hatred comes not from the dream's falsity but from the implication that God has chosen one over others. Saul felt it toward David. The Sanhedrin felt it toward Christ.
We shall see what will become of his dreams. The mocking question of every age that thinks it can destroy what God has appointed. The dreams of Joseph survived their attempt. So does every divine purpose.
Acts 4:25-28 echoes the same — the kings of the earth gathered against the Lord's Anointed, and accomplished only what God's hand had determined before. The plot to kill the dreamer fulfilled the dream.
Joseph in the pit is one of the most striking types of Christ in the burial. Cast down by his brethren, alone, in a place of death, awaiting deliverance.
Yet the pit was empty of water — the means of his death. God's preserving providence even in the brothers' cruelty. The full intention to kill was restrained at every turn.
Twenty pieces of silver — the price of a slave (Leviticus 27:5). Joseph was sold by his brothers like merchandise.
Centuries later another Son would be sold by another brother for silver — thirty pieces (Matthew 26:15). The pattern Joseph traced becomes the prophecy Judas fulfilled.
Jacob the deceiver is now deceived. He had used a goat's skin to deceive his blind father (27:16); his sons now use a goat's blood to deceive him.
The pattern of consequence is unmistakable. The same deception that once worked is now turned against him. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. (Galatians 6:7)
Joseph is in a pit and then on his way to Egypt. From his perspective, life is over. From God's perspective, his journey to save a nation has just begun. The pit you are in may be the road to the throne. The way down is often the way up in God's economy.
Joseph is perhaps the fullest Old Testament type of Christ. Beloved son, sent to his brothers, rejected, stripped of his robe, cast into the pit of death, sold for silver, taken to a foreign land — all before he saves them by his exaltation. Stephen and Hebrews both draw the parallel. Acts 7:9 — the patriarchs, moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt: but God was with him.
Jacob's favoritism was perhaps the most disastrous parental error of his life. He had been the loved son of Rebekah (25:28), the unloved son of Isaac. He did to Joseph what his mother had done to him — and reaped the same family fracture.
The coat of many colours (Hebrew kethonet passim) was an extraordinary garment — possibly long-sleeved or richly decorated, marking Joseph as the favored heir. To his brothers it was a constant reminder of their displacement.