Genesis 37:3 Commentary and Bible Study

Once again, the tut-tutting begins: ‘How unwise of Jacob! How foolish of him to show favouritism to one son. By doing this he created this situation and he spoiled the boy, and the other brothers had some grounds to be antagonised on account of Joseph.’ We note the name Moses uses here. In verse 1, he is Jacob; in verse 2 he is Jacob; but in verse 3, he is Israel – ‘Now Israel loved Joseph.’ He is suddenly given his new name as a prince with God, as the bearer of the promised seed, and as the one to whom God has appeared in several theophanies and appearances. Now it is an obvious that if you stop saying, Jacob, and you change the name to Israel, you are not going to read any criticism of him. You can be sure that what is reported, when he so named, is something good, not something bad: his official divinely given name is in use. That is hardly the most elaborate principle of interpretation. So it would be superficial to begin, as some do, to criticise Jacob for showing undue affection to Joseph. ‘Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children.’ Joseph was still only a boy, and the others were big enough and ugly enough to take care of themselves. If you have got a lot of children, and there is one who is 35, and another 30, and another 28, and then you get a little fellow come into the family; it is natural and wholesome that the parents are going to love the child more than they love the adult sons. Besides, Jacob was responding to the character of his children. The horrors of chapter 34 had involved all of the brothers to some extent, but certainly not Joseph who was too young. He was a boy of an entirely different character which his father was rightly drawn towards. ‘And he made him a coat of many colours.’ I think the King James version is right in this coat of many colours, though there is a reasonable dispute about it. It could be indicating that it was a coat with long sleeves and leggings attached to it possibly. But whichever, it was a coat of honour, and what that tells us about Joseph is probably that he was a very bright lad, and so he had an honourable garment given to him; Jacob felt that he was destined for great things. Nevertheless it brings hatred of the brothers. They used angry words against him. He was hated for what he stood for and was. But the brothers should never have been jealous of that. This only demonstrates to us their unpleasantness. They are not nice men, these brothers. They have no generosity of spirit towards Joseph. They are so proud and self-seeking that they resent the affection that Joseph is getting as a teenager. They are dishonest and they also turn out to be exceedingly cruel. They set out to hurt and belittle him, and eventually to murder him. What a bunch!