Bible Discussion Thread

Here again we have a parent showing favoritism to one child over another. This time it was Jacob favoring Joseph, his 11th son. Hadn't Jacob learned anything from growing up with his mother favoring him and his father favoring Esau? surely e knew what it was like to favored and not favored. But, Joseph was Rachel's child and she was favored by Jacob over his other wives.

Joseph was 17 in this chapter. So, for 17 years, his brother had witnessed how their father favored and pampered Joseph. He did not work in the fields with his brothers, even though he was old enough to do so. He was given finer clothing than them. Their father allowed Joseph to snitch on his brothers. Was Jacob aware of how damaging this favoring was to his other sons? I am the fourth of ten children in my family. Growing up we did have discussions and arguments about who was favored by my parents. They tried not to favor any of us, but they made comments that led to us thinking some were more of a "golden child" than others. But we never hated our siblings.

Joseph was given dreams from God. I don't think Joseph really knew quite how to handle these dreams and so wanted to tell others to find some answers, perhaps. Maybe he did want to lord it over his brothers a bit. He was not perfect.

Telling his brothers ended up being for the good because, in time, they all would be reminded of these dreams from many years past when in Egypt. I wonder if the multiple colors of the coat was significant. Any help on this?

Perhaps it was just that it was considered expensive, extravagant, or time consuming to dye so many different colors before spinning into threads to create the coat.

His brothers were jealous of Joseph and hated him. They commiserated together over this while working in the fields. They were old enough to have married and began families of their own by this time. Jacob sending Joseph out to see how the work was going was not welcome, since he often would bring back a bad report about them.

Hi Gigi The coat of many colors was one of the jealousy triggers with Josephs brothers because it signified leadership and he was to be the heir. Joseph is a great example of a walk of patience and love and wisdom of God to the point of

literally making Egypt the wealthiest in the world at that time also of God changing situations in His life from lemons to lemonade because he believed.

David, thank you for suggesting that the coat was referring to Jacob declaring Joseph to be the heir. That must have made is brothers feel terrible. The heir was to be the firstborn, but Jacob decided otherwise. It doesn't say when Jacob gave Joseph the coat. As a growing teen, it may have been recent so that it would fit well enough for Joseph to wear at the time his brothers stripped him (probably, in a way, stripping him of his "heirness) and placed him in the cistern. It also does not say when Joseph told of his dreams. So, we do not really know how long the brothers had "stomach" Joseph strutting around in this coat, speaking of his dreams, but perhaps, not doing much work for the family. I don't think that Joseph was all that innocent here, but he grew into a great man of God in Egypt. God had chosen him. Perhaps, He had told Jacob that already. As Joseph served as a slave in Egypt, he was brought low in order to be raised up to a very high position in the Egyptian government. Like Jacob, he was away from his family for a very long time, time for God to mature them both in their respective situations.