Genesis 37 - Finding Hope in a Cistern
- Chad Werkhoven
- 1 hour ago
- 6 min read
God is firmly in control, even when it seems like He's missing.
SINCE WE LAST LEFT OFF: Jacob and Esau were reconciled peacefully as Jacob returned to the land and discovered that God had graciously protected him despite his lingering fear. Jacob settled in Canaan, but his household’s compromises—most notably the violence that followed the rape of one of Jacob's daughters—brought trouble and loss, even as God preserved the covenant line. The section concluded by tracing Esau’s descendants, showing how God established nations from both brothers while continuing His redemptive purposes through Jacob’s family.
Genesis 37 (NIV)
37 Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan.
2 This is the account of Jacob’s family line.
Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them.
3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made an ornate robe for him. 4 When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.
5 Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. 6 He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: 7 We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.”
8 His brothers said to him, “Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said.
9 Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. “Listen,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”
10 When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, “What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?” 11 His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.
12 Now his brothers had gone to graze their father’s flocks near Shechem, 13 and Israel said to Joseph, “As you know, your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem. Come, I am going to send you to them.”
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So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near Dothan. 18 But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.
19 “Here comes that dreamer!” they said to each other. 20 “Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.”
21 When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. “Let’s not take his life,” he said. 22 “Don’t shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him.” Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father.
23 So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe—the ornate robe he was wearing—24 and they took him and threw him into the cistern. The cistern was empty; there was no water in it. --
28 So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt.
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31 Then they got Joseph’s robe, slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in the blood.
32 They took the ornate robe back to their father and said, “We found this. Examine it to see whether it is your son’s robe.”
33 He recognized it and said, “It is my son’s robe! Some ferocious animal has devoured him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces.”
34 Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and mourned for his son many days.
35 All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. “No,” he said, “I will continue to mourn until I join my son in the grave.” So his father wept for him.
36 Meanwhile, the Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard.
Article 13:
God is not the author of,
nor can he be charged with,
the sin that occurs.
For his power and goodness
are so great and incomprehensible
that he arranges and does his work very well and justly
even when the devils and wicked men act unjustly.
Summary
God's people are a dysfunctional mess as the account (literally, the generations or genesis) of Joseph begins. Jacob has taken multiple wives for himself, a practice God never ordained nor blesses, and as one commentator puts it, "The sons of Jacob were not only in Canaan, but Canaan was in them." The surrounding chapters tell the story of a bunch of cutthroat, debauched goons.
And Jacob, himself a master of deception and strategy, doesn't trust his boys one bit at all. So he often sends his youngest boy, Joseph, out to narc on them, who brings home his bad reports to his father. It's no wonder his brothers don't like him.
It got worse for the brothers when Jacob gave Joseph an ornate robe, or to use the more familiar King James vernacular, a coat of many colours. Whatever we call it, it represented more than just the latest in ancient near eastern fashion - it conveyed royalty, signifying that it would be Joseph who would inherit Jacob's vast estate, not his older brothers. So they had lots of good reasons to rid themselves of him.
Joseph doesn't make things any easier for himself. God gives him prophetic insights into his patriarchal future through dreams, but rather than pondering these things up in his heart as Jesus' mother Mary would later do, Joseph proclaims them to anyone who would listen - no doubt with an air of vain superiority in his voice, so much so that even Jacob rebuked his favorite son.
Dig Deeper
It's not too likely that anyone was surprised as to how today's chapter turned out. This is one of the Bible's most familiar stories since it's common fodder for Sunday School and VBS classes. But even beyond its popularity, the narrative makes it obvious the brothers have had enough and are going to take matters into their own hands. Joseph showing up in the middle of the wilderness, wearing his fancy robe no less, to see if all is 'well' simply lit the fuse.
When the brothers return to their father with his son's bloodied, torn robe, they masterfully sell him a story, which he bought hook, line and sinker. Jacob became inconsolable, tearing his clothes, putting on sackcloth, mourning for days and refusing to be comforted. Jacob knew the true magnitude of this tragedy - Joseph, the dreamer, was to be the one who carried on God's covenant promises, and now he's dead.
But the story isn't over. It never is! No matter how dark things are and how distant God seems, God continues to sovereignly work all things for the good of those who love Him who have been called according to His purpose. So the passage ends with a glimmer of hope contrasted against Jacob's weeping.
Joseph ends up in the house of Potiphar, one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard. The plot thickens!
ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, whose name and presence is conspicuously absent from today's passage, but yet who is very much in control;
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray that you will remember God's sovereign power over all things, even when you're sitting in life's cisterns;
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:
