The Technicolor Providence: The Generations of Jacob Text: Genesis 37:1-4
Introduction: A Messy and Glorious Sovereignty
We come now to the story of Joseph, which is one of the great novellas of the ancient world. But it is far more than that. It is a hinge point in the history of redemption. The story of Joseph is the story of how God, in His inscrutable and perfect providence, can take a bucket of familial sin, dysfunction, jealousy, and arrogance, and use it to paint a masterpiece of deliverance. If your family has ever felt messy, if you have ever looked at the sins and stupidity within your own household and wondered how God could possibly bring anything good out of it, then this story is for you. The doctrine of God's sovereignty is not a cold, abstract formula; it is a warm blanket for a cold night. It is the truth that undergirds all of history, especially the parts that make no sense to us while we are living through them.
The book of Genesis has been showing us a consistent pattern. God makes a covenant promise, and then everything immediately seems to go wrong. He promises Abraham a son, and then Abraham tries to fulfill it with Hagar. He promises the line through Isaac, and Isaac favors the profane Esau. He promises the blessing through Jacob, and Jacob is a conniving trickster. And now, we come to the generations of Jacob, and the family is a hot mess. Favoritism, jealousy, sibling hatred, and tattling. It looks like the covenant plan is about to implode on the launchpad. But this is precisely where God loves to work. He does not need our polished resumes or our well-adjusted families. He needs sinners, because His business is redemption. He specializes in taking crooked sticks and drawing straight lines.
This story is about far more than Joseph and his brothers. This story is about the preservation of the covenant line. It is about how God will get His people to Egypt so that He can later deliver them in the Exodus. And ultimately, this story is about Jesus. Joseph is one of the clearest types of Christ in all the Old Testament. Beloved of the father, sent to his brothers, rejected and hated by them, sold for pieces of silver, thrown into a pit, raised to a position of authority, and ultimately used as the instrument of salvation for the very people who betrayed him. You cannot understand the gospel without understanding stories like this one. So let us pay close attention. God is teaching us how He works in the world, and He is teaching us about His Son.
The Text
Now Jacob lived in the land where his father had sojourned, in the land of Canaan. These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, when seventeen years of age, was pasturing the flock with his brothers while he was still a youth, along with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives. And Joseph brought back an evil report about them to their father. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons because he was the son of his old age; and he made him a varicolored tunic. And his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, and so they hated him and could not speak to him in peace.
(Genesis 37:1-4 LSB)
Sojourners and Generations (v. 1-2a)
We begin with the setting and the introduction to this new section.
"Now Jacob lived in the land where his father had sojourned, in the land of Canaan. These are the generations of Jacob." (Genesis 37:1-2a)
The first verse reminds us of the central tension of the patriarchal narratives. Jacob is living in the land of promise, but he is still a sojourner. He lives there, but he does not possess it. Like Abraham and Isaac before him, he is a resident alien. This is the posture of faith. The author of Hebrews tells us that they "confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth" (Hebrews 11:13). They were looking for a city whose builder and maker is God. This is our posture as well. We live in this world, but it is not our home. We are citizens of a heavenly kingdom, sojourning here as ambassadors.
Then we are told, "These are the generations of Jacob." This is a standard formula in Genesis, a toledoth, that signals a new section of the family history. But what is striking is that the story immediately pivots to Joseph. The generations of Jacob are, in fact, the story of Joseph. This is because Joseph is the key figure through whom God will preserve the family of Jacob. The destiny of the twelve tribes is wrapped up in the story of this one son. This is a pattern we see throughout Scripture. God often works through a chosen individual to save the larger community. Ultimately, the story of all humanity is wrapped up in the story of one man, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Tattletale and the Teenager (v. 2b)
Now the camera focuses on our protagonist, and he is not immediately presented in a flattering light.
"Joseph, when seventeen years of age, was pasturing the flock with his brothers while he was still a youth, along with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives. And Joseph brought back an evil report about them to their father." (Genesis 37:2b)
Joseph is seventeen. This is an important age. He is on the cusp of manhood, but still a youth. He is out with his brothers, specifically the sons of the concubines, Bilhah and Zilpah. These would be Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. There is already a clear factionalism in the family, with the sons of the full wives, Leah and Rachel, having higher status. Joseph, the firstborn of the beloved Rachel, is with the "B team."
And what does he do? He brings an "evil report" about them to their father. The text does not tell us what the report was, nor whether it was true. Given the subsequent behavior of the brothers, it is highly likely it was true. They were not good men. But Joseph's role here is ambiguous. Is he a righteous whistleblower, concerned for the family's integrity? Or is he a spoiled tattletale, currying favor with his father by ratting on his brothers? The Bible often presents its heroes with this kind of raw honesty. They are not plaster saints. Joseph is likely a mixture of both. He may have had righteous motives, but the way he went about it probably lacked wisdom and humility, especially for a seventeen-year-old. This act, whether well-intentioned or not, certainly poured gasoline on the fire of his brothers' resentment.
Parental Sin and the Poison of Favoritism (v. 3)
The source of the family's dysfunction is laid bare in the next verse.
"Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons because he was the son of his old age; and he made him a varicolored tunic." (Genesis 37:3)
Here the sin is plain. "Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons." This is not a small thing. Jacob, of all people, should have known better. He himself was the victim of parental favoritism, with his mother Rebekah loving him and his father Isaac loving Esau. That favoritism tore his family apart and sent him into exile for twenty years. You would think he would have learned his lesson. But sin is often cyclical. The wounds we receive from our parents are often the very wounds we inflict on our own children.
The reason given is that he was "the son of his old age." This is true, but he was not the only one. Benjamin was younger. The real reason, which is unstated but obvious from the whole narrative, is that Joseph was the firstborn son of Rachel, the wife Jacob truly loved. Joseph was the walking, breathing embodiment of Jacob's one great love. This favoritism was not just a feeling; it was demonstrated in a tangible, public way. He made him a "varicolored tunic."
This was not just a nice coat. The Hebrew suggests a long-sleeved robe, reaching to the ankles. This was the garment of a prince, not a shepherd. It was the clothing of a foreman, a manager, someone who did not do manual labor. By giving Joseph this coat, Jacob was publicly declaring his intention to make Joseph the head of the family, leapfrogging over all his older brothers, including Reuben, the firstborn. This coat was a constant, visible symbol of their father's preference and their own demotion. It was a slap in the face that Joseph wore every single day.
The Fruit of Favoritism: Hatred (v. 4)
The consequences of Jacob's sin are immediate and predictable.
"And his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, and so they hated him and could not speak to him in peace." (Genesis 37:4)
The brothers saw it. The favoritism was not subtle. And their reaction was not subtle either: "they hated him." This is a deep, settled animosity. It was so profound that they "could not speak to him in peace." The Hebrew is literally that they could not "shalom" him. They could not offer him the common greeting of peace and well-being. Every interaction was poisoned. Every glance was filled with contempt. The family was at war.
Now, we must be clear. Jacob's sin of favoritism does not excuse the brothers' sin of hatred and, later, attempted murder. Sin is not a justification for more sin. But it is an explanation. Jacob created the toxic environment in which this hatred was cultivated. And Joseph, in his youthful immaturity, likely did little to help the situation. He wore the coat. He brought the evil reports. And as we will see in the next section, he will tell them his dreams of supremacy. This is a family spiraling into sin and chaos.
Providence in the Pit
So where is God in all this? He is not mentioned in these first four verses. But His fingerprints are all over the crime scene. This is the doctrine of concursus, where God works His sovereign will through the free, and often sinful, actions of men. God is not the author of sin, but He is the author of the story in which the sin occurs. And He writes the plot in such a way that the sin of the characters ends up serving the ultimate purpose of the story.
Jacob's sinful favoritism, Joseph's youthful arrogance, the brothers' murderous hatred, these are all the threads that God will weave together to get Joseph to Egypt. God had a plan to save His people from a coming famine. That plan required having a man on the inside of the Egyptian government. That plan required Joseph. And the means God used to get him there was this train wreck of a family.
This should be a profound comfort and a sober warning to us. The comfort is that God's plans cannot be thwarted by our sins or the sins of others. He is so sovereign that He can even use the wrath of man to praise Him (Psalm 76:10). He can take our biggest blunders and our deepest wounds and redeem them for His glory and our good. As Joseph will later say to his brothers, "You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good" (Genesis 50:20). This is the gospel in miniature.
The warning is that our sin still has real, devastating consequences. Jacob's favoritism cost him his beloved son for twenty-two years. The brothers' hatred brought them decades of guilt and fear. Sin is never a good idea. God's ability to overrule our sin for good does not make our sin any less sinful. We must not sin that grace may abound.
And we must see the Lord Jesus here. He is the true beloved Son, of whom the Father said, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17). He came to His own brothers, and His own received Him not (John 1:11). He was hated without a cause. He was sold for pieces of silver by one of his own. He was handed over by his brothers, the Jews, to the Gentiles to be killed. He was stripped of His robe. He was cast into the pit of death. But God raised Him up and exalted Him to the highest place, giving Him the name that is above every name. And from that position of authority, He now offers bread from heaven to save the very world that betrayed Him. Our story begins in a dysfunctional family, but it finds its resolution in the perfect Son, who invites us out of our sin and into His family, a family where there is no jealousy or hatred, only grace upon grace.