Genesis 37-40
Let’s recall a bit about Jacob’s family. First he has four wives: Leah and Rachel (his cousins) and their two maidservants, Zilpah and Bilhah. These four women bear him 12 sons and a daughter:
| Leah | Rachel | Bilhah | Zilpah |
| 1 – Reuben 2 – Simeon 3 – Levi 4 – Judah 9 – Issachar 10 – Zebulun Dinah | 11 – Joseph 12 – Benjamin | 5 – Dan 6 – Naphtali | 7 – Gad 8 – Asher |
Of the four women, Rachel is Jacob’s favorite, the only one he intended to marry. Jacob passes that favoritism on to Rachel’s sons, particularly to Joseph, as we see today, but also to Benjamin, for whom Rachel dies in childbirth. (Gen. 35:16-20)
Jacob shows his favoritism of Joseph in giving him a robe of many colors (Gen. 37:4), but my guess is that the robe is just one of many bonuses that Joseph enjoys. It is not a secret that Joseph is the favorite, and that naturally leads to ill will toward Joseph from his brothers. When Joseph starts having dreams that suggest that he would somehow have dominion over them, or that he is superior to them, they hate him even more. But none of that justifies what they do to him — or to Jacob.
The brothers conspire to kill Joseph, but Reuben steps in, hoping to rescue him later. (Is Reuben really that much morally superior to his brothers? Doubtful. My guess is that he just wants daddy to think better of him after his having slept with Bilhah — Gen. 35:22.) Judah then suggests selling Joseph, rather than killing him. (Hey, if you can get rid of Joseph and make a profit at the same time…) So they take advantage of a passing caravan and sell Joseph. Now they just need to explain Joseph’s disappearance, and a blood-soaked robe of many colors is more than convincing for Jacob. And again we have deceit — of the most horrendous kind. And they stick with the false story for years.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch… Gen. 38 shifts our attention away from the Joseph narrative to tell us all about Judah and Tamar, his daughter-in-law, who scandalously becomes the mother of his children — yet another unflattering story. Aside from our base nature’s interest in such juicy details, why is this story here? After all, Reuben’s affair with Bilhah warranted only a single verse. I think the answer lies in that this is Judah, who is of particular note as the one through whom comes the anointed line of David, ultimately producing the Christ.
One more thing…
Although our text here is silent about Benjamin, I am confident that he is not a party to the conspiracy against Joseph, as he is likely still a boy. It also becomes clear later that Joseph maintains a particular affection for Benjamin. Stay tuned.
John has rightly mentioned, more than a few times, how Scripture does not bother to whitewash Israel’s history, to make it all nice and pretty. Given his many comments on that topic, here’s another item for your consideration: …Judah went down from his brothers and … saw the daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua. He took her and went in to her, and she conceived and bore a son, and he called his name Er. (Gen. 38:1-3) Remember that Isaac and Rebekah were upset over their son, Esau taking foreign wives? (Genesis 26:34-35) Here we have Judah also going outside the family, marrying a Canaanite woman. Judah is the one son of the twelve sons of Jacob from whom our Messiah descended. But it’s not just the issue of Judah marrying a Canaanite woman. His son, Er (mentioned above) married a woman named Tamar. After Er died, Judah did not provide Er’s brother to father children for Er through Tamar. So Tamar, angry at this betrayal, then dressed herself as a prostitute and Judah engaged her services. From their “union” Perez and Zerah were born. Perez, then, an illegitimate child if you will, is also part of Judah’s Messianic line. (Matthew 1:2-3) We can also later add a murderer and adulterer (David) and an unwed pregnant girl (Mary). No whitewashing that Messianic lineage here!!