Joseph Sold Into Egypt (MP 29)

Jacob’s son Joseph was the next in line
To affect the nation that was God’s own;
He was Rachel’s first, to Jacob most fine—
It was as if he were Jacob’s son alone!
Jealousy of Joseph built up so great,
His brothers plotted to get rid of him;
They got their chance to gratify their hate,
When Jacob sent him out to check on them!
Let’s kill him, most said, but Rueben said no;
A passing caravan took him away,
Down to Egypt as a slave, he did go;
\Killed by a beast, to Jacob, all did say!
This ended Joseph, all the brothers thought;
Little did they know, what the Lord would wrought!

Scripture Quoted: Genesis 37:23-27 (NIV)
"When Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe—the richly ornamentethed robe he was wearing—and they took him and threw him into the cistern. Now cistern was empty; there was no water in it. As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt. Judah said to his brothers, ‘What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up the blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.’ His brothers agreed.”

Commentary on: Genesis 37 (NIV)
The confrontation between Esau and Jacob after 20 years was loving and brotherly. Jacob moved on to Hebron in Canaan and made his home where Isaac, his father, had lived. His family situation remained hectic. Joseph, the eleventh son of Jacob but the firstborn of Rachel, was Jacob’s favorite son, and it was very obvious to all. The ten older brothers became so jealous of Joseph that they hated him. Jacob gave Joseph a richly ornamented robe of which he was so proud he flaunted it to the brothers’ faces. He did nothing to help his situation with them; he made it worse by describing two dreams of his that symbolized the brothers bowing before him. Even Jacob and Rachel were represented by the sun and the moon in his dreams, and they bowed to Joseph in them also. Of course, if you read ahead, you will realize that these very things did occur later, because God would bless Joseph and elevate him to the exalted position of the prime minister of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh. There would come famine to Canaan, and Jacob and his family would depend upon food from Egypt, of which Joseph would be in control. Nevertheless, the family was not aware of the future, and Joseph’s high and mighty airs made him most despised.

Jacob gave to Joseph a richly-decorated robe, one that put the drab common ones of his brothers to shame, and he wore it before them every chance he got. It became a symbol of hatred to them, so when Jacob sent the 17-year-old on a long trip to find his ten brothers and the family’s large flocks of sheep, unfortunately for him, he wore the gaudy robe. They saw him coming long before he got to them, and they resolved to kill him. When he arrived, they stripped the hated robe off and threw him into an empty cistern while they ate and discussed what to do with him. Their oldest, Rueben, would not allow them to kill Joseph; as he was the one responsible, he wanted to save the life of Joseph, for he would face the wrath of Jacob. However, he was a long distance off when an Arab caravan passed the place where the brothers held Joseph prisoner and Judah suggested that it would be better to sell him as a slave to the Ishmaelite caravan than to be guilty of his blood. They sold him, and Joseph was taken down to Egypt and sold to a man named Potiphar, who was the chief of Pharaoh’s guard. Then the brothers killed a goat and put its blood on the rich robe; they told Jacob a wild beast had killed Joseph. Jacob mourned for days and days; no one could comfort him. The older brothers thought they had rid themselves of Joseph; they could not know that God had planned every move they made. He wanted Joseph in Egypt, where God blessed him and he rose to be second in power to Pharaoh. Some years later, he would be the salvation of Jacob and his family, who would move down to Egypt for 430 years, growing into a nation of millions of people.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him will not die, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)