Jealousy and a Big Dream

Introduction

So in our studies so far this year, we have tried to re-enforce our theme, “Change What You Love.”

We began with wisdom literature in our study of Ecclesiastes.
We did two topical summer series, love the commandment and love the church.
And now we are going to end the year with narrative.

Today we begin a 16 week series on the life of Joseph that will take us to Christmas. In our study of Joseph we see in narrative fashion how love changes. We see the bad love behind jealousy, rage, condescension, lust, power, self-pity, and self-loathing transformed into good love resulting in forgiveness, compassion, self-sacrifice and worship.

We see a man remarkably mature from a 17 year old soft and immature boy to 110 year old sage in such a way that were the young Joseph to meet his future elderly self he would recognize not a single thing.

God uses failure/success, mistreatment/promotion, suffering/fame to shape the affections of Joseph into a God-loving, enemy-forgiving, leader and savior of a nation.

This is a drama that, if you let it, will change your life.
Background
So let’s dive into this fascinating story. The story of Joseph begins in chapter 37 of the book of Genesis. And one of the things that might be obvious but worth saying is that the author of the book of Genesis would have expected you to have read the 36 chapters leading up to this story. They are connected and there is a larger story that is being told.

So I want to spend just a moment understanding where this fits into the book. I’m not doing the obligatory background step here. This is absolutely essentially to understanding the narrative. So if you focus, I’ll move efficiently. Deal? Genesis literally means beginnings. And in the beginning everything is good.

It begins with God’s very good animals,
living on his very good land,
filled with his very good birds.

The creation story climaxes with the creation of Adam and Eve, two very good beings specially made in the image of God. Over and over we read that everything is good. And of course the reason it is all so good is because God is good.

This entire good created order is shattered when the goodness of God and his good creation is called into question. God says don’t eat of this tree in the middle of the garden. And he only gives them a one sentence reason, because if you eat it you will die. Because I am good, you can trust me that this is true.

But then they ask this damning question, “How can God know what’s good for me?” I’m the only one who can know that. And so they become the judge of what is good and eat the forbidden fruit. And rejecting God’s good always means choosing a world without good.

The poison of sin begins to leech into every aspect of life. If you cut a flower from a vine, it doesn’t wilt instantly. In fact it looks great but slowly, because it is cut off from the source of life, it dies. And the first 11 chapters of the book of Genesis describes the horrible wilting effects of sin.

And everywhere we look in these first 11 chapters, instead of good we see evil.

The ground is cursed.
Cain becomes jealous of his brother and kills Abel
God looks down on the world he created his summary was, Genesis 6:5, “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
God Destroys the world in a flood.
The Tower of Babel describes the pride of men and people’s evil desire to become like God.

And so the first 11 chapters sets up the problem. The absence of good has created this space for evil to invade. And it’s painful. The next rest of the book begins to suggest a solution. God appears to a man Abraham and says out of you shall all of the nations of the earth be blessed. He makes a promise to him.

The rest of Genesis, chapters 12-50 trace a promise of God through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph to restore good. Over and over again, God makes GOOD promises to EVIL men. God is FAITHFUL while man is FAITHLESS.

A faithful God revealing himself to faithless men.

Now this is an important point because by the time we get to the NT the patriarchs have been immortalized into history as the founding fathers of the Jewish faith and are held in high honor. The pharisees were proud to say, “We are children of Abraham.”

It’s a badge of honor to associate yourself with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

But if you read the story of the actual patriarchs as described in the actual narrative, they are a bunch of loosers. These guys are a bunch of chauvinistic, cowardly men who use their wives as shields to protect themselves from danger. They are faithless bafoons who revert to paganism, superstition and generally are an embarrassment to the Christian faith.

Now I want to say something here. The point of Genesis is to establish EXACTLY THAT FACT!

The goal is to point to God’s faithfulness DESPITE the faithlessness of his chosen people.

Maybe the best way point out this is to illustrate an interpretive problem we’ve likely all had. When you read the book of Genesis there are some embarrassing chapters.

After the flood we read of Noah getting drunk in a tent and involved in some sort of super awkward, lewd behavior. I’m not sure you’ll find an episode of veggie tales on that story? And there is no commentary. You just read that and get uncomfortable and move along.
You have the rape of Dinah in chapter 34 where Jacob’s daughter Dinah is raped and then the 11 brothers of Jacob go out and murder in cold-blooded circumcision trickery the entire tribe that raped her. And again, there is no commentary. You are thinking, “Is that what God wanted?” I mean, you can search high and low and you are not going to find a Sunday School flanel graph to go along with some of these stories.
In chapter 38 you have this story of Judah who thinks he sleeping with a temple prostitute but is really being tricked by his daughter-in-law Tamar who was widowed. And she’s doing that because Judah forced her to remain a widow. I mean awkward.

I mean, the whole time, we are wanting God to provide some commentary. Why are you including this stuff in the Bible. This is really messing up my family devotions with my 7 year old.

I’ve heard people say, “I could never worship a God who condones the polygamous marriages we read about in the heroes of the Christian faith. I mean look at Abraham. Look at Isaac. Really? This is the model of how God wants his people to be?”

All of this illustrates a profound MISUNDERSTANDING of the point of Genesis. Your intuitions are absolutely correct. These guys are a bunch of loosers. But look what God can do despite loosers.

This is why it is so important to see the book as a whole because commentary does come at the end.

The whole book is highlighting the failure of men. Adam fails, Cain fails, Noah fails, Abraham fails, Isaac fails, Jacob fails. They all failed. These men were polygamous, jealousy, petty, greedy and in almost every way faithless.

And then you have God who just intervenes and delivers. That’s how you are supposed to read the book. Now to be sure, you don’t get this until the very end of the book. That’s when it all connects. It all clicks.

Have you ever watched a movie where you have no idea how you are supposed to interpret anything until the very end and then great reveal happens and it all makes sense. That’s how the book of Genesis is structured.

And that great reveal, this interpretive key comes at the very end of the book, at the climax of both the Joseph narrative and the book of Genesis as a whole. We get this powerful statement , "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good." That’s the commentary on the book of Genesis we were looking for? What does God think of all this crazy narrative? They are wilting flowers cut off from the source of life! Without the the life-good they can only do evil. They were evil and did evil. But God is greater than their evil. They meant it for evil but God is good and therefore can redeem it.
Joseph
So, as we open up chapter 37 and look at the story of Joseph, let’s remind ourselves that we are in a narrative of brokenness where evil is very much afoot. In Joseph’s case, this brokenness was most keenly felt in his own family. Genesis 37 begins.

Now let’s talk about Joseph’s family. Most of us come from a home where we have an imperfect father and an imperfect mother. Joseph came from a home where he had an imperfect father and four imperfect mothers, technically two wives and two surrogate mothers.

Joseph’s father was married to two wives, Rachael and Leah, who also happened to be sisters. How Jacob came to be married to Rachel and Leah is a story unto itself filled with deception and trickery and doesn’t exactly paint the great patriarchs in very flattering light.

You will remember that Rachael and Leah are sisters who are bitter rivals.

Rachel is beautiful, bright-eyed, is loved by her husband.
Leah is not as beautiful, dull-eyed, and is not loved by her husband.

You might think Leah doomed in this marriage save one factor. Rachel can’t get pregnant; Leah on the other hand, if Jacob just winks at her from across the room is instantly three months pregnant.

Now in our culture, sadly, having children is not valued very highly. However, in the ANE NOTHING is more important that bearing children and in particular, male children. Male children carry on the family name and strengthen your tribe. Having male children is like hitting a grand slam in baseball. It’s like draining that eagle in golf. I mean these are things you keep track of on a score card.

And Rachael and Leah are keeping score.

And in chapter 29:32 you have that scorecard. Chapter 29 is the chronicles of the labor and delivery ward of Jacob’s tribe. And chapter 29 begins with Leah giving birth to all these children. And she’s giving birth to them at this astounding rate of one verse at a time.

In verse 32 that she became pregnant and gave birth to a son—she called him Reuben;
verse 33, she conceived again and gave birth to a son, called him Simeon;
verse 34, she conceived and gave birth to a son and called him Levi;
and verse 35, she conceived again and gave birth to a son and she called him Judah.
And then the narrative pauses. 29: “Then she stopped having children.”

So far the score is Leah four, Rachel zero.

The story continues in chapter 20. Rachel, when she saw she was not bearing Jacob any children, became jealous of her sister. So she said to Jacob, “Give me children, or I’ll die.”

Jacob says, “What’s your problem woman? I’m not God. I can’t control this stuff. That’s God’s business.” And so Rachel did what was customary at the time: she took the servant maid Bilhah that she had been given and she gave her to Jacob as a surrogate wife: “Sleep with her so that she can bear children for me and that through her I too can build a family.” Any children born through the servant maid would be credited as children of Rachel. And so Bildah gets pregnant,

Bilhah gives birth to Dan in verse 6
and to Naphtali in verse 7.

So now the score is Leah four, Rachel two with an asterisks.

Now the jealousy and fighting and resentment and envy between the sister builds.

Leah’s child bearing ability stalls out and so she decides on the same strategy with her maidservant, Zilpah. And Zilpah and Jacob get together, and

Zilpah in turn gives birth to Gad in verse 10
and then to Asher in verse 13.

And then you have this unbelievable thing here where they’re trading sexual favors for mandrake crops. Mandrakes are a vegetables from the nightshade family that were believed to be aphrodisiacs. Rachael says, “I want some of your son’s mandrakes, presumabably so that she can get pregnant. Apparently they worked for Leah and so Rachel wants some.” Leah says, “No way. You took away my husband. I’m not helping you.” Rachel said, “I’ll let you sleep with him tonight in return for your son’s mandrakes.” So when Jacob came in from the fields that evening, Leah went out to meet him. “You must sleep with me,” she said. “I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes.” What in the world?

Don’t look at me like I’m being inappropriate. I’m just reading the Bible here folks.

So with that Leah, becomes pregnant, she bore Jacob a fifth son. So she named him Issachar.
And then she conceived again, and she bore him a sixth son, Zebulun.
And then she pops out a daughter named Dinah.

Can you believe this? I mean, this is like a rabbit factory. We got kids all over the place. So here’s the score at the top of the ninth inning.

We got six boys and a daughter straight up by Leah;
two by her servant maid, so that’s nine;
two by the other servant maid—that’s eleven.
So we got ten boys, one girl, one dad, four mothers, two concubines.

You think you’ve got a complicated family? The family contained all the ingredients for a psychological nightmare.

Why do we mention this. You need to remember something very important. Even though there are 11 children running around, Rachel has never bore Jacob a son. She still has not had a son of her own. For all these years, she has been sterile.

Rachel is loved but can’t produce any children to be loved.
Consequently she is steaming and RAGING with jealousy over her sister.
She desperately wants a son. It would validate her womanhood. It would bring her honor. It would strengthen the tribe.
She envisions that if only I could have a son, my husband’s love would be complete and my value would be established.

And finally, one day it happens. Rachel, the very loved wife, gets pregnant and produces a very, very loved child. Joseph. Joseph was literally the fulfillment of a dream for Rachael. Her whole entire life since she was a little girl, she was told that her purpose in life was to bear children for the tribe. She wanted so badly to have a child. And now finally,here he was. This is a dream come true. How do you handle a gold medal? How do you handle a trophy? What do you do with your most precious possessions?

So the narrative begins.

Now notice, Leah is not mentioned even though she bore most of the children. Why mention Bilah and Zilpah? That detail is there to remind us of the family tension. Joseph is living as a privileged son of the favored wife among the riff-raff offspring of concubines. He was the full blooded favorite.

That’s bad. But, the tension on that family spring is just beginning to wind.

Now a ton of ink has been spilled on this verse. Was Joseph:

an innocent young boy simply telling the truth about his evil, older brothers and unjustly hated.

OR was he

a spoiled brat ratting on his older brothers and getting what was coming to him.

Like most things, the truth is probably in the middle.

Certainly there must have been elements where Joseph took advantage of his privileged position. The brilliant Jewish commentator Leon Kass (professor emeritus on the Committee of Social Thought at the University of Chicago, and chairman of the Presidential Council on Bioethics from 2001–2005), suggests that Genesis 37:2 be translated: “Joseph, being seventeen years old, was shepherding his brothers among the flock.

So if this is correct, it would be a play on words. The older brothers are shepherding the sheep while the younger brother is shepherding the shepherds. Joseph was father’s pet and Joseph’s reports were designed to keep it that way.

Do you really think that basking in the favoritism of his father, Joseph was able to resist all negative effects? Certainly he developed in overconfidence and bit of self-righteousness tinged with arrogance.

Lest you get too judgmental, let’s remember that we all do this. Let me ask you to recall everything you said about other people this week. You probably spoke to other people about your mother, your brother, your kids, your friends, your enemies, those you are jealous of, those you have a hard time with. So recall those conversations where you reported on the behavior of others. Now let me ask you, “was it completely correct?” So often we leave out slight details or embellish small bits to give a bad report.

Joseph was a junior in high school. I don’t think he’s free of these temptations.

That being said, some scholars insist that the story of Joseph as a whole gives no evidence that he had such a character flaw. It certainly betrays character flaws in his brothers. The way they respond to Joseph’s report demonstrate that Joseph’s reports may well have been accurate. It also appears that Jacob could trust Joseph but not them.

I’m sure there is elements of truth in both of these perspectives. The virtues and vices of Joseph is intentionally unclear, but how Jacob treats Joseph is perfectly clear.

Now you have to understand how significant this would have been. This would be like making all the older kids ride bikes and giving the youngest baby of the family a Tesla. I mean the degree of favoritism here is embarrassing. The literal reading here is a coat to the hands meaning a long sleeved coat. Most clothing of this era were tunics without sleeves.

The idea of a “coat of many colors” comes from the older LXX “many colored coat”.

It very likely could be both. Multicolored, long sleeved coats were common among royalty. The short sleeved versions have been depicted in many Egyptian papyri.

In a world in which material is costly and color is very scarce, this would have been very extravagant and symbolic of high favor and prestige.

Now this isn’t just a nice gift. This is way more than getting a Nike sweater. Do you know what’s at stake with the coat? You have to understand. Almost certainly what is at stake is firstborn blessing. Even though it’s not stated explicitly the brothers are stewing with jealousy because they can see the writing on the wall. The blessing always came at the end of life but they could see it plain enough. Their inheritance is getting stripped away by dad’s little pet.

Now we look at this favoritism and it’s apalling to us. But remember, this was the son of his old age. This last one would come first. After all, he, too, was a last one become first (25:23).

So why did his brothers hate him? So far we are told at least four reasons.

He was born of the most loved wife.
Whether it was for this reason or other reasons, the text straight up says, He was more loved than they were.
He was given a special coat indicating that their inheritance and blessing was being stripped away.
He was a snitch.

Now if that wasn’t enough, we get a fourth reason.

Now the dream needs no interpretation here. This isn’t like the dream of Nebuchadnezzar or even like the dream of Pharaoh later in the story where you have cryptic elements and strange symbols. The dream is so obvious in it’s interpretation and so crude that it flat out just feels like the made-up delusions of a narcissistic teen. It’s just arrogance in dream form. It’s not like it’s really even artful or poetic. It’s just crude, cave-man poetry.

Me big and powerful thing. You weak and tiny thing. You bow to me. Haha. The brothers needed no interpretation.

The Hebrew uses a grammatical construction here (infinitive absolute) that conveys utter surprise that he would dare utter such a thing.

Now, if that wasn’t enough, the audacity of it all continues. Maybe you are one of the brothers and you start cooling down and dismissing this as the looniness of immaturity and you are trying to give your brother the benefit of the doubt. But then this happens.

11 stars huh? Okay, that’s it. This dream is so pretentious, so bald faced and unapologetic. I have so much gravitational awesomeness that I’m like this supernova in the center of galaxy and entire solar system revolves around me. All you 11 weaklings will be captured by my gravitational awesomeness. Even mom and dad will be captured by my awesomeness. I am so awesome…

Now the fact that this was universally nauseating to the family is evidenced by verse 10. Even dad, who favored him so highly that he gave him the Tesla, can’t stomach the attitude.

Now I want to end on the question that Jacob asks Joseph, “What is this dream you have dreamed?”

The story of Joseph begins with a dream. Let’s think for a moment about dreams. Dreams are, as yet, unmaterialized conceptions of how the world could be or might be. We dream of all sorts of things. We make little distinction between whether it happened while sleeping or awake. A kid might dream of becoming an austronaut, or dream of winning the lottery or dream of getting married.

Most dreams are simply dreams. They are impossible hopes. The most unlikely of all possible outcomes. Most dreams are statistical impossibilities. I dream of taking over amazon or google. I mean what are the chances?

Joseph here has a dream that implies that he will be ruler of all men. That’s a crazy dream, especially given his position.

As a kid you may have dreamed that you would become president of the United States. And it’s likely that your parents deflated your sails in short order. They said, listen, the chances of that are so low. Maybe try being a carpenter. Jesus was a carpenter. This is kind of what Jacob seems to do with Joseph. Joseph, listen, you aren’t going to rule over us? That’s impossible.

I want you to think just how impossible this dream really is. Suppose you were an Iranian shepherd captured in battle by the US Forces and detained as a Prisoner of War and in Guantameno Bay. What are your chances of being president of the United States as a uneducated, Iranian POW?

I mean you have a greater chance of being struck by lighting 500 times in a row than that dream coming true.

Now let me ask you this, "What is the difference between a pipe dream and prophetic dream? The difference is not in the odds. The difference is in the divine power to turn it into reality. God was hidden in Joseph’s dream.

When God is at work, nothing can stop it…even when everyone wants it stopped.

And that’s going to be the drama for the rest of the book. You see, Joseph’s dream is a threat to everyone in the family. When Jacob rebukes Joseph, do you see what’s behind that? This is no longer funny Joseph. If it stays a dream, no harm, no foul. But you seem to be pretty assured of this. If that dream even so much as hints as entering into reality we have a serious problem.And everyone in the narrative is going to try to kill the dream.
And the battle for the rest of the book is going to be between God who is hidden in the dream and the dream killers.

But because God is in the dream, it can’t be stopped. Joseph’s brothers can’t stop it. Potiphers wife can’t stop it. The baker stop it. Pharaoh can’t stop it. Joseph overcomes the millionth, millionth, billionth odds and actually rises to power in a foreign nation to the glory of Yahweh, the God of Israel.

You see, when God is for us, who can be against us?

Like Jesus, Joseph, the one despised and rejected by his family, ultimately is the agent of their salvation and countless others. Joseph shows how God’s secret providence is behind the darkest deeds of men and works to their ultimate good.

What a story!
Application
Now last week you were handed this Joseph booklet. And if you didn’t get one, they are fanned out beautifully in the foyer beneath the tripple screens on your right as you exit.

You’ve kind of been bombarded with booklets. But take some time in this. Every week you’ll be given discussion questions for your family devotions, for your small group or just for you personally. There’s also some suggested resources and extra resources to dig deeper.

Here’s the application for this week.

Slideshow for this message is available