Genesis 37 explained

Jacob loved Joseph more than his other sons and gave him a special tunic, and Joseph's dreams set his brothers against him. They threw him in a pit, he was sold to traders bound for Egypt, and they deceived their father with his tunic dipped in goat's blood, as Jacob once deceived his own father with goats. Jacob said he would go down to Sheol mourning, the Bible's first use of the word.

"This is the history of the generations of Jacob" (37:2): from here to the end of Genesis the story is mostly Joseph's. At seventeen, he brings his father "an evil report" of his brothers (37:2). "Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age, and he made him a tunic of many colors." His brothers see it, "and they hated him, and couldn’t speak peaceably to him" (37:3-4).

Jacob once deceived his blind father with goats: a meal of "two good young goats" and their skins on his hands (27:9, 16), so that Isaac "didn’t recognize him" (27:23). Now his sons deceive him with a goat's blood on Joseph's tunic (37:31), and he "recognized it" (37:33).

Genesis 27:9 · Genesis 27:16 · Genesis 27:23 · Genesis 37:31-33

Genesis 37:11→leads toActs 7:51-52

Joseph's brothers "envied him" (37:11). Stephen retells it, "The patriarchs, moved with jealousy against Joseph, sold him into Egypt. God was with him" (Acts 7:9), and near the end of his speech says, "As your fathers did, so you do" (Acts 7:51), telling his hearers they had become "betrayers and murderers" of "the Righteous One" (Acts 7:52). Stephen doesn't call Joseph a picture of Jesus: some read his speech as setting the rejected Joseph beside the rejected Jesus; others read it as a history of how the fathers resisted those God sent, without making Joseph a picture of him.

נָכַרnakarsay na-KHAR

Brown-Driver-Briggs gives "regard, recognize", including "regard, observe, esp. with a view to recognition"; Strong's says "properly, to scrutinize, i.e. look intently at". The brothers' "Examine it, now" (37:32) and Jacob's "He recognized it" (37:33) use it. Genesis uses it ten times (counting words), including: Isaac "didn’t recognize" Jacob (27:23), Tamar tells Judah, "Please discern whose these are" (38:25-26), and "Joseph recognized his brothers, but they didn’t recognize him" (42:7-8).

Isaac favored Esau, Rebekah favored Jacob, and now Jacob favors Joseph. How do patterns like this pass down in families, and how can they be broken?