Scripture Daily

Context No. 191 of 4322 · Genesis

Context · Reflection

Genesis 37:8-13: in context

8His brothers asked him, “Will you indeed reign over us? Will you indeed have dominion over us?” They hated him all the more for his dreams and for his words. 9He dreamed yet another dream, and told it to his brothers, and said, “Behold, I have dreamed yet another dream: and behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars bowed down to me.” 10He told it to his father and to his brothers. His father rebuked him, and said to him, “What is this dream that you have dreamed? Will I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves down to the earth before you?” 11His brothers envied him, but his father kept this saying in mind. 12His brothers went to feed their father’s flock in Shechem. 13Israel said to Joseph, “Aren’t your brothers feeding the flock in Shechem? Come, and I will send you to them.” He said to him, “Here I am.”

Joseph is seventeen, the favorite of his father, and has already told his brothers a dream in which their sheaves bowed to his. This passage is what happens after, and Joseph does not read the room.

His brothers ask the two questions the dream implies: are you going to reign over us, are you going to rule us? And they hated him all the more for his dreams and for his words. So he has another dream and tells them that too, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars bow down. Now he has included his parents. Even Jacob, who has favored him relentlessly, rebukes him: shall I and your mother and your brothers really come and bow to the ground before you?

Then a small clause that carries the rest of the book: his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind. Jacob is angry and he files it away. Then, a few verses on, he sends this same boy out alone to check on the brothers who hate him, and Joseph answers, here I am. The dreams turn out to be true and the telling of them is what makes them cost so much. When I know something about my own future, do I know the difference between saying it and needing to say it?

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