Genesis 37

In Genesis 36 we see that Esau is portrayed as being settled, and having a large family. In contrast Jacob is still wandering around, and his family is not close in size and power to that of Esau. One can only wonder what Jacob must have been thinking at this point. He had God's promises but it seemed as if God was blessing Esau instead of Jacob. Sometimes God works out His promises in ways that we cannot understand, but in the end it is better and it brings glory to Him.

The NETBible mentions that we should be careful of thinking of Joseph as a tattletale. The original text has characteristics of the wisdom literature later in the Bible, so it might be better to think of 'Joseph as faithful to his father in little things, even though unpopular – and so he will eventually be given authority over greater things'. This is a great truth to keep in mind for living a life worthy of God's call.

Once again we see the influence that parents' can have on their children. Jacob knows what it is to live in a house where there is parental favoritism. One would think that he would not go down the same road. Unfortunately the text tells us that Jacob does indeed love Joseph more than his other children, which has tragic results for Jacob in the short term. May God help us as parents not to show favoritism.

There is nothing in the original text that suggests that Joseph is gloating over his brothers when he tells them his dreams. It seems as if he is a dreamer, and typical of a dreamer he just shares his dreams as he has them. Nonetheless his family is not too impressed - only Jacob who has had some 'weird' dreams in his life thinks that there might be more to Joseph's dreams than everyone is thinking.

Jealousy can be an awful thing . . . in this case it almost leads to murder. One of the worst things one can do is to act on jealousy. It only leaves you with guilt. We have to ask the Lord to guard our hearts against jealousy by helping us to see all of the good things He has blessed us with.