The Dreamer and His Coat: Genesis 37:1-11

Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan.

This is the account of Jacob's family line. Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them.

A tattletale. The favored son reporting on his brothers' failures. The family tensions were already simmering.

Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made an ornate robe for him.

The ornate robe. In Hebrew, ketonet passim—a coat of many colors, or perhaps a long-sleeved robe reaching to the ankles. Either way, it was a garment of privilege, not labor. A prince's coat on a shepherd's son.

When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.

Hatred born of favoritism. Jacob had experienced this himself—Isaac had loved Esau, Rebekah had loved Jacob. Now his own preference for Rachel's son was poisoning his family.

Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more.

Dreams. In a world where God spoke through visions, dreams carried weight. But Joseph's dreams carried dynamite.

He said to them, "Listen to this dream I had: We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it."

Imagine the scene: eleven brothers around a fire, and the seventeen-year-old in the fancy coat announces that his grain-sheaf stood up while theirs bowed down.

His brothers said to him, "Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?" And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said.

Reign. Rule. The brothers heard exactly what Joseph implied. Their hatred deepened.

Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. "Listen," he said, "I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me."

Another dream. This time cosmic—sun, moon, stars all prostrating before Joseph. The boy seemed incapable of keeping quiet.

When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, "What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?"

Even Jacob pushed back. Your mother—though Rachel had died—and I, bowing to you? The dream seemed absurd.

His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.

Jealousy and contempt from the brothers. But Jacob, who had received divine dreams himself at Bethel, wondered. He kept the matter in mind.

Joseph the dreamer. Joseph the favorite. Joseph in his ornate robe, announcing futures that infuriated everyone who heard them.

The dreams were true. But before they came true, Joseph would lose everything—his coat, his freedom, his family. The path to the throne would run through a pit, a slave market, and a prison.

Dreamers often suffer before their visions are fulfilled.