Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28 Commentary

Patterns of preference and favoritism and jealousy replay themselves with uncomfortable regularity through the history of God’s people. Abraham’s son Ishmael is nearly written out of the story by Sarah’s jealousy.  Isaac and Rebekah are #TeamEsau and #TeamJacob accordingly. Jacob shames Leah and honors Rachel.  No doubt the ten sons of Leah have noticed Jacob’s preference for Rachel’s two sons, especially the gift of Joseph’s Amazing, Technicolor Dream Coat.

And there is indication that Joseph (wittingly or unwittingly) fed his brother’s jealousy by preening a bit.  After all, unless, in addition to being multi-colored, this coat was also made of a wicking, rain-resistant fabric, this doesn’t seem like the most sensible choice for a 50 mile, multi-day hike.  His brothers see Joseph in flowing robes gliding across a pasture and say, “Let’s just kill him. Don’t even bother with a burial. Just dump our brother’s body into this dry well.  And then, let’s make sure we’ve got our stories straight.  A wild animal did this, right?”

Each brother agrees to the plan and the cover-up until they get to Reuben, the oldest.  In a seemingly generous gesture of filial loyalty, Reuben says, “Whoa, whoa, whoa.  If we kill him, we’ll have blood on our hands. Not a good look guys.  What if we just throw him into this dry well in the middle of the desert, where no one is likely to pass by for days and days and, you know, let nature take its course? And, technically, we’ll be innocent of shedding blood…”

The text adds that Reuben was planning to circle back later and rescue his brother. To go along with the party line in public, counting on a kindness done in private being enough to circumvent the injustice. In the meantime, his argument persuades his brothers they can get their desired result while maintaining plausible deniability — “who could have known that someone left in a dry well in the middle of the desert would up and die like that?” So they strip Joseph of his robe and dump him in the pit.

Having no doubt worked up a sweat by this physical exertion, the brothers declare it lunchtime.  From the shade of a few palm trees, the brothers look up to see some merchants in the distance.  In another seemingly magnanimous gesture of filial loyalty, Judah says, “You know, fellas, the downside to our plan, if you think about it, is it doesn’t get us much return on investment.  Joseph’s a pipsqueak but he did just hike more than 50 miles to find us.  He’d fetch a fair price on the auction block.  And, I mean, he is our brother, so … maybe instead of killing him – I mean, letting him die — we could just sell him into slavery.  He is our own flesh and blood, after all.”

As one commentator wryly observed, “It is, of course, a dubious expression of brotherhood to sell someone into the ignominy and perilously uncertain future of slavery.”

Just beyond this text, we learn that Reuben (who had apparently stepped away from the scene for a second) circles back to the well later, he discovers he’s too late. In this case, a private kindness is not enough to counteract a brutal, public injustice. Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann refers to Reuben as the “responsible coward.”  He wants to do *something* for his brother but, rather than confronting injustice head-on, when he hears his brothers’ plan, he could have stepped up and said,  “Actually, let’s not be terrible human beings”. He was the oldest brother after all. In that culture, in that day, he could have shut their plan down.  But that would have involved a direct confrontation, a straightforward use of his power in opposition to his brothers’ hatred and violence.  So, instead, he plays along, he offers a compromise.  He saves his brother’s life. His terrified, heart-broken, abandoned younger brother is being frog-marched through the desert in chains held by strangers.  This is what responsible cowardice has achieved — not quite enough.

Obviously, these brothers have just sinned against and violated their own brother, but now consider the dishonor, disrespect, disloyalty and dishonesty they offer to their very own Father in this action.  To sin against their brother is to sin against their Father.  To harm the one their Father loves is to willfully grieve the Father.

Taking the paradigm of Genesis 37, what sits with me most is the sin of Reuben: complicity.  Arguing for lesser-injustice instead of refusing to stand for the fully-just treatment of brothers and sisters in the first place. Haven’t I also seen injustice but chosen not to gamble the social awkwardness or stigma of saying something directly?  Like Reuben, haven’t I counted on it being enough to go along with injustice in public if I counter it with kindness in private? Have I settled for Reuben’s route — “Responsible cowardice” — while brothers and sisters are being made afraid, being violated by words, oppressed by spiritual darkness, by bad theology, by bad practice, by bad philosophy or bad behavior or bad policy? Reuben’s route doesn’t go far enough.  His brother is alive but he is not freed by Reuben’s action.  The family is not redeemed or patched back together by Reuben’s effort.

This passage of Scripture drops the central conflict of the next 13 chapters right in front of us — a family torn apart.  The whole human family, in a sense, marred by sins of commission and sins of omission. Joseph sold off to foreigners, the brothers bound together in their deceit, their father heartbroken.

Just imagine, for a moment, those times when one brother or another comes in early from the field and catches their Father, gazing off into the middle-distance, with a tattered, blood-stained patch of once-colorful cloth worrying between his fingers.  Was there a stab of dread or regret or sorrow or shame that pierced that brother’s soul?  Could he look the Father in the face again without seeing an older version of his pipsqueak brother who might now never grow old? Could he receive his Father’s affection without feeling the grasping hands of his brother as he lost his balance over that pit in the desert all those years ago?

This passage sets up the tension beautifully but doesn’t offer much by way of resolution.  However, if you can extend the reading just to the end of the chapter, you get a hint that the God of broken families isn’t absent but is patiently working after all. “Meanwhile, the Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard.”

This “meanwhile” means the Father’s story hasn’t ended.

Meanwhile, though Reuben has not done enough, though he could have done more, there is a meanwhile because he stepped in, even the tiniest bit

Meanwhile, without shying away or pretending all that family mess is the way it’s supposed to be, God is — in God’s unique and remarkably capable way — God is saying,

“I can work with this.”

“I WILL work with this.”

Meanwhile, though that “while” may be years — or even decades — God is working out a purpose.

Meanwhile, God is — even in this — protecting and preserving Joseph and, though they won’t know it for a long long time, God is redeeming and reconciling this family.

In the meanwhile.

Illustration Idea

Something new pops out of this text when you overlay it with another story of brotherly (ir)reconciliation from the New Testament.

In the story of The Prodigal Son we are told that the Father waits for his youngest son — that disrespectful, usurper of family relationships — to return home. And, when he finally does come home, the whole thing ends with an invitation to another resentful, jealous older brother who doesn’t want to have to love the younger brother his Father loves.  It is an invitation to reconciliation.  “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”

This invitation is to be reconciled with God as Father and to one another as siblings because of the reconciliation is accomplished for us by Jesus Christ.