The Meaning Of Life

https://biblehub.com/nkjv/genesis/37.htm

Jacob has now returned to the land of Canaan with his family, living where his father and grandfather had lived. And Jacob, renamed Israel by God, loved his son Joseph more than he loved the others; the Bible said it was because Joseph was the son of Israel’s old age. The only thing I can think that might mean was the Jacob was proud he was still fertile in his old age.

So he made a very colorful coat to show how special Joseph was to him. If you have more than one child, should you openly show you love one more than the others? Would that not hurt the rest of the families feelings terribly?

Well, it did. And not only where Joseph’s brother’s feelings hurt, they acted out by hating Joseph. This was not a good situation at all, Israel demonstrating a love for one son over the others, kind the same where Isaac loved Esau more and Rebekah loved Jacob more, and Josephs brothers are all jealous of him and hate him, and poor Joseph is stuck in the middle.

Then God sent messages to Joseph throughout his dreams. And as you will see, everything that is about to transpire was God’s Will, and it was for the best of Israel’s family. The dream was that Joseph and his brothers were all in the field, cutting grain and bundling it into sheaves, and the Josephs sheave stood upright, above the sheaves of his brothers, and his brother’s sheaves all bowed down to Joseph’s sheave.

Now Joseph shared this dream with his brothers, and as you can expect, they were not happy and hated Joseph even more. But God’s Will was being fulfilled as all of this happened.

Then Joseph had another dream, a dream that the sun, the moon, and eleven stars bowed down to him. And once again, he told this dream to his own family, and this time, it irritated even Israel. He didn’t like the idea that Israel and Rachel were meant to bow down to Joseph. And the brother’s hate grew even stronger.

Joseph’s brother went to Shechem to feed the flocks, and Israel sent Joseph to check on them. When Joseph’s brothers saw him in the distance coming, they made a plan to kill him, but Reuben, the eldest, saved Joseph saying that it wasn’t right to kill him.

Instead of killing him, they took his colorful coat, then pushed him into a pit. They killed a goat and dipped the coat in it so they could tell their father that Joseph was killed by an animal. Then they sat down to eat a meal.

As they sat, a group of Ishmaelites came by. Can you imagine from their name who they descended from? Instead of leaving Joseph in the pit, they decided to sell him to the Ishmaelites who carried him away to Egypt where he was sold to a man named Potiphar, a Captain of the Guards and an officer in Pharoah s court.

And Isaac wept for the loss of his son.

Imagine these happenings in your mind. Put yourself in the world 4500 years ago, 45 centuries. The world was still very, very primitive. But God’s Will was being done back then, just as it is being done today. I’m sure Joseph wondered why this was happening to him. Why did his brothers put him in a pit? Why did his brothers sell him? Why was he carried to Egypt, a land that God truly abhored. None of this was Good, and Joseph surely was having doubts about his God, But the next chapter will reveal more in the story of Joseph.