Bible Commentaries

From this point in the sacred narrative, though Jacob appears more than once, for a time the history centers around Joseph, and it is certainly safe to say that in many aspects no more remarkable figure appears on the pages of Old Testament history.

Joseph is seen here, first as the object of his father's love, a love which may surely be accounted for by the fact that he was the first-born of Rachel, and also to the ingenuous simplicity of his disposition and the strong integrity of his character.

If the marginal reading of the Revised Version be correct, and in all probability it is, that his father made him "a long garment with sleeves," this probably suggests his appointment to a position of trust and oversight, for such a garment was the garment of a prince. Naturally imaginative and romantic and given to day dreams, through this avenue God suggested his coming position and power. With simple artlessness he told his dreams to his brethren. The character of the man as subsequently revealed makes it impossible to believe that he had any ulterior motive in this telling of his dreams. The construction his brethren placed on the dreams was undoubtedly the true one; but was most likely arrived at as the result of the position he occupied among them by appointment of his father, and by their interpretation of his feeling by their own jealousies.

The story of his betrayal is at once a revelation of their malice and of the divine determined counsel to move forward to ultimate realization of purpose.