Sermon Tone Analysis

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

2 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.

3 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.

4 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.

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

6 He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: 7 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.”

8 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.

9 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.”

10 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?” 11 His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.

Joseph Sold by His Brothers

12 Now his brothers had gone to graze their father’s flocks near Shechem, 13 and Israel said to Joseph, “As you know, your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem.

Come, I am going to send you to them.”

“Very well,” he replied.

14 So he said to him, “Go and see if all is well with your brothers and with the flocks, and bring word back to me.”

Then he sent him off from the Valley of Hebron.

When Joseph arrived at Shechem, 15 a man found him wandering around in the fields and asked him, “What are you looking for?”

16 He replied, “I’m looking for my brothers.

Can you tell me where they are grazing their flocks?”

17 “They have moved on from here,” the man answered.

“I heard them say, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.’

”

So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near Dothan.

18 But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.

19 “Here comes that dreamer!” they said to each other.

20 “Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him.

Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.”

21 When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands.

“Let’s not take his life,” he said.

22 “Don’t shed any blood.

Throw him into this cistern here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him.”

Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father.

23 So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe—the ornate robe he was wearing—24 and they took him and threw him into the cistern.

The cistern was empty; there was no water in it.

25 As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead.

Their camels were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt.

26 Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood?

27 Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.”

His brothers agreed.

28 So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt.

29 When Reuben returned to the cistern and saw that Joseph was not there, he tore his clothes.

30 He went back to his brothers and said, “The boy isn’t there!

Where can I turn now?”

31 Then they got Joseph’s robe, slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in the blood.

32 They took the ornate robe back to their father and said, “We found this.

Examine it to see whether it is your son’s robe.”

33 He recognized it and said, “It is my son’s robe!

Some ferocious animal has devoured him.

Joseph has surely been torn to pieces.”

34 Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and mourned for his son many days.

35 All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted.

“No,” he said, “I will continue to mourn until I join my son in the grave.”

So his father wept for him.

36 Meanwhile, the Midianites r sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard.

S: How could Joseph’s brother’s be so twisted that they would resort to all sorts of evil DRAFT

C: Joseph’s brother’s were twisted by hatred from favoritism, twisted by lust for power and twisted by unrepented sin and shame over their history of evil… DRAFT

Sermon

Introduction: <slide 1>

Sometimes subtle differences of perspective can lead to radically different takes on life.

Take for instance the phrase, “Mary had a little lamb.”

You might immediately think that I was talking about a nursery rhyme about a young lady and her ewe with a fleece as white as snow.

But it could depend on who you asked.

If you were in a hospital delivery ward you may be told that Mary was not taking visitors at the moment while she adjusts to having a new ‘wee lamb’, but if you went back a couple thousand years we might be talking about Mary who had given birth to Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Wow! …Then again, Mary might be the lady at table 5 who just asked for the check.

Perspective makes a huge difference.

People make crucial decisions over what at first seems to be merely a matter of perspective.

<Slide 2>

I) Man’s perspective:

From our vantage point.

From man’s perspective, this is a rough story to hear.

How could we continue to hear about such a broken family and say with any candidness that they are people for us to emulate?

They are more like an anti-type for us.

We could do a whole sermon series on how not to be like the Patriarchs of Israel.

Consider this for a moment…

What do we know:

Jacob favored Rachel over his other wives and, from vs3, apparently favors her children in the same way.

Joseph and Benjamin, both called the ‘sons of his old age’, may have been for Jacob the vindication for all of the disparate romantic sentiments he had toward Rachel.

If you could imagine the dynamic of a couple who reluctantly adopts out of despair, when they are suddenly surprised with natural children.

The potential is there for favoritism, for neglect, for sorrow.

This caused all sorts of strife in Jacob’s family.

If we could look at causes for all of the chaos that followed Jacob, this favoritism would certainly be one of them.

Joseph felt a greater affection toward his father than toward his brothers.

Sent out to shepherd the flocks as a young man, he recognized when they weren’t following the guidance set out by their father.

Joseph reported that they were ‘up to no good’.

Not just a ‘bad’ report, but a report about the evil deeds of his brother.

What are we unsure about?

Here’s one thing… Why Dothan?

I did a load of research on this area and couldn’t find out why Jacob’s sons would go to a place like this, other than it was just a good choice of land for grazing flocks.

Here is what I learned about Dothan—

<Slide 3>

From the IVP Bible Background Commentary it is "Located at Tell Dothan, this is an imposing site covering twenty-five acres.

It is situated fourteen miles north of Shechem, on the main route used by merchants and herdsmen going north to the Jezreel Valley.

It developed into a major city site in the Early Bronze Age (3200–2400 b.c.) and would have served as a natural landmark for travelers.

The area around the city provided choice pasture land, thus explaining the presence of Joseph’s brothers."

From Easton’s Bible Dictionary we learn that it means"—“two wells”, a famous pasture-ground where Joseph found his brethren watching their flocks.

Here, at the suggestion of Judah, they sold him to the Ishmaelite merchants (Gen.

37:17).

It is mentioned on monuments in 1600.