Genesis
37:31 ¶ And they took Joseph’s coat, and
killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the coat in the blood; 32 And they sent the coat of many colours, and
they brought it to their father; and said, This have we found: know now whether
it be thy son’s coat or no. 33 And he
knew it, and said, It is my son’s coat; an evil beast hath devoured him; Joseph
is without doubt rent in pieces. 34 And
Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his
son many days. 35 And all his sons and
all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted; and
he said, For I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning. Thus his
father wept for him. 36 And the
Midianites sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh’s, and
captain of the guard.
Joseph’s coat of
many colors is now used to present false evidence that Joseph was killed by a
wild animal. As explained previously an
evil beast would refer to an animal intent on violence. It would have
nothing to do with a supposed moral condition. Evil in this context has to do with an intention of malice and
violence, not sin.
The lie worked and
Jacob is grieving and like Job, those close to him seek to comfort him to no
avail. He states that he will go to his grave mourning for Joseph, who is sold
by the traders to an Egyptian officer.
If we create in
our minds a spiritual comparison to what happens to Joseph and what happened to
Jesus, understanding that types rarely hold up on deep examination, we might
muse that the Midianite traders taking Joseph out of the pit are like angels
transporting the souls of the dead to their destination.
Luke
16:22 And it came to pass, that the
beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man
also died, and was buried; 23 And in
hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and
Lazarus in his bosom.
And we know that
Jesus went to Hell, which Joseph’s destination, Egypt, is like in type, not to
suffer but to preach. (see Deuteronomy 4:20; 1Kings 8:51; and Jeremiah 11:4 for
Egypt as an iron furnace.)
1Peter
3:18 ¶ For Christ also hath once
suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God,
being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: 19 By which also he went and preached unto the
spirits in prison; 20 Which sometime
were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of
Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were
saved by water.
Potiphar is said
to be captain of the guard. The
Hyksos were a group of Asiatic people who conquered Egypt in antiquity.[1] Some scholars call The
Hyksos the Shepherd Kings. I contend, as some scholars do, and we’ll have
Biblical evidence later in Exodus, that Joseph and his family came into Egypt
under their reign. The Hyksos are said to have ruled through Egyptian vassals who
would have worshipped the traditional gods of Egypt and, of course, longed for
an Egyptian revival, hating anyone who represented the shepherd economy of
Canaan, longing to reestablish authority over not only their own country but
Canaan as well. This will explain a couple of statements we will find later in
the Bible in other books.
Exodus
1:8 Now there arose up a new king over
Egypt, which knew not Joseph.
This native
Egyptian pharaoh of Exodus, like the rest of the Egyptians, would have held the
shepherds from the area of Canaan in great contempt and hatred. He, or his
dynasty, would have reestablished authority over Canaan and so, when the
Pharaoh and his army are destroyed in the Red Sea disaster Canaan’s cities
would have been without their protector. The Amarna Letters give us an
indication that the Canaanite cities were vassals of Egypt and were under great
threat around the time of the Exodus without Pharaoh’s army to protect them.[2]
Number
14:9 Only rebel not ye against the LORD,
neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their
defence is departed from them, and the LORD is with us: fear them not.
These are just
some ideas that will help you connect the dots, so to speak, in the Bible.
Apparently, God doesn’t regard them as all that important as He provides no
great explanation through Moses, but it is interesting to think about,
nonetheless.
Verse 35 shows us
that either Dinah was not Jacob’s only daughter or daughters could logically
include daughters-in-law as in The
Ancient City De Coulanges talks about how ancient custom required a woman
to leave her family and join her husband’s family.
[1]
History World International, “The Hyksos,” http://history-world.org/hyksos.htm
(accessed 3.5.3017).
[2]
The History of Israel, “Amarna Letters,” http://www.israel-a-history-of.com/amarna-letters.html
(accessed 3.5.2017).
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