The Sons of Israel

Genesis 37:3 tells us that “Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours.” After reading again the stories of what these other sons besides Joseph did, to me it is not surprising that Joseph was the favorite. Genesis 34 is simply awful in what Simeon and Levi did in an act of revenge on the people who defiled their sister Dinah. They were murderers, matching a terrible sin with their own atrocious deed. Another brother, Reuben, violated the law of chastity with his father’s wife (Genesis 35:22). Judah also broke the law of chastity with what he thought was a harlot but who was also a close family member (his dead son’s wife Tamar), and then wanted to burn Tamar when he found out she was pregnant. And then of course the brothers (I presume the ten older than Joseph) sold their younger brother into Egypt and “were content” afterwards because they did not slay him (Genesis 37:27). And they lied about it to their father, making it look like Joseph had been slain by a wild beast. It is hard for me to accept that the twelve tribes of Israel came from men like this. Given these and probably other wicked deeds that we (gratefully) do not know about, it is no wonder that Jacob preferred Joseph!

               Of the four terrible deeds recorded in Genesis that the sons of Israel committed, only two are mentioned in the blessings that Jacob gave to his sons at the end of his life. He chastised Reuben with these words, “Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel; because thou wentest up to thy father’s bed; then defiledst thou it: he went up to my couch.” And then of the two who violently sought to avenge their sister Jacob said, “Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations. O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united: for in their anger they slew a man, and in their selfwill they digged down a wall. Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel” (Genesis 49:3-7). Interestingly, though, Jacob said nothing of Judah’s immorality (Judah received a rather flattering blessing given that the Savior would come through his lineage). And Jacob did not mention to any of the brothers their part in selling Joseph into slavery. Perhaps this highlights the power of repentance. There is no indication that Simeon and Levi repented; when chastised originally by their father they justified their murder this way: “Should he deal with our sister as with an harlot?” (Genesis 34:31) And the brief mention of what Reuben did does not given any indication of remorse or restitution on the part of the Reuben. Judah, though did at least show a repentant attitude and confessed his guilt: “And Judah acknowledged them, and said, She hath been more righteous than I; because that I gave her not to Shelah my son. And he knew her again no more” (Genesis 38:26). And all of the brothers seemed to have recognized their guilt as it relates to Joseph. Over twenty years after the fact, they were reminded of the experience by what Joseph (in disguise) said to them, and “they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us” (Genesis 42:21). So they had at least a repentant attitude as it relates to this terrible deed. Joseph put them to the test and saw that they sought earnestly to save Benjamin’s life, an indication that they were no longer the same people who had sold Joseph into slavery. So my guess is that the sins of the brothers that Jacob did not mention in his blessings were those which had been truly repented of and were forgiven of. And perhaps that to us is a lesson about the power of repentance, through the mercy of Jesus Christ, to cleanse us even from serious sin when we are truly humble and contrite. But of course the best thing is to be like Joseph and to not “do this great wickedness, and sin against God” in the first place (Genesis 39:9).