I’m pretty sure the coat wasn’t really the reason
If you remember, Jacob/Israel’s favorite wife was Rachel. We don’t have the ages of the Egyptian slaves Jacob made babies with, but I think it’s pretty safe to assume that Rachel was the youngest and prettiest. After all, she was Jacob’s hottest cousin and was the one he wanted to marry when he was a bachelor. All the other wives kept making babies while Rachel remained barren for years. Of course I maintain that Rachel was simply too young to reproduce. In any case, after years of non-reproductive sex, Rachel finally had a son and named him Joseph.
Jacob had already several sons by that time, but Joseph was immediately his favorite. When Rachel died giving birth to Benjamin it really cemented Jacob’s preference for Joseph and, to a lesser extent, Benjamin. Jacob even made Joseph a special coat using several different types of dye, which was really expensive. This would have been fine except Joseph knew he was the favorite and was a total smart ass, rubbing it in his brothers’ faces all the time.
One day when they all get together to hang out, Joseph told them some crazy stories about “dreams” he had. The first story was that when Joseph and his brothers were binding sheaves in the field and all of a sudden Joseph’s sheaf stood up and all his brother’s sheaves started to worship it. Then Joseph told a second story that the sun (his father), moon (his mother), and eleven stars (his brothers) all bowed down and worshiped him.
These stories didn’t just break the camel’s back; they squished the poor animal flat. It shouldn’t surprise you that later, when Jacob sent Joseph to check on his brothers who were out working (Joseph never worked), the brothers decided to kill him. They were going to go through with it too, until Reuben (the oldest) said that it would be bad karma to kill him themselves and instead they should just leave him in a pit to die. So, Joseph went into a pit and the brothers took his coat, ripped it up and smeared blood on it so they could tell their father that Joseph was killed by a wild animal.
This probably would have been the end of it, but when some slave traders passed by Judah saw a way to make a quick buck. Instead of leaving Joseph to die, his brothers sold him to the slavers for 20 pieces of silver. If you think “20 pieces of silver” shows up a lot in the bible, you’re right.
Moral: if you are an ass all the time, not even being daddy’s favorite will save you from some good ‘ol fashion frontier justice.
Ref: Genesis 37
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