Daily Scripture Reading Genesis 37:25 - 38:11

Greed and hatred are common emotions felt by most people. We have a constant desire for more money so that we can do this or buy that; therefore, we tend to be greedy. When someone wrongs us, or when we are jealous of someone else, it is very easy to hate that person.

Today’s passage will illustrate that greed and hatred are strong motivators. Unfortunately, they motivate us to do bad things; therefore, we Christians need to fight against greed and hatred.

Joseph’s brothers hated Joseph because their father openly loved Joseph more than the rest of his sons, and because Joseph related some dreams to them in which Joseph’s brothers bowed down to Joseph. When Jacob sent Joseph to visit his brothers while they were pasturing the sheep in Shechem and Dothan, the brothers saw their chance to get rid of Joseph. They wanted to kill him, but Reuben convinced them to put Joseph in a pit instead.

Gen. 37:25 ¶ And they sat down to eat a meal. Then they lifted up their eyes and saw, and behold, a caravan of Ishmaelites was coming from Gilead, with their camels bearing aromatic gum and balm and myrrh, going to bring them down to Egypt.

The pronoun “they” refers to Joseph’s brothers.

Gilead was a region east of the Jordan River. The red lines show ancient major highways. In order to travel from Gilead to Egypt, one could go south on the east side of the Dead Sea and then turn west, or one could go west through the area around Dothan and then go south along the Mediterranean Sea. This particular caravan chose to go west through Dothan.

It is at least 300 miles / 500 km from Gilead to Egypt. That would be at least a ten day journey.

Gen. 37:26 And Judah said to his brothers, “What gain is it that we kill our brother and cover up his blood?

Gen. 37:27 Come and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.” And his brothers listened.

Judah employed some curious logic. Judah argued they should not kill their own brother, but somehow it was okay to sell their own brother. Keep in mind, they were not only harming their brother, they were also harming their father.

Think also about the greed involved in this. The biggest reason they did not kill their brother was because they saw a chance to make money selling him instead.

Greed and hatred are common emotions felt by most people. We have a constant desire for more money so that we can do this or buy that. When someone wrongs us, or when we are jealous of someone else, hatred comes very naturally.

This story illustrates that greed and hatred are strong motivators. Those emotions can cause people to do a wide variety of things, most of them not good. In this case, hatred and greed caused Judah and his brothers to sell Joseph, and then justify the sale due to the fact that they did not murder their brother.

Gen. 37:28 Then some Midianite traders passed by, so they pulled him up and lifted Joseph out of the pit and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver. Thus they brought Joseph into Egypt.

Gen. 37:29 ¶ Then Reuben returned to the pit, and behold, Joseph was not in the pit; so he tore his garments.

Gen. 37:30 Then he returned to his brothers and said, “The boy is not there; as for me, where am I to go?”

Gen. 37:31 So they took Joseph’s tunic and slaughtered a male goat and dipped the tunic in the blood;

Gen. 37:32 and they sent the varicolored tunic and brought it to their father and said, “We found this; please recognize it—whether it is your son’s tunic or not.”

Gen. 37:33 And he recognized it and said, “It is my son’s tunic. A wild beast has devoured him; Joseph has surely been torn to pieces!”

Gen. 37:34 So Jacob tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his loins and mourned for his son many days.

Gen. 37:35 Then all his sons and all his daughters arose to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. And he said, “Surely I will go down to Sheol in mourning for my son.” So his father wept for him.

Ponder how cold-hearted Jacob’s sons were toward their father that they could watch him grieve, knowing he was grieving because they lied to him.

Gen. 37:36 Meanwhile, the Midianites sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, Pharaoh’s officer, the captain of the bodyguard.

Gen. 38:1 ¶ Now it happened at that time that Judah went down from his brothers and turned aside to a certain Adullamite, whose name was Hirah.

Adullam was 50 miles / 90 km away from Dothan, but only 10 miles / 17 km away from Hebron.

Gen. 38:2 And Judah saw there a daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua; and he took her and went in to her.

Shua is the name of the father, not the daughter (see Genesis 38:12).

Gen. 38:3 So she conceived and bore a son, and he named him Er.

The Hebrew word “er” is the word for adversary. The text does not tell us why Judah named his son “Adversary”.

Gen. 38:4 Then she conceived again and bore a son, and she named him Onan.

The Hebrew word “onan” is the word for vigorous. The text does not tell us why the daughter of Shua named her second son “Vigorous”.

Gen. 38:5 And she bore still another son, and she named him Shelah; and it was at Chezib that she bore him.

The Hebrew word “shelah” means ease or quiet.

Gen. 38:6 ¶ Then Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn, and her name was Tamar.

Don’t miss the reality that many years passed by between the events of verses 1-5 and the events of verses 6 and following.

Gen. 38:7 But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was evil in the sight of Yahweh, so Yahweh put him to death.

Gen. 38:8 Then Judah said to Onan, “Go in to your brother’s wife, and perform your duty as a brother-in-law to her, and raise up a seed for your brother.”

Gen. 38:9 And Onan knew that the seed would not be his; and it happened that when he went in to his brother’s wife, he wasted it on the ground in order not to give seed to his brother.

Gen. 38:10 But what he did was displeasing in the sight of Yahweh; so He put him to death also.

Gen. 38:11 Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, “Live as a widow in your father’s house until my son Shelah grows up”; for he thought, “I am afraid lest he also die like his brothers.” So Tamar went and lived in her father’s house.

Greed and hatred are common emotions felt by most people. We have a constant desire for more money so that we can do this or buy that; therefore, we tend to be greedy. When someone wrongs us, or when we are jealous of someone else, it is very easy to hate that person.

Those emotions are strong motivators. Unfortunately, they motivate us to do bad things. Hatred and greed caused Judah and his brothers to sell Joseph as a slave and then lie to their father and pretend Joseph had been killed by a wild animal.

This teaches us that we Christians need to fight against greed and hatred.

Who is someone who causes hatred in your heart?

To what extent have you allowed hatred or greed to motivate you to do things you should not have done?

What do you need to do to effectively resist any temptation to be greedy or hateful?

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“Scripture quotations taken from the (LSB®) Legacy Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. LSBible.org and 316publishing.com.”