Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Dreamer in the Pit: Human Hatred and God’s Sovereign Purpose (Genesis 37:18–24)

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The Dreamer in the Pit: Human Hatred and God’s Sovereign Purpose (Genesis 37:18–24) · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to Reformed thinking. So I want you to just picture
• 0:03
  this for a second. Imagine walking maybe 70 miles
• 0:08
  through a totally lawless pastoral frontier.
• 0:11
  Yeah, just dust everywhere. Right, The sun is just beating
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  down on you, the dust is thick and you are completely
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  exhausted. Oh, absolutely.
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  And. The thing is, you are not out
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  there looking for a fight, you were just trying to check on
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  your family. Which is a normal thing to do,
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  you know. But as you finally spot them way
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  off in the distance, you realize the people you love, like the
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  people you literally share blood with, have sent the last three
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  days digging your grave. Wow, that is just a horrific
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  realization. It really is, and that is the
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  reality we are looking at today. We're doing a deep dive, taking
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  this massive stack of historical, archaeological and
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  theological sources, and we are just pulling apart this
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  chilling, visceral scene from Genesis 37.
• 0:51
  Right. The betrayal of Joseph.
• 0:53
  Spot on. It is the betrayal of Joseph by
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  his own brothers. We are looking at how secret
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  envy ferments into violence and you know what happens when human
• 1:02
  malice collides with the divine sovereignty and.
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  The theological tension here is just dark.
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  I mean, it sets the stage for everything that follows in the
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  biblical narrative. It really does.
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  This text strips away any illusions we might have about
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  human goodness. It exposes the total depravity
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  of the human heart in a very visceral way.
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  Yeah, it doesn't hold back. Not at all.
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  You have 10 men raised in the covenant family, plotting in the
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  dark, acting on their most vile impulses, right?
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  But right alongside that suffocating darkness, you have
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  the invincible sovereign decree of God.
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  While the brothers conspire to destroy life, God is
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  orchestrating the preservation of a whole nation.
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  Because human rebellion cannot derail divine promises.
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  No, it cannot. So we're going to take our time
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  today. We really want to unpack the
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  weight of this material without rushing through it.
• 1:51
  Yeah, we really need to sit with the text.
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  I agree, and I want to start by just getting the dirt under our
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  fingernails, so to speak. Let us visualize the geography
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  and the physical toll of what is happening.
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  Here, the physical reality is so crucial.
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  It is. We are in the patriarchal era.
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  Roughly 1898 BC, Joseph starts his trek in the valley of
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  Hebron. He is sent by his father Jacob
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  to check on the brothers who were out pasturing the flocks,
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  right. So he walks to Shechem and that
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  alone is about 50 miles. 50 miles on foot in that terrain.
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  Yeah, it is grueling. And when he gets to Shechem,
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  they're not even there. No, they moved on.
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  Right man finds him wandering in the fields and tells him the
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  brothers moved on to Dothan, so Joseph walks another 15 or 20
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  miles north. Which is just a massive trek.
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  It really is. He is seeking their welfare.
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  He comes offering peace. And we have to look at the socio
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  political reality of that specific geography to understand
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  the context. Oh, absolutely.
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  Set the scene for. Us Well, this is a lawless
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  frontier. There is no local magistrate.
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  No police force. Right.
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  No standing army or police to keep the peace out there on the
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  pasture lands. The only rule of law is the
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  strength of your clan. Is the Wild West basically?
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  It really is. Disputes are handled internally
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  and they are usually handled brutally.
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  I mean remember these are the same brothers, specifically
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  Simeon and Levi, who previously slaughtered the entire male
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  population of Shechem. Oh, man.
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  Yeah. Over the assault of their sister
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  Dinah, Yes. So Jacob is terrified of the
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  surrounding nations taking revenge, which is likely why he
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  sends Joseph to check on them in the first place.
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  He knows what his older sons are capable of.
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  He knows they are violent men. Now drop the specific catalyst
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  for their hatred into that volatile environment.
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  The coat. Yes, the keetonette passive.
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  OK, right, the famous coat of many colors.
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  But our sources suggest many colors might be a bad
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  translation. Yeah, it is.
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  Yeah. It is more about the cut of the
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  fabric than the dye from what I understand.
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  Yeah, that is correct. The Hebrew phrase ketonette
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  passim is better translated as a long sleeved ankle length tunic.
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  Like a royal garment. Very much so.
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  You see, most shepherds wear sleeveless knee length tunics.
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  So they could actually move around.
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  Right, so they could run, fight off predators, work in the mud.
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  Jacob gives Joseph a garment designed for leisure and
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  management. Is the outfit of an overseer.
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  Yes, but it was far more than a fashion statement or a sign of
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  favoritism. Giving this specific garment was
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  a legal and social declaration. Oh wow.
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  In the ancient Near East, this specific action transferred the
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  first born status to Joseph. Wait, really?
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  Just by giving him the coat. Just by the coat, it granted him
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  the double inheritance and future authority over the entire
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  family. So the older brothers were
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  looking at a huge economic social threat.
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  A massive threat, They saw a younger sibling who was legally
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  positioned to rule over them and take the lion's share of the
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  family wealth. So they see this coat coming
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  from miles away. It is basically a walking
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  billboard of their disinheritance.
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  That is a great way to put it. And their solution is the pit.
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  The Hebrew word is bore. Let us picture the trap they set
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  here. It is horrifying.
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  It is. I visualize being dropped into a
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  massive slick wall glass bottle buried in the earth.
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  Yeah, that is a good analogy. It is an incredibly
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  claustrophobic and terrifying space.
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  You are shoved down a narrow opening.
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  The space widens out around you, but there was absolutely no way
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  to climb back up. No escape at all.
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  You are sitting in the dark, looking up at a tiny circle of
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  blazing daylight, completely trapped.
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  And the archaeological context makes the horror of that
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  situation so much worse. Break that down for us.
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  Well, these cisterns were bell shaped reservoirs hewn directly
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  into solid limestone. OK.
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  Their purpose was to catch and store winter rainwater so the
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  livestock could survive the blistering dry seasons.
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  Right, because water is everything out there.
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  Yes, because of their design, the necks were incredibly
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  narrow, sometimes just wide enough to lower a single bucket.
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  Then they opened up into large bulbous caverns below, and to
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  prevent the stored water from seeping out into the porous
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  limestone, the ancient builders plastered the interior walls
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  with a thick lime based mortar. Making them completely slick.
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  Entirely slick. Even if Joseph could somehow
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  reach the walls, he could never get a handhold.
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  He could never get a foothold. And the text includes this
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  really chilling little detail, right?
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  It says the pit was empty, there was no water in it.
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  Yes, if there is water, maybe he drowns quickly, or maybe he
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  treads water until he's pulled out.
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  But an empty cistern in the Judean Desert?
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  That's basically a torture chamber.
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  It is a sentence of slow, agonizing death by dehydration.
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  He is trapped inside a limestone oven.
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  Yeah, the heat. The temperature inside those dry
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  cisterns during the day would be suffocating.
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  He has zero chance of escape. So the brothers are not just
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  killing him, they are washing their hands of the physical act
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  of bloodshed by letting the elements do the execution.
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  Which is so calculated they drop him in the ground and then,
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  astonishingly, they sit down to eat him.
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  That part always gets me. The complete lack of empathy is
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  staggering. It really is.
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  So, OK, let us unpack this. If a family is sitting down to
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  eat lunch while their little brother is screaming from a hole
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  in the ground 20 yards away, how do they get to that point?
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  It requires a serious shift in psychology.
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  Right, we need to look at the psychology of this mob.
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  Verse 18 says they saw Joseph from afar and conspired to kill
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  him before he even arrived. That phrase from afar means they
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  had time. They had time to watch him
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  approach, time to let the initial spike of adrenaline
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  fade, time to maybe reconsider. But they don't.
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  No, instead they use that time to finalize a murder plot.
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  Because hatred rarely erupts. Suddenly, out of nowhere, it
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  matures. In secret it ferments.
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  That is a scary thought. The text uses the Hebrew word
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  knuckle to describe their plotting.
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  This word implies crafty, deceitful, conspiring knuckle,
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  and what is really fascinating is that the verb is used in a
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  reflexive form. What does that mean in this
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  context? It means the brothers were
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  mutually stirring each other up. It is a psychology of groupthink
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  and mob violence. Oh, I see.
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  One brother voices a grievance, the next amplifies it.
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  The next suggests a violent solution until the unthinkable
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  becomes their shared, justifiable objective.
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  They're just feeding on each other's bitterness.
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  Right. And contrast this calculated
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  malice with Joseph's posture at the beginning of the chapter.
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  Right when Jacob tells him to go.
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  When Jacob tells Joseph to go check on the brothers who hate
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  him, Joseph's response is simple submission.
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  He says Here I am. He is the sentence son.
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  Yes. Acting in obedience, Walking
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  into a conspiracy that has been brewing for years.
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  I want to zero in on this specific insult they hurl at him
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  when he is walking up. They call him the Master of
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  Dreams, Yes. A very specific insult.
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  They say to each other, come now, let us kill him and throw
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  him into one of the pits and we will see what will become of his
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  dreams, right. This feels like a very targeted
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  attack. They do not say let us see what
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  becomes of his fancy coat or let us see what becomes of his
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  inheritance. No, they.
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  Target the dreams. Why are they so obsessed with
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  the dreams he had? Because the dreams are the
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  actual threat here, this shifts their motive from intense
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  sibling rivalry to an outright insurrection against divine
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  revelation. Oh wow, insurrection against
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  God's revelation. Yes, the dreams Joseph had, the
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  sheaves of wheat bowing down, the sun, moon and stars bowing
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  down were not just the result of an overactive imagination.
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  You were prophetic. They signaled a future
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  exaltation decreed by God himself, and the brothers
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  understood this implication perfectly well.
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  So by attempting to kill the dreamer.
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  They are attempting to murder the Promise.
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  They are acting under the delusion that if they eliminate
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  the boy, they can eliminate the future God has revealed.
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  It is like trying to shoot the mailman to stop tomorrow from
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  happening. Yeah, that's exactly.
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  Well, that is spot on. It is pure delusion.
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  It really is. It is the essence of total
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  depravity, and you know, total depravity does not mean every
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  person is as thoroughly evil as they could possibly be.
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  Right, that is a common misconception.
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  It means the pervasive corruption of human nature
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  affects the mind, the will, and the affections.
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  Reason becomes warped by sin. And we see that warping so
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  clearly here. We do.
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  These men are the sons of Jacob. They are the physical heirs to
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  the covenant God made with Abraham and Isaac.
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  They have been raised hearing the promises of God.
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  Yet their proximity to covenant blessings did not cleanse their
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  hearts. Outward religious privilege does
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  not equal inward purity. Precisely.
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  They are looking God's revelation right in the face and
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  saying we will crush it. So the mob is whipped into this
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  murderous frenzy, totally ready to strike down the revelation of
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  God. How does Joseph survive the
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  initial encounter? Well, this is where the
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  hierarchy of the family gets tested.
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  Right. And Reuben steps into the
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  narrative. Reuben intervenes.
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  He says let us not take his life, shed no blood, throw him
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  into this pit here in the wilderness, but do not lay a
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  hand on him. Yes.
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  On the surface, if I am reading this like a casual observer,
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  Reuben looks like a hero. Here he does on the surface.
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  He is the first born. He is stepping up and stopping a
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  straight up execution in the middle of nowhere.
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  But we have to analyze Reuben's actions with far more scrutiny.
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  OK, why is that? While Reuben does prevent
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  immediate bloodshed, his intervention is morally
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  bankrupt. Morally bank.
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  Yes, he is the eldest. He has the patriarchal authority
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  to command them to stop. True, but he lacks the
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  transparent righteousness to openly rebuke his brother's
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  evil. He does not say this is wicked.
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  We will not touch him. I forbid it.
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  You take a real stand. Right.
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  He chooses an indirect, cowardly strategy.
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  He suggests A cruel substitute that still leaves Joseph in a
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  terrifying, deadly situation. Wait, I need to push back on
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  that a little. Bit OK, go ahead.
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  In a lawless society dealing with 9 furious men who have a
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  history of mass murder, isn't Ruben just being pregnant?
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  That is one way to look at it, but.
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  I mean if he opposes them outright, doesn't he just end up
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  dead in the pit right next to Joseph?
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  Isn't 1/2 measure better than full blown murder?
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  It seems that way, yes. Like if someone is about to be
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  stabbed and you managed to talk the attackers into just locking
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  them in a closet instead, you saved their life.
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  Why does the biblical text present Reuben's actions as a
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  failure of integrity? To answer that, we really have
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  to look at the original audience receiving this text.
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  The initial recipients were the Israelites wandering in the
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  wilderness, being led by Moses. Right?
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  The text intentionally unsettled moral complacency for them.
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  Partial restraint is not full obedience.
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  Oh, I see. The author wanted to show the
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  Israelites that their patriarchs, the founders of
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  their 12 tribes, were deeply flawed, compromised men.
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  It strips away their heroes. Yes, this ensured the nation
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  understood they existed by Divine Mercy, not by ancestral
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  merit. They had absolutely nothing to
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  boast about in their lineage. That makes a lot of sense.
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  Reuben's compromise acts as a severe warning against softening
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  evil without decisively opposing it.
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  So when we try to manage sin. Or negotiate with it instead of
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  rejecting it outright. We are practicing moral
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  cowardice. And furthermore, Reuben has a
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  hidden Odessa here. He does.
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  The text tells us he planned to come back later and rescue
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  Joseph secretly to restore him to his father.
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  Oh, right. But remember, Reuben had
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  previously lost his father's favor by sleeping with Jacob's
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  concubine, Bilhah. Right back in Genesis 35.
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  So he sees saving Joseph as a political play to win back his
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  first born status. It is not about righteousness,
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  it is about self preservation and political maneuvering.
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  So. Even the good deed is laced with
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  selfish ambition. Completely.
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  That makes the scene where they finally grabbed Joseph so much
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  darker. It really sets the tone for the
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  violence. Let us look at the violent
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  execution of this plot in verses 23 and 24.
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  Joseph walks up, completely unaware of the trap.
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  Yes, the verbs used in the Hebrew text are abrupt,
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  forceful, and violent. They strip Joseph of his robe,
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  and they took him and threw him into a pit.
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  It is a mob assault, yeah. Ripping that robe off his body
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  is a symbolic attack on the Father's favor.
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  Absolutely. It is the total humiliation of
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  the righteous sufferer. They are literally stripping
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  away the visual representation of his identity and his future
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  before they throw him into the dark.
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  And this specific moment brings us face to face with the
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  doctrine of Providence. OK, unpack that.
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  God is sovereign over the events of history, but He is not the
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  author of sin. This is a vital distinction to
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  maintain. Extremely vital.
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  The brothers are acting entirely freely on their own wicked
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  desires. God is not coercing them to hate
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  Joseph, right? They are fully culpable, fully
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  guilty for their malice. Yet simultaneously, their wicked
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  actions are being governed by a sovereign God to achieve a
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  specific redemptive outcome. It is such a massive concept.
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  It is, and it refutes modern theological errors like open
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  theism, which suggests God is just reacting to human choices
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  in real time, hoping things work out.
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  Right, like God is up there sweating, wondering what the
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  brothers are going to do. Exactly.
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  Precisely. God is not playing a reactionary
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  game of chess against the brothers.
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  He designed the board. I love that he designed the
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  board. It also refutes the prosperity
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  gospel, which claims that if you are favored by God, you will
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  always be healthy, wealthy and safe from harm.
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  Because Joseph was favored. Joseph was in the center of
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  God's will, acting in complete obedience to his father, and he
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  ended up stripped naked in a dry, dark cistern.
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  God governs the pit just as surely as he governs the palace.
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  I think anyone who has experienced unjust suffering
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  really needs to hear that when you feel like you have been
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  thrown into a pit by the very people who are supposed to
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  protect you, the immediate human assumption is that God has
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  abandoned you. It is our default setting.
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  You look at the slick limestone walls, you feel the heat, you
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  hear the silence, and you think I am entirely on my own.
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  God's plan failed. But it didn't fail.
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  Right. So how does the sheer emptiness
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  of that pit point to the presence of God rather than his
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  absence? The breathtaking reality of this
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  narrative is that the brother's malice becomes the precise
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  mechanism God uses to save the covenant family.
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  The mechanism itself. Yes.
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  Think about the mechanical sequence of events set in motion
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  at the mouth of that pit. Walk us through it.
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  If the brothers do not strip him and throw him in the ground,
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  Judah does not see the Ishmaelite traders passing by.
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  If the traders do not pass by, Joseph is not pulled out and
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  sold into slavery. If he is not sold to Egypt, he
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  never ends up in Potiphar's house.
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  If he is not falsely accused in Potiphar's house, he never goes
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  to the royal prison. But change just keeps going.
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  It does. If he is not in the royal
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  prison, he never interprets the dreams of the cupbearer and
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  Baker. If he does not do that, he is
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  never called to interpret Pharaoh's dreams, right?
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  And if he never interprets Pharaoh's dreams, he is never
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  elevated to Prime Minister to store the grain.
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  Wow. And finally, if he does not
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  store the grain, his father and his brothers starve to death in
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  Canaan, and the lineage of the Messiah is wiped out.
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  So the rebellion does not just fail to stop the plan.
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  The rebellion is the very fuel the plan uses to move forward.
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  That is beautifully stated the. Humiliation of the chosen
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  Servant does not cancel his divine calling.
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  The pit is the literal starting line for the fulfillment of the
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  dreams they were trying to kill. That is the genius of divine
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  Providence. God uses the rebellion to
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  accomplish the rescue. It is just massive.
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  And this establishes a huge redemptive pattern in the
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  biblical narrative. Joseph is not an isolated
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  historical anomaly. Right, he is setting a
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  precedent. His life establishes a rhythm of
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  humiliation preceding exaltation.
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  You go down into the dark, into the place of death, before you
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  are raised up into the light to provide salvation.
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  Which brings us to the shadows cast by this story.
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  Yes, we see this pattern repeated, but obviously it
• 18:00
  culminates in one specific person.
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  We have to draw the lines between Joseph and Jesus without
• 18:06
  forcing allegories where they do not belong.
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  Right, you have to be careful there.
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  We're not saying the coat represents one specific
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  theological concept and a limestone represents another,
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  but Joseph functions as a historical shadow of the greater
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  sun. The thematic resonance is
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  undeniable. Look at the parallels.
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  Let's lay them out. Joseph is the beloved son of his
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  father. He is sent on a mission from the
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  Father to seek the welfare of his brethren.
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  He arrives offering peace. He is entirely rejected by his
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  own people. They plot against him.
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  He is stripped of his garments by hostile hands.
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  He is cast into a place of death.
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  The shadow of the Messiah is just capped all over the
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  landscape of Dothan. Everywhere.
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  But the scale of the descent is completely different.
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  Oh, infinitely different. Think about the dry cistern and
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  Dothan, and then think about the tomb in Jerusalem.
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  Both are places of absolute darkness.
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  Yes, both are cut into solid rock.
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  Both are intended to be the final silent resting place of a
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  rejected sun. But there is a massive
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  difference in magnitude between what Joseph experienced and what
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  the Messiah experienced. The magnitude is infinite.
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  The pit in Dothan was a man made instrument of malice.
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  It was a physical hole in the ground, designed to induce
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  physical starvation and thirst. The Messiah, however, entered
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  the pit of God's judicial wrath against sin.
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  It is a heavy contrast. Joseph suffered immense
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  injustice at the hands of sinners.
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  Christ suffered true agonizing death bearing the curse due to
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  sinners in order to satisfy divine justice.
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  Joseph's pit was empty of water. Christ's pit was filled to the
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  brim with the wrath of a hole God against the rebellion of
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  humanity. That is wow.
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  But the parallel of the outcome is glorious, just as Joseph was
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  eventually lifted up from that physical pit to provide physical
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  bread for his starving family. The very people who threw him
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  in. Yes, the true beloved son was
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  lifted from the grave to provide the bread of life for his elect.
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  He secures salvation for the very people who rebelled against
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  him. That is just incredible.
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  OK, so bringing all of this ancient history and theology
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  down to the ground floor of our daily lives.
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  Application is key here. This text forces us to confront
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  the creeping, silent nature of envy.
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  It starts so small, doesn't it? It always does.
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  It starts with just looking at someone else's coat, someone
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  else's promotion at work, someone else's seemingly perfect
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  family dynamic, or their financial stability.
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  Right? We see how comparing ourselves
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  to others can silently poison our speech, distort our
• 20:38
  judgement and in this case, turn brothers into murderers.
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  This text calls for extreme vigilance, particularly within
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  the visible church. Yes, expand on that.
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  Being close to sacred things, growing up in a religious
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  environment does not guarantee inward grace.
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  Absolutely not. You can sit in a Pew every
• 20:55
  single Sunday, know the theology cold, sing the hymns with
• 20:59
  perfect, and still harbor the kind of secret resentment that
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  destroys families and fractures churches.
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  That is a harsh reality. The proper response to Genesis
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  37 is not to treat it as a moral fable where you just try harder
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  to be nice to your siblings. Right.
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  It's not a self help story, no. The proper response is to
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  recognize our own capacity for malice, repent of our envy, and
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  rest entirely in the sovereign Savior.
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  We find our hope in the fact that God governs the darkest
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  circumstances, the worst failures of our families, and
• 21:30
  the absolute worst malice of others to accomplish His
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  redemptive good. I think that is the perfect
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  place to land. I want to leave you with the
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  concept to chew on as you go about the rest of your day.
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  Yeah, think about this. You might look at the hostile
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  forces in your life right now, the treacherous people, the
• 21:45
  unfair circumstances, the places where you feel completely
• 21:48
  trapped and stripped of your dignity.
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  It is easy to despair in those moments.
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  It is. You might view those things as
• 21:55
  massive obstacles blocking your future.
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  But consider the pit in Dothan. What if the very people
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  attempting to cast you down are the precise instruments God has
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  ordained to lift you up?