From Shechem to Dothan: The Turning Point That Saved the World

All right, we're gonna begin with chapter 37 today, but I want to frame chapter 37 with a kind of a telescope view of where we've been. And I just want to pick up on one particular theme that's been developed in the preceding chapters really since early on in Genesis when Abraham and Lot chose their various places to settle. All right, there are a lot of parallels between Lot's life in Sodom and Jacob's life in Shechem. If you remember Lot chose to pitch his tent in the direction of the wicked city, but so did Jacob. Jacob was supposed to go back home and be with his father. He was called to come back from across the Jordan and make his way back to where he had first had him encountered with God, but instead he stopped halfway halfway and he went to Shechem and the scripture even says that he pitched his tent towards the city of Shechem. All right, so that seems to

be meant to draw a deliberate parallel between Jacob and his trajectory and Lot as if we're being warned that somehow those two trajectories are going to join up their parallel with one another, at least in the short term. Both, because of their decisions to pitch their tent towards this wicked city, both have daughters who get raped in the city and the wicked city as a result of their father's choices. Again, not a coincidence. So you're getting, if you're reading carefully and you're keeping in mind everything that's been going or everything that's preceded and also picking up on cues that are built into some of the phrases like pitching the tent, then you're being essentially told, pay attention, this has happened before and you can count on the same kinds of results. In Lot's story, two angels come and destroy the sodomites and in Jacob's story, it's not two angels, but it's two brothers, Jacob's two sons, Simeon and Levi, who go and destroy

the Shechemites. All right, so instead of two angels destroying the members of the wicked city, it's two brothers in righteous anger destroying the inhabitants of the city. In Lot's story, as they leave Sodom, Lot's wife is lost along the way when she turns back and she becomes a pillar of salt. You remember that story. Well, what's the parallel in Jacob's story to the wife or the matriarch of the city being lost along the way or out of the picture along the way? Do you have a parallel there? Well, yes, you do, except this time it's Rachel instead of Lot's wife. It's Rachel, Jacob's wife Rachel. She doesn't turn around and turn into a pillar of salt by acting unrighteously. In this case, she just dies on the road to Bethel and her last breath is the name of her last son and Jacob's last son, Benoni or son of Mysorum. All right, so Jacob is following the path of Lot and in many

ways he seems to be getting himself written out of the story like Lot was written out of the story. But chapter 37, chapter 36 and then chapter 37, we're going to see that Jacob gets back on track and he parts ways with the destiny of Lot and he experiences a revival in his life. Okay, now we're turning to chapter 37 and let's go verse by verse through 37. They were still exiled. They were still pilgrims. Their true home was the city that God does. All right, so even way back here in Genesis we're being told that Isaac living in his homeland is referred to as the land of his wanderings or the land of his sojournings in Pilgrimage. All right, these are the generations of Jacob verse two. All right, so now here's that literary signal that says we're beginning a new chapter in our big story. Joseph, being 17 years old, was pastoring the flock with his brothers. All right, he's a

shepherd. He's shepherd alongside his brothers. He was a boy with the sons of Bella and Zilpa, his father's wife. So those are the two second wives of Jacob. He seems to have been assigned the job of being a shepherd with the concubine's sons for whatever reason. He doesn't seem to be mixing with Leah's sons. Maybe this is the way Jacob decided. He parceled out certain pastors for these sons and some pastors for these sons. If that's the case, then the sons of Leah, Reuben and Simeon and Levi and Judah and then two others, they have their own pastors over here, but the sons of Bella and Zilpa like Gad and Asher and Aptali and Dan. And then for some reason, Joseph is put in with those like second class sons. But not because he's not favored, we find out that he's very favored, but it seems to be that there's so much animosity between him and Leah's sons that they can't work together.

All right, so he's with the second class sons as a result, perhaps. And Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. All this guy. Now, he's a bright and shiny. He's the closest we get to a righteous character or a thoroughly righteous character in the whole book of Genesis. Everyone else is riddled with flaws. Joseph is the closest we get to Christ, I would say, but even he has his immaturities. And maybe Joseph has been put in with this lot over here because they don't have as much animosity towards him yet. But after he's with them for a while, he's bringing back his tattletailing on them, and they're up to speed. Oh, I get it. I get it. I get it. We don't like him either. Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. Now, Israel, it's just strange how you get Jacob in one verse and then he's called Israel without explanation in the next. But one of

these days, I'll learn the pattern. I know there's a pattern here somewhere, but I don't know it yet. Verse three, now Israel, that's Jacob, love Joseph more than any of his other sons because he was the son of his old age. So was Benjamin, but no mention here of Benjamin. Benjamin was the cause of his beloved wife's death. So Benjamin might carry some of that baggage in Jacob's eyes. I don't know. He made him a robe of many colors. You all remember the picture that I showed of the hieroglyphs last week, of the Egyptian hieroglyphs that show certain characters in those hieroglyphs wearing the clothes of many colors. And these are called, this particular hieroglyph they are called, referred to as the Hyksos. That's the foreigners. So it seems that Egypt, around the year 2000 before Christ in 1900, were ruled by foreign leaders. They called them Hyksos. And they were characterized by wearing distinctive coats of many colors. That's right around the

time that Joseph went down into Egypt. So it could be that Joseph and his family were referred to as the Hyksos, who were in charge of many aspects and many respects in Egypt 2000 years before Christ. Okay. All right. He makes them a robe of many colors. Now, Joseph's not liked by these children. And now he's not liked by Zilpa, a villain's children. There's only one person that seems to be somewhat neutral in all of this. That's his 100% brother, Benjamin. We don't hear anything about him yet. Everyone's against him. And the father, the father gives him a coat of many colors. And again, as I went through last week, making different colors in a garment is an extremely exhaustive and expensive process. To get certain colors of blue in the ancient world would cost you the equivalent of tens of thousands of dollars. All right. Tens of thousands of dollars. It's very possible this garment that Jacob made for Joseph required tens

of thousands of dollars, part of the inheritance of the sons. And they already don't like him. And now they hate him. But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all of his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him. Now, Joseph had a dream. Okay. So so you have you have Jacob, Joseph's father, adding to the animosity with the coat of many colors. Now, God's going to add to the animosity that they have for their brother by giving him these grandiose dreams. All right. One person, not a whole bunch of people go up there and shut the sound room in those doors up there. Now, Joseph had a dream. And when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. He said to them, you're the stream that I have dreamed. He said a team. He doesn't he doesn't have a lot of wisdom maybe yet. He doesn't he's not aware of maybe of

all the hatred. You know, when somebody's spoiled rotten, they don't know it. They literally don't seem they think it's their lot in life. They think it's their they are entitled to it. They don't see themselves as being regarded favorably. They see this very normal. So they're, they're completely blind. All right, the sound room door, sound room door. There we go. Thank you. They're oblivious. Well, he should go around with his mouth closed. It closed in as much humility as possible. He's already got that road. That's a problem. Yeah. But now keep your mouth closed and maybe after a while people get used to it. But no, he's going to tell everybody this dream that he had. Behold, he's telling this to his brothers who hate him. He doesn't know it. Or he knows it and trying to add to it. I don't know. We were binding sheets in the field. And behold, watch this, and you go out there, and you go out

there with the thresher, cut down the wheat and you bind the wheat into sheaves. It's the wheat is now it's dead. It lays down in the field. It's bound up and in dead in the field. But behold, my sheaf arose. It's a resurrection. Sheaf coming back to life arose and stood upright. Right. He's gonna still have this whole dream. And it looks like it just means one thing. Everyone else has got to bow down to him. But this is also significant in the story. There's going to be a resurrection from the dead here. All right. And the reason why you ought to pay attention to that is because in biblical thinking, a land of Egypt is associated with death. Death. All right. The most famous work of literature that ever came from Egypt is called The Book of the Dead. It's lasting monuments are what? Pyramids that are tombs for the dead. They worship death. Their whole culture is about death. Biblically, Egypt

is equivalent to death. And that's where Joseph is going to go. But that's the cue that Joseph didn't pick up on. He just kicked up on the people bowing down to him. He didn't get the part about dying first. And then the sheaf standing up. He goes down to Egypt, almost like he's in a pit, like in a grave. And then he's pulled up by the Ishmaelites and sold into slavery and goes down into the land of death. And then he rises up and he's ruling Egypt and saves the world with his wisdom. You can't really let too many words go by or something very significant is being said. All right. My sheaf arose. It stood upright and behold, your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheep. All right. So he rises. They fall. His brothers said to him, they're pretty good at interpreting dreams. Sometimes people will pull me aside and say, this is something I wasn't expecting to

be part of the job description. I didn't go to, I didn't take any classes on dream interpretation, 101 or 102. I didn't get a master's degree in dream interpretation. But invariably, about once a week, I will hear somebody tell me a dream that they had. And oftentimes I just don't have any idea what that's about. But I suspect it's indigestion. Probably that. But God does speak through dreams, especially, and here's what you need to note. Oftentimes, a dream from God happens twice, but in different variations of the same being. In my case, I remember in my 20s when I started out in ministry, I was petrified speaking publicly, because when I was eight years old, I was asked to speak at a chapel service for our Christian school team. And I had so much, I thought I wanted to say, but I kept on just seeing these scriptures that I wanted to quote, and they were all scriptures about hell. And so I

just wrote down a couple on yellow tablet, couple of pages of scriptures back to back to back from all over the Bible about hell. Now, what's an eight-year-old getting up there and talking about health? What does he have to say on this subject? There's not much understanding there. So I just, I thought, oh, I'll just read the scripture and say something about it. And next thing I know, I was so frightened that I felt like I was going to become incontinent. And I just kept on back it further and further up until I was completely back up against the wall. And I just wanted to turn around and face to me, just give up. I was so petrified by that. In my early 20s, I preached and I kept on having a dream. And the dream was me getting to churchly and carrying up a binder full of notes. And what I got is this sanctuary. When I got to these steps right

here, for some reason, I tripped and fell. Some variation of tripping and falling right here. And the notes would go sprawling out. And I had like 50 or 60 pages of notes, but no page numbers. And so I couldn't figure out what order they were in anymore. And all I had to say was what was in the notes. Didn't have anything to say of my own. All I had were my notes. And then, you know, different variations of that dream were for some reason in a dream, you're not wearing anything. Why is that? What is going on here? And so I figured it out after a little while after you keep on having these dreams or variations on these dreams. What's happening here is my notes are my clothes. That's that's my, that's my defense against being regarded as a fool. If I can have something good to say here in my notes, then I'll be okay. But then my notes get scattered.

Keep on having that kind of dream over and over again. And sometimes the word gives us dreams in order to help us work through things of preparedness for something in the future, whatever the case. But here in Joseph's case, as we're going to see later with Pharaoh, he has two variations of the same dream. Okay, that happens oftentimes. If you have a recurring dream, it's probably something very significant. Are his brothers said to him, Are you indeed to reign over us or are you indeed to rule over us? So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words. They were good at interpreting what that meant. They didn't need any explanation. They knew that meant you had a dream. We're going to bow down to you. Now he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers and said, Behold, I have dreamed another dream. I know you guys are anxious to hear it. Behold, the sun, the moon, the

11 stars were bowing down to me. Now, in that world, most of the cultures worship the sun as a god, and the moon as a god, and the stars as gods. Here the gods are bowing down. But then they're strangely numeric. Sun, that's the one in charge. The moon, that's the one second in charge. And then on 11, well, that's the number of the brothers besides Joseph. Oh my word. He's telling this to his father. He's telling this to his brothers. And Jacob says, his father rebukes him and says, What's this treat that you've dreamed? Like it's his fault. He didn't. He didn't. God gave him the dream eats. Jacob says, What's this treat you've dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the ground before you? Now, try not to get hung up on the fact that Jacob just said, I and your mother, but Joseph's mother had died. All right, Rachel's out in the

picture. And then you might say, Well, was this while she was still alive? Well, it couldn't be because you have 11. You have 11 sons, 11 brothers besides Joseph, which means Benjamin is in the picture. All right. But just symbolically, Jacob understands, I, the head of the household, and the mother figure, the matriarch of the family that now is, is she gonna bow down to you too? And all of the 11 brothers. His brothers are jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind. That does remind me of Luke chapter two. You remember when Jesus was 12 years old and Mary and Joseph took him to the temple. And then they left and they thought he was with them on the caravan, but he wasn't. And so they found out that he was missing for three days and they went back to Jerusalem. And they found them finally in the temple having a discussion with the elders. And Mary's so upset

with him. She said, didn't you care that our father, your father and I, looking all over for you and we were worried about you? I'm really worried. You know, I'm supposed to be at my father's business. Where did you expect him to find me? Are you looking anywhere else for me? And Mary's, but she doesn't say anything. She is, and she kept the saying in mind because it was significant for later. Here's what's significant for later. Remember, he was missing for three days. Where are you going to find him? Go back to Jerusalem. He'll be there. That's word for her later on. He'll be missing for three days when he's crucified. He'll be missing for three days, but you'll find him in Jerusalem on the third day. She kept this in mind. All right. This is Joseph, Jacob keeping in mind, don't forget this. I didn't like the dream or I didn't like the way it was expressed, but don't forget this. Something's

going on here. Something divine. All right. Verse 12. Now, his brothers went to pasture their flocks near Shechem. Uh-oh. What? There was a genocide here. There was a rape here. Nothing good happens to Jacob's family here in Shechem and they've taken their father's flock to Shechem. I wonder if they went back there because they thought, well, we destroyed everything there. Let's go look at the spoils of our victory. Let's go relive some good times. Or, I don't know. I don't know exactly why, but those brothers are flirting in trouble. They seem to be going back or back sliding by going back to Shechem in some way. All right. Now, you would also think, they got out of Shechem quick after that because they were afraid of what was going to happen to them. What in the world are they taking their father's flocks up to Shechem for? That's putting them in danger. We committed some pretty bad deeds here. We're probably putting our

father's flocks in onslaught. And Jacob seems to know this and so he wants a report to find out how they're doing. Oh, Joseph, I'll send you to them. And he said to him, here I am. Joseph's famous last words. Same words that Isaac said on his way up to Mount Moriah. Here I am. So, Jacob said to him, go now, see if it's well with your brothers and with your LeFloch and bring me word. He has a habit of giving bad news back to his father about his brother's behaviors. So he went, he sent him from the valley of Hebron and came to Shechem. And a man found him wandering in the fields. That's about 50 miles. So he sent him on a 50 mile journey. Jesse did the same thing with David. He sent David to go find out how his brothers were doing and they were facing the life. That's what was happening. Joseph goes on this long journey up to

Shechem and doesn't find him anywhere. But he finds a man wandering in the fields. And the man asked him, what are you seeking? I'm seeking my brothers. He said, tell me please, where are they pasturing at the flock? And the man said, they've gone away. I heard them say, let's go to Dothan. That's about 15 miles further north. The man said, they've gone away. I heard them say, let's go to Dothan. So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan. It's really significant right there. This is the whole then Japan of Scripture right here. If this doesn't happen, nothing else that happens happens. There's no Moses. There's no David. There's no Mark of the Covenant. There's no Ten Commandments. There's no prophecy. There's no Messiah. There's no Bethlehem. There's no Pentecost. There's no America. There's no abundant hope. This is the mention of history back here. He went to find his brothers and Shechem couldn't find them. If he couldn't find

them, he would have gone back home. But there was a man, quote unquote, wandering in the field waiting for him. He said, oh, they're out in Dothan. So he went to Dothan. And as they say, the rest is history because he found his brothers and his brother sold them into slavery. Then they go down to Egypt. He saves the world. The family prosperous.