Genesis 37:1-11: Joseph's Dreams
Bible Essentials: Set 3, Lesson 24
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Opening
Individuals: Take time to think back about your past week. Where have you seen God work in your life or answer prayer? Write down any prayer requests you have.
Group: Open the study by sharing life updates, reviewing highs and lows of your past week, or sharing prayer requests and praises.
Icebreaker: What is your most recurring dream?
All: Begin the study with a word of prayer, asking God to open your heart for today’s study. You can also pray for any prayer requests now, or save that for the end.
Study
Read today’s passage: Genesis 37:1-11.
37 Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan.
2 This is the account of Jacob’s family line.
Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them.
3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made an ornate robe for him. 4 When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.
5 Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. 6 He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: 7 We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.”
8 His brothers said to him, “Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said.
9 Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. “Listen,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”
10 When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, “What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?” 11 His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.
What is the context for this passage?
Our last Bible Essentials study was in Genesis 35, where we saw Jacob return to the land of Canaan with his family. God renewed his covenant with Jacob and Jacob’s descendants, and God changed Jacob’s name to Israel. This is where we get the name the Israelites from.
We also get some bittersweet news in Genesis 35. Rachel has become pregnant with another child, but she dies in childbirth. This is the final son of Jacob—Benjamin. Benjamin is the only full brother of Joseph, who will be the focus for the rest of Genesis. Benjamin will play a key role later in Genesis. In addition to Rachel’s death, we also learn of the death of Isaac at 180 years old.
After a chapter reporting the lineage of Esau, Jacob’s twin brother, Genesis transitions a bit starting in Genesis 37. The rest of Genesis will tell us the story of Joseph.
Read the passage again.
Explore a different version if you have one available. If you are online, here is Genesis 37 in NIV through Bible Gateway. You can change the version by using the dropdown menu at the top right of the page.
Try to summarize the passage in your own words.
Answer these three questions about the passage:
1. What does the passage say about God?
God knows the future. As the story of Joseph unfolds in the rest of Genesis, we see that God does indeed know what will happen in the future. He knew that Joseph’s brothers would bow down to him, and he communicated that to Joseph in dreams.
God can speak to people through dreams. In God’s knowledge of the future, he spoke to Joseph in dreams to reveal to him what the future would be. His family would bow down to him. Not all dreams mean something significant, but sometimes God speaks to people in dreams, and they do have significant meaning.
2. What does the passage say about people?
People often continue to live in the same place as their parents. When Jacob settled down to raise his family, he settled in the same place his father, Isaac, had lived. This is the land that God had promised to give them through the covenant.
Siblings often foster bad feelings and jealousy among themselves. The relationship between Joseph and his brothers was not good. Joseph brought their father a bad report about the brothers (although the story never tells us if the report was true or what the brothers were doing to deserve a bad report). In turn, Joseph’s brothers were jealous because they knew their father loved Joseph more, and they despised him because of his dreams. All around, their relationship was not healthy.
Parents sometimes favor one sibling over another. Jacob loved Joseph more than any of the other brothers. Joseph was the first-born of Jacob’s beloved wife Rachel, and he was also born when Jacob was older. For these reasons, Jacob favored Joseph over the sons of his other wives.
People shower those they love with gifts. Because Jacob loved Joseph so much, he gave Joseph a special gift—an ornate robe, often called the “coat of many colors.” This robe was a symbol of Jacob’s love for Joseph, and it was one thing that drove the jealousy in Joseph’s brothers.
Joseph shared his dreams with his brothers. The story doesn’t tell us the motivation behind Joseph telling his brothers about his dreams, but whatever the motivation was, it also drove the jealousy in Joseph’s brothers. With each new thing we learn, the brothers’ hatred and jealousy just go deeper and deeper.
Joseph’s brothers seemed to understand the meaning of Joseph’s dreams. Although neither Joseph nor his brothers appear to seek God for the meaning behind Joseph’s dreams, the brothers seem to instinctively know what Joseph is trying to tell them—one day, Joseph will have authority and his brothers will bow down to him. The brothers came to hate Joseph and his dreams.
People can respond differently to the same information. Joseph told his dreams to both his father and his brothers, but the two responded differently to the same information. The brothers responded with hatred and jealousy. But his father “kept the matter in mind.” Where the brothers dismissed Joseph and his dreams, Jacob seemed to ponder what they could someday mean for Joseph’s future.
3. What does the passage say about God’s plan?
God’s plan was to place Joseph in a position of authority over his family. Joseph’s dreams revealed that God would place Joseph in a position of authority over his family. This is the only reason his family would bow down to him. God used this position of authority to save the nation of Israel from a famine, as we will see later in Genesis.
God’s plan was that Joseph’s family would bow down to him. The dreams that God gave to Joseph did indeed come true. Joseph’s family did bow down to him when they came to purchase grain during a famine. Of course, his brothers didn’t know they were bowing down to Joseph at the time, but their actions did fulfill the prophecy of Joseph’s dreams.
How does the passage fit into the overarching story of the Bible?
Sometimes it’s easier to understand a passage if you have a little outside knowledge from other passages in the Bible. This section will help provide that outside perspective.
As the first major story about Joseph, this story sets into motion the rest of what happens in Genesis. It establishes the role of Joseph in his family as the one who was favored (by his father) and the one who was hated (by his brothers). This contrast caused the brothers to sell Joseph to merchants, and he eventually ended up in Egypt, where he rose to a place of power. That power later saved his family when they came to purchase grain during a famine.
When Joseph was reunited with his family, he convinced the entire family, including his father, to move to Egypt. While in Egypt, the Israelites grew into a great nation—so great, in fact, that eventually Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt, would make them slaves because he feared they would become too powerful. Because of their slavery, we also see God deliver the nation of Israel from slavery and call them out of Egypt back to the Promised Land.
God’s care for Joseph and his family and God’s deliverance of the Israelites from slavery reflect God’s care for us and his willingness to send his favored Son to provide a way of deliverance for his people. Jesus was also called out of Egypt, just like the Israelites, and he lived a perfect life so that he could save us from our slavery to sin through his death on the cross.
Discussion
Individual: Answer the following questions thoughtfully for yourself.
Group: Pose these questions for discussion.
All: If you are willing to share, I’d love to hear your thoughts to these questions. Feel free to use the comment section to start a discussion about this passage.
What else strikes you about this passage?
How does the passage affect how you view God? How you view yourself?
How does this passage affect how you will live your life?
Additional Study
For additional study related to this topic, read Genesis 42:1-9, Genesis 43:24-28.
Premium Resources
For Bible Essential studies, you can use my thoughts as your devotional, or you can download and use the journaling sheet to work through the passage on your own. If desired, you can then compare your thoughts to mine. Journal sheets can be downloaded and used now or later. They can be printed and filled in by hand or saved and filled out electronically. Journal sheets are available for individual or group use.
If you plan to lead a group study, a PowerPoint presentation is also available.
You can access these resources by clicking here: Genesis 37 Resources
Or you can download the journal sheets here*:
*Substack doesn’t support PowerPoint file downloads yet, so if you want to access the PowerPoint file for group study, you will need to download it from the resource page linked above.
Hardships that he went thriugh. I am thinking they did.
I am wondering if Joseph's dreams gave him hope as he faced all the h