V.1-36: Now Jacob dwelt in the land where his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan. And these are the generations of Jacob: Joseph was seventeen years old, when he became a shepherd of cattle with his brethren. And the lad was with Bilhah and Zilpah his father's wives, and brought before their father, where there was an evil cry against them. But Israel loved Joseph better than all his
Children, because he had begotten him in his old age. And made him a coat of many colors. 1) When his brothers saw that their father loved him better than all his brothers, they were hostile to him and could not speak a kind word to him.
1) Marginal gloss: Joseph's colorful skirt was woven of many colors of thread, and signifies the "many grace and gifts" of the one Spirit in Christ and His Christians.
Joseph once had a dream about this and told his brothers about it. Then they became still more hostile to him. For he said to them: Listen, my dear, to what I have dreamed. It seemed to me that we were tending sheaves in the field, and my sheaf was straightening up and standing, and your sheaves around were bending over against my sheaf. Then said his brethren unto him, Shall thou be our king, and reign over us? And they became even more hostile to him because of his dream and his speech. And he had another dream, which he told to his brethren, saying, Behold, I have dreamed another dream; The sun and the moon smote me, and eleven stars bowed down before me. And when this was told his father and his brethren, his father rebuked him, saying unto him, What dream is this that thou hast dreamed? Shall I, and thy mother, and thy brethren, come and fall to the earth before thee? And his brethren envied him, but his father kept these words. And when his brethren went to feed their father's cattle in Sichern, Israel said unto Joseph, Do not thy brethren feed the cattle in Sichern? Come, I will send thee unto them. And he said, Here am I. And he said, Go, see whether it be well with thy brethren, and with the cattle, and tell me again how it is. So he sent him out of the valley of Hebron to go to Sichern. And when a man found him going astray in the field, he asked him, saying, Whom seekest thou? He answered: I am looking for my brothers, dear man; tell me where they are. And the man said, They are departed thence: for I heard them say, Let us go to Dothan. So Joseph followed his brothers, and found them at Dothan. And when they saw him afar off, before he came nigh unto them, they struck to kill him, saying one to another, Behold, the dreamer cometh; now therefore come, and let us slay him, and cast him into a pit, and say that an evil beast hath devoured him; and it shall be seen what his dreams are. And when Reuben heard it, he would have delivered him out of their hands, saying, Let us not smite a soul. And again Reuben said to them: Let us not shed blood, but let nns cast him into the pit, which is
in the wilderness and not lay a hand on him. But he would deliver him out of their hand, that he might bring him again unto his father. When Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his coat and the coat of many colors he was wearing, took it and threw it into a pit, but the pit was empty and there was no water in it. And they lifted up their eyes, and saw a company of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead with their camels, bearing spices, and balm, and myrrh, and going down into Egypt. Then Judah said to his brothers: What profit is it to us to slay our brother, and to hide his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, so that our hands may not touch him, for he is our brother, our flesh and blood. And they obeyed him. And when the Midianites, the merchants, were passing by, they drew him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver, and they brought him into Egypt. When Reuben returned to the pit and found Joseph not there, he tore his clothes and returned to his brothers, saying, "The boy is not there; where shall I go? And they took Joseph's skirt, and slew a kid, and dipped the skirt in the blood, and sent the colored skirt, and brought it to their father, saying, This we have found; behold, whether it be thy son's skirt, or not? And he knew it, and said, It is my son's coat: a beast of evil hath eaten it, and a beast of prey hath torn Joseph. And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and bare grief for his son a long time. And all his sons and daughters came up to comfort him, but he would not be comforted, and said: I will go down with sorrow into the pit to my son. And his father 1) wept over him. But the Midianites sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, Pharaoh's courtier.
(1) Here now follows a beautiful, amusing history of the fourth patriarch Joseph. Here, for the first time, you can see how finely the Holy Spirit writes about the badness of the holy patriarchs,
1) Marginal gloss: Father, this was Isaac.
2) Jenaer: "sihestu".
that he should keep silent in the face of reason, if he knew nothing better to write about them. Before, they murdered a whole city, after which Reuben slept with his father's wife; here, they did it all, and robbed the father of his favorite son, their own brother, for the sole reason that they saw that the father loved him better than all of them. For Benjamin was yet a child, so Joseph was of the right wife, Rachel, and was to be the right heir; moreover he was a pious child, as the text says, that he could not suffer the brothers to do wrong, but brought it before the father; so they cannot suffer the father to love him, and make him a coat of many colors, and are so hostile to him that they cannot speak a kind word to him.
(2) This is too much for the patriarch's children, that Christian and brotherly love is so completely extinguished. But God also gives them sin as a consolation to all who believe, so that we may see how He does not judge according to works, that no sin can condemn, if only one does not lose faith. Therefore, these are fine, sweet and comforting histories. The other is a vain, unkind, hostile thing, that our teachers have preached about saints as if they had never had flesh and blood.
This is now the last and greatest puff that the father had to suffer in his old age; for what follows, from the theurung, was not so great. Thus the Holy Spirit describes this holy father's legend from his youth. As soon as he left his father, he always had to suffer one misfortune after another. Esau, his brother, was the squire and the dear child, he had to be Cinderella, then serve for twenty years, and suffer much every day, then fight with the angel, and finally, when he thinks he is now at peace, the greatest heartache he sees in his children arises. He was still the only man in the whole world on whom God had a special eye and had made him the richest and greatest promises.
4 But there was nothing to see, because the contradiction, as if God had forgotten his even, and everything should go back. For he had
Now he took away his wife Rachel, whom he loved most of all; now he also took away his dearest child, Joseph, who was the first from the right wife. [He] had now no more comfort, because on the son, that he should be the one, on which the promise was, of which Christ should come; the comfort must now also go away, that he knows no more hope. Then his heart was troubled, thinking, "How can God leave me like this and take away all the comfort I have? Perhaps I have angered him that he wants to take the promise away from me again.
(5) Behold, these are the true golden legends, wherein God teacheth us how he cooketh and roasteth his saints, and playeth with them as though all that he promised them were a lie. He had vowed to give him a great seed, and to bless him; and takes away from him all that he holds dearest, and snatches from him the comfort and hope of the chase, so that he does not know whether he is angry with him or a friend: nor must he keep his word, and merely give home to God how he will fulfill his promise. We should also learn this, whether God would let us take what is dear to us, so that we could hope and comfort ourselves that he would not let us go, but would give us much more and better. How painful this was for him, I will let everyone think for himself, especially since the nature of such holy people is righteous and not so corrupt. Therefore the heart felt it well, and did not take to wind as some loose fathers do; therefore the text says, "And all his sons and daughters came up to comfort him, but he would not be comforted."
With this, God indicates that he does not reject nature altogether, but allows it to remain in the saints, so that he improves and justifies it. Sometimes he lets one become so drunk in the Holy Spirit that he does not pay attention to anything on earth; but otherwise he usually lets nature feel and be moved as he created it. For unless sin also reigns, no natural motion is evil; as we see in Christ, who felt and sensed all things after nature, as another man. So it is a natural inclination that the parents love the children, and grieve when they are unwell; as one
In unreasonable and wild animals they see that they also add their life to them. Again, it is also natural that the children love the parents and do everything good to them. Thus it was a natural father's heart that Jacob loved the child best, because he was of the right wife, and begotten at his age.
(7) Such a nature is not evil in itself, if it is not used evilly; that is, if God had not implanted such a nature in us, the children would be corrupted in their stance; again, if the nature did not keep loving the parents, no child would obey the parents.
(8) I say this so that it will not be thought that the saints were wood or stones, as we have been told. Mary, the mother of Christ, was also strong, but when she saw him hanging on the cross, a cutting sword went through her heart [Luc. 2, 35. Joh. 19, 25. f.]. So it is not possible that a martyr is not afraid of death, because Christ himself was afraid of it, and yet he did not do anything against God. God wants to train His own with good and evil, both when He gives and takes away, so that the heart will always be right toward Him.
(9) But there have been many foolish saints, especially among the ancients in the wilderness, who would break and restrain all natural inclination. As one reads of two brothers who would not allow their mother 1) to see them, and said: She should wait until they saw each other in eternal life. We do not read such things in these right saints' legends, to which those are not worthy to take off their shoes, and perhaps many, who are considered saints, have gone to the devil. God does not want us to despise and throw away creatures, but to use what he gives us, yet to put everything into his will. Thus a Christian does not respect any thing in spirit and conscience, but in body he accepts all kinds of things, so that there is no difference in outward appearance between Christians and other people. This is briefly said about history. Now we must also deal with the secret interpretation.
1) Walch and the Erlangers: Mothers.
This history is rich and lovely with figures and interpretation until the end of this book. For in Joseph's person, God has spiritually portrayed Christ and his entire kingdom in the very finest way. So the summa of this figure is: As Joseph is with his brothers, so is Christ with his brothers, that is, with the Jews. First, the text says that Jacob loved Joseph more than his brothers, so he made him a coat of many colors, which was a long coat, woven with various threads, each of a special color, and says the reason why he loved him was that he had begotten him in his old age. For we have heard that he was above seventy years old before he took a wife; so Joseph was born about the ninetieth year of his age. Now this is Jesus Christ, the true dear child of God [Eph. 1:6] and firstborn Son [Col. 1:15], through whom all others come to the grace and favor of the Father, so that He will look upon no one except through this Son.
(11) The coat of many colors is the Christian church, which is the adornment and garment of Christ. It is called a coat of many colors because it is endowed with various gifts and virtues of the Holy Spirit. It is one garment, yet not of one thread or color; finely distinguished, yet woven together. This is what Paul explains to the Corinthians (1 Ep. 12:4 ff.) and Ephesians (Cap. 4:4 ff.), that one Christian has such grace, another another; some are prophets, some teachers, some can do miracles. The gifts, offices and powers are various, says St. Paul; but they are one Spirit, one faith, and one mind. For whatsoever one believeth and is minded of Christ, that believeth they all. This skirt reaches to his heels, that is, Christianity with its gifts endures through and through, to the end of the world.
12 But that he beget the Son in his old age signifies that Christ is sent and publicly preached at the end of the world. For the gospel is the Lord's Supper and the last sermon preached to the world, after which no more may be expected.
013 But that his brethren were enemies unto him, especially because of the dreams which were before-
The reason for this is that Christ was in the people before he was born, because the prophets preached about him long before that he would come and become king and lord over all brothers [Matth. 22, 43. 44.]. Therefore the quarrel arose that the prophets were always persecuted until Christ came; but when Christ himself came, they were first deadly enemies to him, and sought to kill him.
(14) Now the two dreams, of the sheaves, and of the sokme, and of the moons, point to nothing else, but the scriptures and histories of the Old Testament, which everywhere point to Christ, that he should be the one before whom they should bow down, and all the patriarchs and prophets should bow the knee.
(15) The fact that Joseph brought the iniquity of his brothers before his father was also a reason why they were hostile to him. The Scriptures also show that the patriarchs nevertheless committed much iniquity, that they had not many good tidings. But here is a difference between the afterredeers and the pious. For the pious Joseph did not bear them out, nor did he make an evil report of them, but when he heard an evil report from others, he told his father secretly, and did not carry it out further. In the same way, if you know something evil about your neighbor, keep silent and do not rebuke it, but let it remain between you and him; but if it has already been rebuke, there is no other way but to report it to the authorities, who have the power to punish. So Christ also did through the prophets and his preaching. When the people practiced idolatry and believed in false prophets, he punished them and warned them to stop and wait for Christ.
016 Now that the father sends him to the brethren to Shechem, and finds them not; for they abode not there, but departed unto Dothan; is that the Jews were ordained to bear the statutes and commandments of God: but they departed from them, and made them their own statutes.
017 And when they saw Joseph afar off, they said one to another, Behold, here cometh the
That is, when they heard the Scripture that he was present, they could not bear it, and soon thought to oppress him and kill him; after which they seized him and stripped him of his skirt, made all the disciples and all the people fall from Christ, that he should stand alone and naked, and threw him into a pit, that is, they put him to death.
018 But when the Ishmaelites came, they dragged him out, and sold him: that is, when the Jews saw that the Gentiles were come unto Christ, they sent him away, and lost him with all his goods, for their pleasure and for their belly's sake. So he went into a far country, that is, among the Gentiles, to the end of the world, who had never been God's people before.
019 And the fact that Reuben cometh again, and seeketh him, but findeth him not, signifieth that the Jews, when they had rejected him, would have been glad to have him again: but they tarried too long.
When he was gone, they took his skirt and dipped it in goat's blood and sent it home to the father, and he did not mean anything else than that a wild animal had torn it, which means nothing else than the shame and suffering that happened to Christ, which we still have to suffer today. For his coat of many colors must still be taken off, and he must be rinsed in the blood of a goat, and he must be presented to the Father of the world as if a wild animal had torn him apart. For what we preach about Christ, together with his spirit, grace and all goods, so that the Father has adorned him and us, they strip us of, our brothers, who want to be our neighbors and the best in Christianity, and say it is nothing, and defile it in blood, that is, desecrate it and blaspheme it in the worst way; as he was defiled and reviled by the Jews, as if his thing were of the devil. We must consider this. For the Scripture hath declared it both before, and pictured it with figures. It is a noticeable point that his own brothers thus go along with him. This is also most grievous, that they who should govern, handle, and honor the gospel, must thus defile, profane, and execute it, 1) that it is of no value.
21. in addition they are still so presumptuous, and
1) to direct -- to cast aspersions.
They send the defiled skirt home to the father and tell him that a beast did it, and they do not want to have any guilt or word. So the Jews have murdered and sold Christ, forgiven and thrown away all his words, thrown away his grace, and still do not stop: they still want to be innocent, and have done nothing, pretend they know nothing about it, still pretend they are the dear children; do not want to hear that they have murdered God's Son, but say they have done it to one who was a murderer and a mischief-maker.
22. so God's word and truth must be reviled, after which they go and wipe their mouths, like the harlot, of which Solomon says in Proverbs [Cap. 30, 20]. These are two abominable sins, that they blaspheme and profane the word of God, and then say that they do it good; as Christ says in John [Cap. 16:2], "The time will come when he who kills you will think that he is doing God service."
023 Now this hath Jacob suffered, being deceived of his sons, that he thinketh it is as they say. [It] is said this much: God sets Himself against them, as if He did not know it, lets them 1= always go and remain hypocrites, the
1) In the old editions: "lässets", that is, lets them.
skirt and cover it, so that they think that he does not know what they have done. For as it is in our mind, so it is also before God; as I hold it, so I have it. Therefore the Jews do not go otherwise than they have no blame, laying it on the wild beast, that is, the heathen, or otherwise wicked people. In the meantime God is silent, but it hurts him and he suffers for a long time. This happens through his own who feel it, but at last the time comes for it to be revealed.
(24) Thus the figure is delicately painted, how it is with Christ and his Christians, that they must be defiled by those who are next to them, and afterward come before God as if they had done well; as now they make heresy of the gospel. Over the plague we must have the shame of it, as if it were deserved reward, and therefore crown it.
025 But that the two brothers did not like to see Joseph perish, especially Reuben, who would gladly have brought him back to his father, there are some sensible people who would gladly make amends and spare him; but it is of no avail. This is the chapter that teaches how Christians must suffer the cross, and the gospel must be reviled and persecuted.