Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #19 in Genesis 37, and we will read Genesis 37:12-18:

And his brethren went to feed their father's flock in Shechem. And Israel said unto Joseph, Do not thy brethren feed the flock in Shechem? come, and I will send thee unto them. And he said to him, Here am I. And he said to him, Go, I pray thee, see whether it be well with thy brethren, and well with the flocks; and bring me word again. So he sent him out of the vale of Hebron, and he came to Shechem. And a certain man found him, and, behold, he was wandering in the field: and the man asked him, saying, What seekest thou? And he said, I seek my brethren: tell me, I pray thee, where they feed their flocks. And the man said, They are departed hence; for I heard them say, Let us go to Dothan. And Joseph went after his brethren, and found them in Dothan. And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him.

I will stop reading there. We have already seen that there was a great deal of turmoil in Jacob’s household among his sons.  They were jealous and envious of Joseph because he was their father’s favorite, and also because of his dreams.  Let us go back to Genesis 37:2-4:

These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren; and the lad was with the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives: and Joseph brought unto his father their evil report. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours. And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him.

Here, we see that Joseph was feeding the flock with his brethren for a time.  This was earlier in the account, and he brought back to his father Jacob a report of their doings, and it was an evil report.  They were not doing things that were right or good.  We can imagine what this might have been, and maybe they were being lazy toward keeping the flock, and not doing their jobs properly.  Maybe they were more interested in the women of the local villages, and maybe they would leave the flock and go to the village to spend time there, or perhaps it was the things they were saying about their father.  Whatever it was, Joseph, the faithful son, brought news back to their father of their evil doings.  This alone would cause trouble, especially if the father took action on it, and the brothers would wonder, “Well, how did he know?  How did he find out?”  And who would they point the finger at?  Joseph.  “He is the only one who would tell on us and report this to our father.”  So that could lead to feelings of animosity toward him, but what made it worse was that Israel (Jacob) loved Joseph more than all of them.  That is what it says in Genesis 37:3:

Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours.

We do not read that he made a coat of many colours for his other children, and this would lead to jealousy and envy.  So that is what happened, and all kinds of trouble began to develop in the family of Israel.

Then things got even worse because Joseph dreamed a couple of dreams, and in the dreams the brothers were pictured as being subservient to him.  He was already the favorite.  He was already the one most loved by the father, so now they were getting very angry.  Who knows what was going through their minds regarding these dreams?  Maybe they thought the father would make Joseph his heir, even though they were much older than he, and Reuben was the firstborn.  It is true that Reuben went in unto his father’s bed and lay with one of his father’s concubines, so he lost the right of the firstborn.  But the right of the firstborn could go to one of the other sons of Israel, and certainly not to this 17-year-old boy.  Perhaps that is what they were thinking.  Jacob would give all his riches to Joseph, and then they would have to serve him, and this made them even more angry.  Then there was the second dream in which they were, again, bowing down to him.  Then we read in Genesis 37:11:

And his brethren envied him; but his father observed the saying.

There was envy toward Joseph, so Joseph was sent by his father, as we read in Genesis 37:12-13:

And his brethren went to feed their father's flock in Shechem. And Israel said unto Joseph, Do not thy brethren feed the flock in Shechem? come, and I will send thee unto them. And he said to him, Here am I.

So we see a difference from verse 2 where it had said that Joseph was feeding the flock with his brethren, do we not?   Why was he not out there with the flock?  Why are his older brethren out there, but Joseph is not with them?  It is probably because Jacob was intuitively picking up on that feeling of envy and hatred toward Joseph.  It is hard to hide in a household, and a father knows his sons.  He could see the way they treated him and the things they were saying about him, or the dirty tricks that they were playing on him.  So it appears that Jacob held Joseph back from going with them to tend to the flocks.  But Joseph has to do something, so Israel (Jacob) decided to send him to see how they were doing, as we see in Genesis 37:14:

And he said to him, Go, I pray thee, see whether it be well with thy brethren, and well with the flocks; and bring me word again. So he sent him out of the vale of Hebron, and he came to Shechem.

So Joseph was sent by his father to Joseph’s brethren to see if they and the flocks were well.  His father told him that they were feeding the flock in Shechem, but when Joseph came to Shechem, he was unable to find them.  He was wandering around in the field.  Then it says in Genesis 37:15-16:

And a certain man found him, and, behold, he was wandering in the field: and the man asked him, saying, What seekest thou? And he said, I seek my brethren: tell me, I pray thee, where they feed their flocks.

Then this unidentified man responded, and it says in Genesis 37:17:

And the man said, They are departed hence; for I heard them say, Let us go to Dothan. And Joseph went after his brethren, and found them in Dothan.

Joseph went to where they should be, but they were not there.  He then came across a man who happened to have all the information, and he told Joseph that he could find them in Dothan.  So Joseph went after his brethren, and he did find them in this area in Dothan.  That is when we read in Genesis 37;18:

And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him.

They saw him coming afar off, and they conspired.  That means they were plotting among themselves: “We are going to kill him.”  That is how bad things had gotten.  That is how grievous this situation had become.  They were actually going to kill their younger brother Joseph, and he was on his way to them, unaware of what they were planning. 

Before we continue on, we understand the historical situation.  There is a “house full of trouble.”  In our times we have plenty of households full of trouble.  There are all kinds of turmoil within families – brother against brother, or parent/child troubles.  We understand that, but God did not write this just to tell us that Joseph came from a troubled home, and that is all we are to learn.  Then is it just a lesson to teach that Joseph overcame a difficult upbringing and difficult circumstances?  Is it just a nice moral story to teach us to persevere and to do good even when people hate you?  Well, yes, we can get that moral teaching, but that is not the reason God wrote this.  This is the Bible, and God is concerned with the Gospel, the spiritual truth that we find in all Scripture.  We have to find the truth here.  That is our task.  That is what God has assigned us to do with the entire Bible.  We are not just to accept the surface meaning, or the plain, literal meaning of it.  What is the deeper spiritual meaning?  That is where the treasure lies, and that is where we want to look.

Let us go back to verse 12, and then we will start to look for the spiritual meaning.  It says in Genesis 37:12-13:

And his brethren went to feed their father's flock in Shechem. And Israel said unto Joseph, Do not thy brethren feed the flock in Shechem? come, and I will send thee unto them. And he said to him, Here am I.

And in verse 14, we see that Joseph came to Shechem.  We see that Shechem is mentioned three times in these verses.  So our question is, “What is the spiritual significance of feeding the flock in Shechem?”  The word translated as “Shechem” is Strong’s #7927 in the Hebrew, and it comes from #7926, the Hebrew word that is translated in English as “shoulder.”  It is like a person’s shoulder, and we find this word used in some interesting places.  The first place is in Isaiah 9:6:

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

This is a Messianic reference to the Lord Jesus Christ.  He is the child who would be born, and He is called, “Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”  He is the one who would have the government upon His “shoulder.”  It is the shoulder of Christ.

A shoulder is a place that can carry a lot of weight.  People can put a heavy backpack on a strap around the shoulder to carry a good deal of weight.  Here, the government is said to be “upon his shoulder,” so this word has the idea of power and authority.  God assigns authority to rule to governments, so the rule of Christ by the authority of God is upon His shoulder.  We see it has to do with Christ, so let us keep that in mind as we turn to Isaiah 22:20:

And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah:

The name “Eliakim” means “God of rising,” or “God of raising,” which would point to the resurrection.  Then it says in Isaiah 22:21-24:

And I will clothe him with thy robe, and strengthen him with thy girdle, and I will commit thy government into his hand: and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah. And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder; so he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open. And I will fasten him as a nail in a sure place; and he shall be for a glorious throne to his father's house. And they shall hang upon him all the glory of his father's house…

This is another Messianic reference to Christ, as typified by Eliakim.  Again, we see that the government is in His Hand, and the key to the house of David will be laid upon His shoulder.  That is, He will have the power and authority to use the key of the house of David, and that “key” is the key to hell and death.  The Lord speaks of this in Revelation 3:7:

And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth;

The Lord Jesus has the key of David, and He opens, and no man can shut, and He shuts, and no man can open. We have come to learn very well what that means because God shut the door of heaven on May 21, 2011, thereby ending His salvation program as far as the salvation of souls is concerned.  That is the power and authority that Christ possesses.  Even before that, in the time of the Great Tribulation, He was able to fling the door wide open in order that the great multitude could enter in, all according to His power and authority.  The key to the house of David is upon His shoulder.  The government is upon His shoulder.  It is where the power and authority of the Gospel  resides, to bring the rain, or cease the rain, or to open the Word, or to seal the Word.  It lies with Christ, as referenced to His shoulder.

We see the “shoulder” in view in another historical parable in Genesis 24 regarding Rebekah who gave some water to Abraham’s servant.  Abraham had sent his servant to find a wife for his son Isaac, and the servant came across Rebekah.  We read in Genesis 24:13-15:

Behold, I stand here by the well of water; and the daughters of the men of the city come out to draw water: And let it come to pass, that the damsel to whom I shall say, Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink; and she shall say, Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also: let the same be she that thou hast appointed for thy servant Isaac; and thereby shall I know that thou hast shewed kindness unto my master. And it came to pass, before he had done speaking, that, behold, Rebekah came out, who was born to Bethuel, son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother, with her pitcher upon her shoulder.

We also read in Genesis 24:45:

And before I had done speaking in mine heart, behold, Rebekah came forth with her pitcher on her shoulder; and she went down unto the well, and drew water: and I said unto her, Let me drink, I pray thee.

Then she gave him drink.  Then it say sin Genesis 24:46:

And she made haste, and let down her pitcher from her shoulder, and said, Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also: so I drank, and she made the camels drink also.

Here, we see the water is carried on the shoulder, and she brought it from her shoulder to give the man drink.  The water and the shoulder are connected, and the water points to the water of the Gospel.  That is what is in view with the “shoulder,” and that is what our word “Shechem” is related to, the shoulder.  And Jacob sent his son Joseph to Shechem to see if his brethren and flocks were well.  That is where you would find water for the flock.  You would give the Gospel to the people in Shechem.

We will look more into this, Lord willing, when we get together in our next Bible study.