Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #21 in Genesis 37, and we will read Genesis 37:14-17:

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.

I will stop reading there.  In our last study, we were beginning to look at the spiritual picture of Israel sending his son Joseph, his wellbeloved son, as he loved Joseph above all his brethren.  And Israel sent Joseph to Shechem, and in response, Joseph said at the end of verse 13: “Here am I.”  We saw how that was a similar response that Samuel made when God called him.  It is a similar response in Isaiah 6 wherein the prophet Isaiah saw a glorious vision of the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and one of the seraphims took a coal of the altar, and placed it upon his mouth.  After that we read in Isaiah 6:7-8:

And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.

Then it says in Isaiah 6:9-10:

And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.

Isaiah said, “Here am I, send me.”  Then God lets it be known that this is a rebellious people that understand not, and they see, but perceive not.  Then the Lord says they are basically spiritually blind and deaf.  That was the condition of their heart.  Their heart was in spiritual blindness.

And that will come into view as we look at the spiritual meaning of Joseph coming to Shechem, and then he was told they were not there, but they were in Dothan.  We will get to that later, but it has everything to do with spiritual blindness.

Jacob ((Israel) sent his son Joseph to his brethren, and then it says 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.

We saw that the Hebrew word translated as “well” is the word “shaw-lome',” which is the typical word for “peace.”  So it is saying, “…See whether it be peace with thy brethren, and peace with the flocks.”  We spent some time discussing that the Lord Jesus is our peace, and Christ came into the world for this very purpose, that there be peace with His brethren and peace with His flock, as He is the Shepherd.

Then it said, “…and bring me word again.”  We know that the Lord was sent the first time with the full understanding that He would return to heaven, and then He would come again, a second time (as Judge).  But He came to the earth and accomplished the purpose that the Father had sent Him forth to accomplish, and then He returned to heaven: “…bring me word again.” 

Then it says in Genesis 37:14:

…So he sent him out of the vale of Hebron, and he came to Shechem.

We discussed Shechem as a place of God’s authority and government, the authority of the Gospel in relationship to God’s glorious kingdom.  All of that identifies with Shechem, a word that means “shoulder,” and the Bible says that the government would be upon His shoulder.  We also went to Isaiah 22:22:

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.

The “key of the house of David” was laid upon His shoulder, referring spiritually to the Lord Jesus.  He possesses the key of hell and death.  He is the one that opens and shuts the door of heaven, and all of this is intimately identified with the Gospel.  It is the Word of God that ministers entrance into the kingdom of God.  It is the door that leads into God’s kingdom, and it is the Gospel, the Word of God, and the Bible opens the door to bring in the elect, and the Bible shuts the door when the seasons of rain are completed, and when God has saved everyone He intended to save.

So Joseph was sent by Israel his father to Shechem.  He came to find his brethren to see if they were involved with the spiritual activity of the Gospel.  After all, they were to tend the flock.  They were to feed and guide the sheep.  They should have been in Shechem.  However, they were not in Shechem.  They had departed from Shechem, and this is the problem that Joseph found, historically.  He began to wander around, looking in the fields where they should have been.  He had probably gone there in the past, and yet he could not find them.  So Joseph was wandering, as we read in Genesis 37:15:

And a certain man found him, and, behold, he was wandering in the field: and the man asked him, saying, What seekest thou?

That is strange that Joseph appears lost, and a man had to find him.  We understand that Joseph is a type of Christ, and we know that Christ came to find the “lost sheep of the house of Israel,” and not to become lost Himself.  So what is in view here?  What is God telling us when He says, “And a certain man found him, and, behold, he was wandering in the field.”   

When we look at the Hebrew word translated as “wandering,” is also translated as “gone astray.”  It is the same word that is used in Isaiah 53:4-7:

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and JEHOVAH hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.

Notice it says in verse 6: “…all we have gone astray.”  But here it is concerned with God’s elect because it goes on to say, “and JEHOVAH hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.”  And that is referring to the elect of God, and we have gone astray just as everyone else in the world, but only the elect of God had their sins laid upon Christ at the foundation of the world, and He paid for those sins.  So we are “lost sheep,” and that is why Christ said in Matthew 15:24, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  We are the lost sheep, but notice that He was Himself called a Lamb: “He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.”  So Jesus Himself was as a sheep, or as a Lamb, as declared by John the Baptist: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”  And again, that would refer to the elect of God, not every sinner in the world, but only those chosen out of the world, as Christ said in John 17:9: “I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me.”   

So that is the idea here in Genesis 37 when Joseph, a great type of Christ, was sent by his father to Shechem to his brethren.  Remember we learned that “well” means “peace,” and Jacob commanded Joseph to see if it was well, or peace, with his brethren.  And we saw this statement in Ephesians 6:23:

Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

That is the essence of the Gospel – peace be to the brethren.  It is the peace of God, who is Christ Himself.  He is the peace that passeth all understanding.  He is our peace, according to Ephesians 2.  Previously, we were at enmity with God, but He took our sins upon Himself and paid for them because it was our sin that caused us to be at war with God.  Once the sin problem was settled, then we were reconciled to the Father, and Christ became the peace between God and us.  God did not see our sins any longer, and the wrath of God was no longer abiding upon us because it had fallen upon Christ in our place, the Lamb that took away the sin of the world.  We were lost sheep, and Christ found us, and He has returned us unto the Shepherd of our souls, who is God and Jesus.

Concerning the brethren, we also read in Romans 8:29:

For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

These are the brethren, the chosen and elect of God, or those God had predestinated to be conformed to Christ’s image.  And these brethren will be born from the dead as Jesus was the firstborn from the dead.  Jesus was the firstborn of many brethren, all those that would become saved.  First of all, we were born again in our dead souls, as we were resurrected in our souls.  Then we are born again in our bodies, whether they are the brethren that had physically died and will be raised up in the resurrection on the last day, or whether it is the elect brethren that are still physically alive on that last day, and yet have entered into the condition of “hell,” or the grave, as God has turned the nations into hell in the Day of Judgment.  We will all rise up from the dead, just as the Lord Jesus, the firstborn from the dead, did so at the foundation of the world, and He rose again to be declared the Son of God.  We are also declared sons of God as we rise from the pit of “hell,” and we rise up, transformed and made new.  We are new creatures, the spiritual Israel of God and the brethren of Christ, just as Joseph was seeking his brethren, the children of Israel.

But unfortunately, Joseph’s brethren had wandered off.  They were not at Shechem, and he did not know where they had gone.  And what about the sheep?  It was not just his brethren, but he was to seek the welfare of the flock to see if things were well with the flock.  Was there peace with the flock.  Of course the brethren, as well as the flock, are painting spiritual pictures of the Gospel going to God’s elect people. 

But the brethren that should have been feeding the flock can also be a picture of the corporate church.  And they can also represent national Israel since they are the children of Israel, and here it seems more focused at this point on national Israel at the time of Christ’s first coming because of the response of the brothers when they saw him afar off, and they conspired against him to kill him.  And that is exactly what happened when Jesus entered into the nation of Israel.  Right away they conspired to kill him as Herod consulted with the chief priests of Israel regarding where Christ should be born, and he soon plotted to kill Christ.  Herod killed all the children that were two years of age and under in the area of Bethlehem, according to the time he had found out from the wise men.

So this story of Joseph coming to his brethren is certainly pointing to the first coming of Christ.  But again, why was he wandering in the field?  Why did it require a certain man to find him and to ask him what he was seeking, and then to set him on the correct road to where his brethren could be found?

Lord willing, when we get together in our next Bible study, we will try to answer that question, as well as other questions that will arise, as God has many mysteries that are hidden in His wonderful Word.