Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #43 in Genesis 37.   We are going to read Genesis 37:31-33:

And they took Joseph's coat, and killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the coat in the blood; And they sent the coat of many colours, and they brought it to their father; and said, This have we found: know now whether it be thy son's coat or no. And he knew it, and said, It is my son's coat; an evil beast hath devoured him; Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces.

I will stop reading there.  We know the situation.  Joseph’s brothers were envious of him because of his relationship with his father, and also because of his dreams that did not show them in a good light and as in subjection to him.  It pointed to the relationship of national Israel with Christ.  Remember the brothers of Joseph are the children of Israel, as Jacob is “Israel,” and they would form the basis of the twelve tribes of Israel.  And it was the nation of Israel that was envious of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah, and they did not want to be in submission to Him.

Now the brothers had done an evil deed.  They sold Joseph to Midianite traders, and in turn, the Midianites sold Joseph into Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh and captain of the guard, as we read in the last verse of this chapter.  That will be significant when we get to chapter 39 because this account will resume, and we will see what happened to Joseph.

In the meantime, the brothers had to give an explanation to their father about what happened to his favorite son that he loved above all, so they decided to tell Jacob that Joseph had been killed.  They did this by taking his coat of many colours and dipping it into the blood of a goat they killed.  Back then, they had no way of knowing if blood was human or animal, as they were unable to perform any tests on it.  The police would not be involved as they are today when it would be found to be a fabrication.  Can you imagine if this happened today, and a group of brothers did something nefarious, or wicked, to one of their brothers, and then they took his coat and dipped it into animal blood, and brought it home?  The police would figure it out quickly through lab tests, but back then there were no police, no laboratories, or the ability to do the things they do today in police work. 

So Jacob was just faced with a bloody coat, and it was no doubt that it was Joseph’s coat because he had given that coat to Joseph, and it was a coat that stood out due to its many colours.  So Jacob concluded that an evil beast had devoured him.  Notice how this was stated in Genesis 37:33: “And he knew it, and said, It is my son's coat; an evil beast hath devoured him; Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces.”  Where it says, “without doubt rent in pieces,” it is the same word repeated twice, and God does this for emphasis, like He did in Genesis 2:17 where God literally said, “…dying thou shalt die.”  Because it is repeated, it has double emphasis which means it was certain to have happened, and that is why the translators translated it as “without doubt,” but it actually says, “rent in pieces, rent in pieces.”  It is that strong emphasis indicating it was a certain thing that had happened.

However, that was not the actual case.  Joseph had not been rent in pieces.  He was still alive, and at that time he may have still been on his way to Egypt in that caravan.  If only they had told the truth, Jacob could have gotten his men together and gone after the caravan, and then paid them whatever price they wanted to purchase his son and take him safely home.  But they did not tell the truth.

It is interesting that it is so obvious that they are lying.   They are being deceitful.  It is very obvious that they knew what happened to Joseph, but notice how coyly they came to their father.  It was probably with much trepidation and fear.  This was their father, and they did not want to lie to him, and they may even have been afraid that he might perceive the deception because he would have known them very well.  So this is how they presented it.  They showed the coat to him, and they did not say, “Here is Joseph’s coat, and it is covered with his blood because he was devoured by an evil beast.”  They did not say any of that, and they did not even say that it was Joseph’s coat.  They said in verse 32: “This have we found: know now whether it be thy son's coat or no.”  They are saying, “We found this?  Is this your son Joseph’s coat, or not?”  Then they let Jacob make the assertion in verse 33 that it was his son’s coat.  They also allowed Jacob’s imagination to go on to conclude that “an evil beast hath devoured him; Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces.” 

That would have been a natural assumption in those days.  Today we would probably think it was more than likely evil men, rather than a beast, because there is so much evil happening in the world.  But this was a time when there were not all that many people, and the evil of man’s heart was often restrained by God.  Things like serial killers and mass murders that are so common in our society were not so common back then.  So they would just think, “What could have done such a thing?”  Also, the fact that there was no body found would have led Joseph to consider that an evil beast could have devoured him.  A lion or bear could have devoured him, and even took his body to its lair or cave, never to be found.

So that was Jacob’s assumption.  “an evil beast hath devoured him; Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces.”   And his sons were probably relieved because they did not have to design any further lies, or fill in the  “blanks” with these things, because Jacob had said it himself, and they just let him believe it.

You know, sometimes people think that they are not lying because they are not specifically telling someone something.  It is a way of trying to justify their own sins.  But they were lying, and Jacob’s misunderstanding of what happened to Joseph is all their fault due to their lack of honesty in telling him what had happened.

What a terrible thing it would be for a father to think that his beloved son had been ripped in pieces and devoured by an evil beast.  It is really a cruel thing that these sons of Israel did to Joseph and to their father, not to mention the grief and sorrow, as we will read later: “He refused to be comforted; and he said, For I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning.”  The tremendous sorrow and the breaking of his heart was so terrible a thing for them to thrust upon their own father.  He was an old man, over a hundred years old, and it was all just to cover it up and protect themselves from the thing they had done.  It was a horrible crime that each of these brothers committed against Joseph and their father.

When Jacob concluded that it was his son’s coat, and he said, “an evil beast hath devoured him; Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces,”  he is hitting the mark in the sense that he is right on target regarding the spiritual meaning.  Remember that Joseph is a type of Christ, and his brethren turned on him, rejected him, and sold him to the Midianite traders, and that all pointed to the first coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Christ came to the children of Israel, the descendants of these men, and the children of Israel rejected Christ.   They wanted nothing to do with Him, and they ended up killing him by turning him over to the Romans, and even paying Judas to betray Him, and so forth.  So we see a picture of that. 

The idea of “evil beast” ties in with those that are wicked.  They may have a relationship to God, like the children of Israel in the Old Testament, or professed Christians in the New Testament, and yet God identifies them with “evil beasts.”  It says in Titus 1:10:

For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision:

And who were those of the circumcision?  They were Jews.  Then it says in Titus 1:11-14:

Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake. One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith; Not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth.

Here, the Lord speaks of those “of the circumcision” that heed Jewish fables, and they are identified as being “evil beasts,” and that is because evil beasts “devour.”  Spiritually, that is what happens with false gospels and false doctrines.  They devour and destroy, and, ultimately, they “rent in pieces” because that pictures being under the wrath of God.  They do not deliver souls from the wrath of God, but they turn souls over to the wrath of God, or guarantee that they will come under the wrath of God, through the lies they proclaim in their false gospels. 

It says concerning false prophets in 2Peter 2:10-12:

But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities. Whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the Lord. But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption;

They are called “brute beasts,” and it is referring to those who lack understanding.  They have natural minds, so God says they are “natural brute beasts.”  A natural-minded individual is an unsaved individual.  He cannot understand the Bible because the Bible is a spiritual book, and we must compare spiritual with spiritual, allowing the Holy Ghost to teach.  If we insert natural understanding, there will be no coming to truth through the teaching of the Holy Spirit.

It says in Jude 1:10-14:

But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves. Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core. These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.

An ”evil beast” is what Jacob said had devoured his son Joseph.  Spiritually speaking, that is exactly who devoured the Lord Jesus Christ when He was betrayed and was tried before the high priest of Israel.  Then false witnesses rose again Him, and then they turned Him over to the Romans for crucifixion, although Pilot had confirmed that he had found no fault at all in Him.  And yet they insisted that He not be released but crucified, as they also declared, “We have no king but Caesar.”  They were saying, in effect, that Christ was not their King, but Satan was their king.

So that is the spiritual picture that is happening.  It is telling us of the time of the cross and afterwards.  In the next study, we are going to look at the statement, “Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces,” and the word translated as “rent in pieces” is a word that will direct us to the cross, and afterwards to Jacob’s period of mourning, and we will see the spiritual meaning of that.