Theologische Nuggets IV (Genesis 34 - 44:26)

Genesis 37:4

Als nun seine Brüder sahen, dass ihn ihr Vater lieber hatte als alle seine Brüder, wurden sie ihm feind und konnten ihm kein freundliches Wort sagen.

Man kann die Vorliebe für ein Kind selten gut verstecken. Vor allem dann nicht, wenn man ein teures Kleidungsstück für das Lieblingskind machen lässt. Er, der einer der jüngsten Kinder war, nervt die Brüder gewaltig. Er nervt und muss nicht einmal was dafür tun. Er ist jung, ein Kind und verpetzt. Er ist verwöhnt und wird von seinem Vater in Alltagssituationen wahrscheinlich mehr in Schutz genommen als alle anderen. Die Brüder hassen ihn. Ich kann es mir richtig bildlich vor Augen führen, wie sie ihn in den alltäglichsten Situation behandeln. Wie sie ihn ignorieren, mobben und belächeln. Zu was geschwisterlicher Hass fähig ist, wissen wir aus der Geschichte von Kain und Abel. Wie sehr sie ihn hassten ist vergleichbar mit dem Hass Esaus gegenüber Jakob. 

The sin of Jacob, and the train of events to which it led, had not failed to exert an influence for evil—an influence that revealed its bitter fruit in the character and life of his sons. As these sons arrived at manhood they developed serious faults. The results of polygamy were manifest in the household. This terrible evil tends to dry up the very springs of love, and its influence weakens the most sacred ties. The jealousy of the several mothers had embittered the family relation, the children had grown up contentious and impatient of control, and the father's life was darkened with anxiety and grief.There was one, however, of a widely different character—the elder son of Rachel, Joseph, whose rare personal beauty seemed but to reflect an inward beauty of mind and heart. Pure, active, and joyous, the lad gave evidence also of moral earnestness and firmness. He listened to his father's instructions, and loved to obey God.... His mother being dead, his affections clung the more closely to the father, and Jacob's heart was bound up in this child of his old age. He "loved Joseph more than all his children."But even this affection was to become a cause of trouble and sorrow. Jacob unwisely manifested his preference for Joseph, and this excited the jealousy of his other sons.... The father's injudicious gift to Joseph of a costly coat, or tunic, ... excited a suspicion that he intended to pass by his elder children, to bestow the birthright upon the son of Rachel.

Ellen Gould White, Conflict and Courage (Review and Herald, 1970), 72.

The habitual refusal of Joseph's brethren, therefore, to meet him with "the salaam," showed how ill-disposed they were towards him. It is very natural in parents to love the youngest, and feel partial to those who excel in talents or amiableness. But in a family constituted as Jacob's—many children by different mothers—he showed great and criminal indiscretion.

Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, und David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), 38.