Copyright © 2025 Michael A. Brown and Suela Brown
‘Now Israel loved Joseph
more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old
age; and he made a richly ornamented robe for him. When his brothers saw that their father loved
him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to
him… His brothers said to him, “Do you
intend to reign over us? Will you
actually rule us?” And they hated him
all the more because of his dream and what he had said... His brothers were jealous of him…’ (Gen. 37:3-4,8,11)
In family life, there is
invariably and unarguably a special bond between father and daughter, and
between mother and son. It is also often
true that one or more of the children can very much take after either of their
parents, clearly reflecting some of their physical traits and some of the
characteristics of their personality, such as in their temperament, in their
tastes, and in the way they think and respond.
Each parent may therefore find it easier to relate to one of their
children more than the others, because there is a mutual and natural
understanding between them.
We can see this in the family of the patriarch Isaac. Esau was very much ‘daddy’s boy,’ and one
particular reason why his father Isaac seems to have enjoyed him and related more
easily to him than to Jacob, was because Esau had the same preferences as his
father when it came to food. Isaac had a
taste for wild game, so Esau would go out and hunt for what Isaac wanted and
then prepare his favourite meal for him.
By contrast, Jacob was very much ‘mummy’s boy.’ He was quiet and was content to stay at home
in the family tents much of the time.
That Jacob was very close to his mother Rebekah is suggested by the
apparent ease with which he accepted and implemented her plan to deceive Isaac
over the birthright, and also by his implicit trust in her further plan to
protect him by sending him off to her relatives in Paddan Aram. However, this does not mean that Rebekah did
not love Esau, or that Isaac did not love Jacob. I am sure that they both had natural parental
affection for both of their children, but it does mean that they both related
more easily to one than to the other:
‘Isaac, who had a taste
for wild game, loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob.’ (Gen. 25:27-28, and cf. ch.27)
However, it is significant that even though a godly father like
Isaac related more easily to Esau, yet Esau himself turned out to be a godless
young man that despised his birthright and married two ungodly Hittite women
who became a source of grief to both of his parents (Heb. 12:16; Gen 26:34,
27:46). The fact that a godly parent may find
it easier to get on with one particular child is no guarantee that that child
will grow up to become a godly adult!
Taking this further, one of the mistakes any parent,
father or mother, can make is to favour one child above its siblings among
their children. All parents soon learn that their children are all
different from each other: two different sexes among them; some are easier to
deal with, whereas others can be more challenging and difficult; some are more
good-looking than others; some are more naturally talented and quicker to learn
than others, and so on. They are each uniquely created, and it is a
mistake to favour one above the others for whatever reason. If
favouritism is not pointed out, acknowledged and dealt with, then it can have
sometimes grievous long-term consequences for relationships within the
family. Wise parents will always try to communicate to their children
that they are each of special value to them and equally loved.
It is not long before the siblings of a favoured child begin to
harbour an inner sense of unfairness and frustration which in time develops
into irritation, resentment, jealousy, conflicts, and even hatred of the
favoured child. The favoured child gets more hugs and heart warmth than
they do; s/he gets special attention, whereas they may feel neglected or even
rejected; s/he gets less or even little discipline, often getting away with
wrongdoing, whereas they always seem to get the blame for anything that
happens, and so on.
In time, the favoured child him/herself develops a (perhaps
unconscious) belief that they can act, speak or behave in ways which many
people would consider inappropriate, and not expect to receive rebuke or
discipline. Not only do they get away with wrongdoing, they start to
believe that in fact they have done nothing wrong at all, and therefore there
simply isn’t anything in their attitudes or behaviour which deserves
discipline. So, although they love and have a closer relationship than their
siblings with the parent concerned, they become manipulative, spoiled and
inappropriate. As they grow up, they do not develop a clear distinction
between right and wrong behaviour in themselves.
If this trend is not challenged by the other parent or by the
grandparents, and if it continues unchanged into the child’s adulthood, then it
can well result in long-term separation and distance between the other siblings
and the favoured child. Hence, family relationships become
fractured. And of course, it also affects the interactions which the
favoured child/adult has with other adults outside the family when these are on
the receiving end of his/her inappropriate behaviour and attitudes.
The patriarch Jacob made this mistake with his son
Joseph. We can understand and appreciate why he loved Joseph in
particular: because he was the first son of Rachel, whom Jacob loved.
After enduring Laban’s mistreatment for many years, and after seeing Leah and
the two maidservants give birth to ten sons between them, it must have been a
special joy to Jacob to finally see Rachel giving birth (Gen. 29:31 –
30:24). There was always going to be a special bond between him and
Joseph. Joseph would have inherited some of the traits of his mother, and this
would undoubtedly have reminded Jacob of his beloved Rachel every single day while
Joseph was growing up.
However, to display such favour openly and repeatedly to Joseph
before his brothers was a big mistake on Jacob’s part. He ought to have considered the potential
effects of this on his other sons.[1] These sons (apart from Benjamin) were all
born to either Leah, Bilhah or Zilpah, and Jacob did not really love any of
these women. Rachel was the love of his
life. Jacob’s sons grew up in a complex blended
family which had a toxic atmosphere caused by the ongoing jealousy, envy and
insecurity of these four women towards each other, as the narrative repeatedly
indicates. The other ten sons knew that
their mothers were not really loved by their father Jacob, and this would have
caused each of them to inherit some kind of negative emotional baggage. And to top it all, to his brothers’ utter
frustration and chagrin, not only was Joseph their father’s favourite, and not
only did he get a special gift from his dad in the form of a richly ornamented
robe (which none of them had ever had), it also turned out from his dreams that
Joseph was apparently chosen by God himself for something special, and in
future years he was going to completely outshine his brothers!
Although Joseph was developing into a godly and righteous young
man who wanted to always do the right thing, he seems to have had little or no
wisdom at the tender young age of seventeen. Not only did he effectively
spy and inform on four of his brothers, no doubt getting them into trouble with
their dad (Gen. 37:2), he also acted unwisely in telling his brothers about his
two dreams. This wasn’t necessary at all, and he could simply have kept
his dreams to himself or at least between just himself and his father.
Was there an immature sense of arrogance and one-upmanship coming through
here? Whatever, the net result of all of this was to stir up jealousy,
seething anger and hatred in his brothers’ hearts towards Joseph, which eventually
developed into a conspiracy to kill him (Gen. 37:4,8,11,18).
We all know the rest of the story. From a human
perspective, Joseph’s brothers ganged up on him one day, acting out of anger
and hatred. They faked his death, and
got rid of him by selling him into slavery, in the hope that he would never
return. Joseph’s apparent death left Jacob their father utterly
heartbroken for many years, while the brothers kept the truth sealed up and
buried under a veil of silence. The whole family was fractured, and they ended
up being separated from Joseph for more than twenty years. I have no doubt that all of his brothers were
inwardly wracked by guilt every single day during all of that time.
Although grace eventually won through after many years, and
although forgiveness and reconciliation did take place, yet one question will
always remain. God did have a special purpose for Joseph, and he
providentially fulfilled this purpose in spite of and even through the very
negative things that happened. However, that does not justify the
mistakes that were made leading to the sin and fracture that took place in this
family. The question is this: just how much did Jacob’s favouritism towards
Joseph contribute to the tragic family situation which developed? Put
another way, how much of the long-term heartache that the whole family suffered
could have been avoided, if Jacob had not made the mistake of favouring one of
his children over the others?
The macro-lesson that every Christian parent needs to learn
from this, is that parenting our children is not an issue of personal preference. The dynamics described above from Jacob’s
family show us that we cannot afford to favour any one of our children above the
others. Parenting is a God-given privilege
which we must steward responsibly. Each
of our children are different, but they all have value and potential. We must see them through the eyes of God and
treat them equally, by giving each of them the same depth of attention, care
and love that we give the others.
And furthermore, this is not true only as they grow up, we
should also make sure that we treat them equally after we die in terms of how
we choose to distribute our worldly wealth and possessions in our last will and
testament. Unless we have good reason to
disinherit one or more of them, or to distribute our wealth and possessions
unequally, then to treat them differently in our will is to simply sow seeds of
resentment among them after we have departed from this life. Such resentment can carry on for years, and it
results in bitterness not just towards the preferred one(s), but also towards us
as their parents after we have passed away.
[1] We can see the opposite problem in Jesse’s family. David was the youngest of Jesse’s eight sons, and Jesse clearly seems to have preferred his other seven sons to David. He was evidently proud of them, but he left David aside out in the fields when Samuel came to his home, suggesting that he did not think very much of David and wanted to keep him out of the way. David must have felt rejected. Similarly, leading up to the situation with Goliath and the Philistines, David was kept at home to care for the sheep while his brothers all went off to war. The attitude of David’s eldest brother Eliab towards him was harsh and demeaning, and his reply to Eliab seems to indicate that their mistreatment and despising of him had become an ongoing pattern in the life of the family. Yet it was David who proved to be the one that God had chosen, rather than the others (1 Sam. 16:1-13, 17:28-29).
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