01.15.2015 Old Testament: Gen 37.9–11

To read the Bible in a year, read Genesis 36–37 on January 15, In the year of our Lord 2015

By Don Ruhl

Envy has great power and those infected with it will do things they never thought they would do, harming others to get the fame, for example, that someone else has. Consider the story of Joseph in the Book of Genesis. The Lord gave him dreams, but watch his brothers,

Then he dreamed still another dream and told it to his brothers, and said, “Look, I have dreamed another dream. And this time, the sun, the moon, and the eleven stars bowed down to me.” So he told it to his father and his brothers; and his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall your mother and I and your brothers indeed come to bow down to the earth before you?” And his brothers envied him, but his father kept the matter in mind (Genesis 37.9–11). 

His brothers envied him for having a dream in which he had an elevated status. We know that eventually their envy caused them to seek to kill him, but later they sell him into slavery instead.

Watch out for envy. Do not let it enter your heart.