And they sent the robe of many colors and brought it to their father and said, “This we have found; please identify whether it is your son's robe or not.”
Jacob's sons have sold Joseph, and now they must deal with the father who sent him. They hand him the blood-stained coat and ask a question instead of making a statement. Then they let the old man draw his own conclusion.
Deceit by suggestion
They never claim that Joseph is dead. They put an object in front of their father and leave him to supply the ending.
F. B. HoleVerses 31-35 recount the crafty way the brothers led Jacob to one conclusion: some evil beast had killed Joseph and eaten him. His brothers avoided telling a plain lie; they only implied it, and Jacob fell into their trap.
"Your son's robe"
The words they choose keep Joseph at arm's length. He is not "our brother" but "your son." The words push the whole weight of the loss back onto the father who loved him.
J. G. BellettWhat depths there are in the corruption that is in us! Here they took the favoured coat, the coat the old father had put on Joseph, and dipped it in blood. They sent it to their father with these words: "This we have found; please identify whether it is your son's robe or not." This is the language of Cain: "Am I my brother's keeper?" Cain was laying the burden of Abel's blood on the Lord. By these words he hinted that the Lord should have been Abel's keeper, since He had shown such regard for him and his offering. So these words of Joseph's brothers seem to lay the burden of Joseph's blood on the aged father. If he loved him as well as this coat seemed to say he did, he should have looked after him better than this blood seemed to say he had.
One sin, two victims
The same act wounds the brother who is gone and the father who remains.
Leslie M. GrantThey were guilty of cruel hatred both toward their brother and toward their father. They ask their father to examine the coat, to make sure it was Joseph's. Of course, in recognising it he assumed that a wild animal had killed and eaten his son. Apparently it did not occur to him to ask them if they had found bones in the area, or other pieces of clothing. For a wild animal would not be so careful as to hide everything else and leave only a bloodstained coat.
The deceiver deceived
Jacob is the victim here. He is also a man who once deceived his own father in the same way.
Hamilton SmithThey played a heartless trick on their father, and it plunges the old man into the deepest sorrow. Then these hypocrites gather round to comfort him. No one can excuse the wickedness of his sons. Even so, this scene shows Jacob only reaping what he had already sown. Thirty years before, Jacob had deceived his father with "the skins of the young goats." Now, after long years, his own sons deceive him with "a young goat." There may be long years between the sowing and the reaping, but at last the reaping time comes.
A shadow of a greater rejection
Commentators read Joseph here as a picture of Christ. The sharp point is why he was with them at all.
William KellyLike the Lord, Joseph was in his measure a vessel of divine wisdom in humiliation that deepened into the shadow of death. He was rejected and scorned most by his brothers, and sold to the Gentiles. His father had sent him to them on an errand of love, and that very errand gave them the chance to vent their hatred on his lowly and blameless head.
Hidden from everyone but God
The lie held for decades. But one witness saw everything.
G. C. WillisIt was very, very bad to deceive their old father like that. Even so, God saw all those things and did not forget... For more than twenty years they kept quiet about the goat's blood on the coat, so nobody knew it — but GOD.
Years later in Egypt, the same men faced a charge of theft they were innocent of. This time they did the opposite.
J. G. BellettThey had once hidden their guilt under the lie they sent to their father. Now they are willing to hide their innocence about the cup under the confession they make to Joseph.
Summary
- Cover. They avoided a flat lie and used an implication instead; Jacob "fell into their trap" all the same.
- Cruelty. Calling Joseph "your son" echoes Cain's "Am I my brother's keeper?" The brothers shift the burden onto the grieving father.
- Crop. Goat skins once deceived Jacob's own father; goat's blood now deceives Jacob. Long years may separate sowing from reaping, but the reaping comes.
- Christ. Joseph came on an errand of love from his father. That errand gave his brothers their chance to be rid of him — a shadow of One rejected the same way.
- Confession. Twenty years of silence ended in Egypt, where the men who once hid their guilt stopped hiding it at all.