Genesis 37:3-4
They could not speak peaceably unto him
The coat is given and the hatred is recorded in the next verse. Nothing is said about the boy having earned it.
Objects of the Bible
The coat of many colours
A garment given to one son out of twelve, and returned to his father covered in the blood of a goat.
Israel loved Joseph more than all his children because he was the son of his old age, and he made him a coat of many colours. The Hebrew is uncertain and may describe sleeves reaching the wrists rather than dyes, which would make it a garment for someone who is not expected to work. Either way the brothers read it correctly. When they saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him.
Scroll down to the story
The movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of The coat of many colours
- 01
- 02
Genesis 37:23
They stript Joseph out of his coat
Before the pit, before the sale, the garment comes off. The first thing they take back is the visible part of the favour.
- 03
Genesis 37:31-33
Know now whether it be thy son’s coat
The lie is never spoken. They ask a question and let their father answer it, and he does: an evil beast hath devoured him.
- 04
Genesis 37:34-35
I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning
He refuses to be comforted. The mourning lasts twenty two years and every one of his sons knows why it need not.
Why it matters
The coat does the work of the chapter twice. They strip it off him first, before the pit, which is the point at which the favouritism is physically undone. Then they kill a kid of the goats, dip the coat in the blood, and send it to their father with a question rather than a statement: this have we found, know now whether it be thy son’s coat or no. Jacob identifies it himself and supplies the story. The deceiver of a blind father is deceived by a garment and an animal, which is exactly how he did it.
2 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
