John Wesley

During her severe labor, the midwife said to her, “Do not be afraid, for you are having another son.”

“We are apt in extreme perils to comfort ourselves and our friends with the hopes of a temporal deliverance, in which we may be disappointed; we had better ground our comforts on that which cannot fail us, the hope of eternal life.”

Jacob set up a pillar on her grave; it marks Rachel’s tomb to this day.

“And Jacob set up a pillar upon her grave - So that it was known long after to be Rachel's sepulchre, 1 Sam. x, 2, and Providence so ordered it, that this place afterwards fell in the lot of Benjamin.”

While Israel was living in that region, Reuben went in and slept with his father’s concubine Bilhah, and Israel heard about it. Jacob had twelve sons:

“Though perhaps Bilhah was the greater criminal, yet Reuben's crime was so provoking that for it he lost his birth-right and blessing, chap. xlix, 4.”

This is the account of Esau (that is, Edom).

“To shew the performance of the promise to Abraham, that he should be the father of many nations, and of that answer which Rebekah had from the oracle she consulted, Two nations are in thy womb; and of the blessing of Isaac, Thy dwelling shall…”

These are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom before any king reigned over the Israelites:

“God had lately promised Jacob that kings shall come out of his loins: yet Esau's blood becomes royal long before any of Jacob's did.”

“Do you intend to reign over us?” his brothers asked. “Will you actually rule us?” So they hated him even more because of his dream and his statements.

“Thou that art the youngest, over us that are elder? The reign of Jesus Christ, our Joseph, is despised and striven against by an unbelieving world, who cannot endure to think that this man should reign over them.”

Now Joseph’s brothers saw him in the distance, and before he arrived, they plotted to kill him.

“And when they saw him afar off they conspired against him - It was not in a heat, or upon a sudden provocation, that they thought to slay him, but from malice propense, and in cold blood.”

Then Judah said to his brothers, “What profit will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood?

“What profit is it if we slay our brother? - It will be less guilt and more gain to sell him.”

All his sons and daughters tried to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. “No,” he said. “I will go down to Sheol mourning for my son.”

“He refused to be comforted - He resolved to go down to the grave mourning; Great affection to any creature doth but prepare for so much the greater affliction, when it is either removed from us, or embittered to us: inordinate love commonly ends in…”

What he did was wicked in the sight of the LORD, so He put Onan to death as well.

“Those sins that dishonour the body are very displeasing to God, and the evidence of vile actions. Observe, the thing which he did displeased the Lord - And it is to be feared, thousands, especially of single persons, by this very thing, still displeased the…”

Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, “Live as a widow in your father’s house until my son Shelah grows up.”

“Some think that Judah never intended to marry Shelah to Tamar, but unjustly suspected her to have been the death of her two former husbands, (whereas it was their own wickedness that slew them) and then sent her to her father's house, with a charge…”

she removed her widow’s garments, covered her face with a veil to disguise herself, and sat at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the way to Timnah.

“Some excuse this by suggesting that she believed the promise made to Abraham and his seed, particularly that of the Messiah, and that she was therefore desirous to have a child by one of that family, that she might have the honour, or at least…”

“Let her keep the items,” Judah replied. “Otherwise we will become a laughingstock. After all, I did send her this young goat, but you could not find her.”

“Lest he should be laughed at as a fool for trusting a whore with his signet and his bracelets. He expresses no concern about the sin, only about the shame.”

And as she was giving birth, one of them put out his hand; so the midwife took a scarlet thread and tied it around his wrist.

“It should seem the birth was hard to the mother, by which she was corrected for her sin: the children also, like Jacob and Esau, struggled for the birth-right, and Pharez who got it, is ever named first, and from him Christ descended.”

No one in this house is greater than I am. He has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife.

“How can I sin against God - Not only how shall I do it and sin against my master, my mistress, myself, my own body and soul, but against God?”

So Joseph’s master took him and had him thrown into the prison where the king’s prisoners were confined. While Joseph was there in the prison,

“Where the king's prisoners were bound - Potiphar, it is likely, chose that prison because it was the worst; for there the irons entered into the soul, Psalm cv, 18, but God designed it to pave the way to his enlargement.”

the LORD was with him and extended kindness to him, granting him favor in the eyes of the prison warden.

“But the Lord was with Joseph and shewed him mercy. God despiseth not his prisoners, Psalm lxix, 33. No gates nor bars can shut out his gracious presence from his people.”

For I was kidnapped from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing for which they should have put me in this dungeon.”

“He doth not reflect upon his brethren that sold him, only saith, I was stolen out of the land of the Hebrews.”

In the morning his spirit was troubled, so he summoned all the magicians and wise men of Egypt.

“His spirit was troubled - It cannot but put us into a concern to receive any extraordinary message from heaven. And his magicians were puzzled; the rules of their art failed them; these dreams of Pharaoh did not fall within the compass of them.”

And Pharaoh declared to Joseph, “I am Pharaoh, but without your permission, no one in all the land of Egypt shall lift his hand or foot.”

“The brightest glories of the upper world are upon him, the highest trusts lodged in his hand, and all power given him both in heaven and earth.”

Then they said to one another, “Surely we are being punished because of our brother. We saw his anguish when he pleaded with us, but we would not listen.

“We are very guilty concerning our brother - We do not read that they said this during their three days imprisonment; but now when the matter was come to some issue, and they saw themselves still embarrassed, they began to relent.”

But Jacob replied, “My son will not go down there with you, for his brother is dead, and he alone is left.

“My son shall not go down with you - He plainly intimates a distrust of them, remembering that he never saw Joseph since he had been with them; therefore Benjamin shall not go with you.”

I will guarantee his safety. You may hold me personally responsible.

“Judah's conscience had lately smitten him for what he had done a great while ago against Joseph; and as an evidence of the truth of his repentance, he is ready to undertake, as far as a man could do it, for Benjamin's security.”

When Joseph came home, they presented him with the gifts they had brought, and they bowed to the ground before him.

“When they brought him the present, they bowed themselves before him, and again, when they gave him an account of their father's health, they made obeisance, and called him, Thy servant, our father - Thus were Joseph's dreams fulfilled more and more; and even the…”

Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph! Is my father still alive?” But they were unable to answer him, because they were terrified in his presence.

“I am Joseph - They knew him only by his Egyptian name, Zaphnath-paaneah, his Hebrew name being lost and forgot in Egypt; but now he teaches them to call him by that, I am Joseph: nay, that they might not suspect it was another of…”