Someone has famously said, "These kids nowadays! You buy them books, send them to school, and they grow up to be just like you."
In the "school" of life Jacob might have learned something about the ill effects of parental favoritism. Jacob had been the favorite of his mother, Rebekah; and Esau had been the favorite of his father, Isaac. Their parents' favoritism, in part, had set the brothers, Jacob and Esau, against one another. So as he had grown up, Jacob had experienced some of the negative consequences of parental favoritism firsthand. He knew something about it, but did he know enough not to practice it himself? Apparently not!
Years and years pass by. Jacob has a big family--12 sons by 2 wives and 2 concubines. I can't imagine any good purpose to be served by showing favoritism to any of his children. Yet Jacob replicates his father's behavior (Genesis 37:3). As Isaac had shown favoritism to his son Esau, so Jacob shows favoritism to his son, Joseph. Jacob sows dissent and hatred among his sons, just as his father, Isaac, had done.
I sense deep mystery in another of Jacob's sons--Reuben. On the one hand, he is no paragon of virtue. He had sexual relations with Bilhah, one of his father's concubines (Genesis 35:22). Yet when the sons of Jacob plot to kill Joseph, Reuben steps in to attempt a rescue (Genesis 37:21).
It can be said of anyone, I suppose: "You are a good egg...but slightly cracked."
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