Genesis 37:19-21
And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams. And Reuben heard it, and he delivered him out of their hands; and said, Let us not kill him.

This is dark.

Joseph is not coming with a weapon in his hand. He is not coming to threaten them. He is not coming to take anything from them. He is coming in obedience to his father, seeking his brothers, and they look up and say, “Behold, this dreamer cometh.”

That is how hatred talks.

He is not “our brother” anymore. He is not Joseph anymore. He is “this dreamer.” Hatred always dehumanizes. It reduces a person to a label. It strips away tenderness. It strips away relationship. It turns a man into a problem to be solved.

And then the hatred that has been simmering finally says out loud what it has been wanting to say all along.

Let us slay him.

That is where envy goes if it is left alone.

It starts with resentment. Then sarcasm. Then coldness. Then conspiracy. Sin never sits still. It always moves. And these brothers actually think that if they can kill Joseph, they can kill the dream too. “We shall see what will become of his dreams,” they say.

But men never cancel the purposes of God by attacking the one to whom God has spoken.

They think they are ending the story.

They are only stepping into it.

And again, Joseph is such a picture of Jesus. For when Jesus came, men reacted the same way. Before the cross ever happened, the hostility was already there. The resolve to get rid of Him was already working. The beloved Son came, and sinful men said, in effect, “We will not have this man.”

So Joseph comes, and they want him dead.

Jesus comes, and they want Him dead.

That is the tragedy of the human heart.

But then you have Reuben.

Reuben hears what they are saying, and to his credit, he does step in. He does deliver Joseph out of their hands, at least for the moment. He says, “Let us not kill him.” So there is something right in him. There is something in him that knows this has gone too far.

But Reuben is still a weak man.

That is the problem.

He wavers. He hesitates. He does not know how to stand cleanly, firmly, decisively. He wants to stop the bloodshed, but he does not really know how to confront the evil. He is trying to manage the situation without taking a straight stand against it.

And in that way, he reminds me a lot of Pilate.

Pilate knew Jesus was innocent. Pilate knew the whole thing stank. Pilate tried to dodge it, delay it, wash his hands of it. But a weak man can still end up serving evil, even if he talks like he wants no part of it.

That is Reuben here.

He is better than the others in this moment, yes. But he is not steady. And there is a warning in that.

Because it is not enough to privately dislike what is wrong. It is not enough to feel uneasy about evil. There are times a man must stand up plainly and say, “No. This is wrong.” Reuben does not quite do that. He intervenes, but he wobbles. He helps, but not with strength. He delays the evil, but he does not deal with it.

And a wavering man causes a lot of damage.

We all know people like that. Maybe we have been that kind of person ourselves. You see something wrong. You know something is off. You feel the check in your spirit. But instead of standing straight, you soften it, stall it, talk around it, try to keep everybody happy, and call that wisdom.

It is not wisdom.

It is weakness.

And weakness in a crucial moment can be just as dangerous as open hostility.

So this scene gives us three things.

You have hatred in the brothers.

You have instability in Reuben.

And right in the middle of it all, you have Joseph, the obedient son, hated not because he did evil, but because of who he was and what God had shown him.

That sounds a whole lot like Jesus.

And there is a word in that for us.

First, guard your heart against bitterness. Because bitterness does not stay in the realm of words. It keeps moving. It hardens. It escalates. It starts by calling a man “this dreamer,” and before long it is saying, “Let us slay him.” That is the way sin works.

Second, ask the Lord to save you from being a Reuben kind of man. Not openly evil, maybe. Not as bad as the others, maybe. But unstable. Hesitating. Half stepping when righteousness calls for firmness. Dear friends, I do not want to be merely less wrong than the next man. I want to be right before the Lord.

And third, thank God for the greater Joseph.

Thank God for Jesus Christ, who walked right into the hatred of men and was not turned aside. Men plotted. Weak men wavered. Crowds shifted. Leaders washed their hands. But none of that stopped the will of the Father.

Not for Joseph.

Not for Jesus.

And not for one moment in your life either.

Beloved, men may hate. Men may conspire. Men may wobble when they ought to stand. But what God has spoken will stand. The dream stood. The purpose stood. Christ stood. And all that the Father has determined concerning His Son will stand forever.