Christ Triumphant: Our Character Often Revealed in Our Children, March 25

Now 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. Genesis 37:3.

Jacob had chosen the inheritance of faith. He had endeavored to obtain it by craft, treachery, and falsehood; but God had permitted his sin to work out its correction.... The sin of Jacob, and the train of events to which it led, had not failed to exert an influence for evil—an influence that revealed its bitter fruit in the character and life of his sons....

There was one, however, of a widely different character—the elder son of Rachel, Joseph, whose rare personal beauty seemed but to reflect an inward beauty of mind and heart.... He listened to his father's instructions, and loved to obey God.... His mother being dead, his affections clung the more closely to the father, and Jacob's heart was bound up in this child of his old age....

But even this affection was to become a cause of trouble and sorrow. Jacob unwisely manifested his preference for Joseph, and this excited the jealousy of his other sons.... The father's injudicious gift to Joseph of a costly coat, or tunic, such as was usually worn by persons of distinction, seemed to them another evidence of his partiality.... Their malice was still further increased as the boy one day told them of a dream that he had had....

As the lad stood before his brothers, his beautiful countenance lighted up with the Spirit of Inspiration, they could not withhold their admiration; but they did not choose to renounce their evil ways, and they hated the purity that reproved their sins....

The brothers were obliged to move from place to place to secure pasturage for their flocks.... Some time passed, bringing no tidings from them, and the father began to fear for their safety.... He therefore sent Joseph to find them, and bring him word as to their welfare....

Joseph came on, unsuspicious of danger ...; but instead of the expected greeting, he was terrified by the angry and revengeful glances he met.... He was seized and his coat stripped from him.... Rudely dragging him to a deep pit, they thrust him in, and having made sure that there was no possibility of his escape, they left him there to perish from hunger, while they “sat down to eat bread.”

But some of them were ill at ease; they did not feel the satisfaction they had anticipated from their revenge. Soon a company of travelers was seen approaching.—Patriarchs and Prophets, 208-211.