(Catch up on the series here.)

Deceit can be a generational cycle.

After the brothers sold Joseph, they took the coat they’d stripped from him and dipped it in the blood of a goat they butchered. Then, they took the coat to Jacob and said, We found this. Look it over—do you think this is your son’s coat? (37:32, MSG) Notice that they called Joseph your son, not our brother. Nor did they call him by name. In addition, they pretended they didn’t know the coat belonged to Joseph by approaching Jacob with a question instead of a fact.

Immediately, Jacob recognized the coat. Imagine his wailing cry: My son’s coat—a wild animal has eaten him. Joseph torn limb from limb! (37:33, MSG) Jacob tore his clothes in grief and mourned inconsolably for a long time. His sons (and daughters) tried to comfort him, but he refused their efforts.

Let’s take a quick look at the cycle of deception in Jacob’s family: Abraham and Isaac, Jacob’s grandfather and father, had both lied about their wives, passing them off as their sisters in order to protect themselves. Jacob stole his brother’s birthright by deceiving his father. Finally, his own sons had deceived him into believing their brother was dead. With each generation, the deception worsened.

The roots of each instance of deception throughout the generations were self-protection and profit at the expense of other family members.

All families have patterns that are repeated throughout generations. Some are healthy, and some are dysfunctional; either way, there’s usually a particular thread that runs through all the generations, weaving them together. In Joseph’s story, that thread was deception.

Deception is different from lying in that it’s a falsehood used to gain an advantage over someone. An advantage is when there’s a circumstance that puts someone in a favorable or superior position. The brothers finally gained an advantage over Joseph: they were physically free of the favored son. Perhaps each of them secretly hoped they’d secure the vacant position of Jacob’s favored son. But deception never works out quite like the deceiver believes it will.

We’ll see later in the story how Joseph handled the generational cycle of deception in his family.