And she called his name Joseph; and said, The LORD shall add to me another son.
Joseph was born among the sons given to Jacob while Jacob lived in the land of the children of the East, where he served Laban fourteen years for his two daughters. That birth stands in the interval between the morning after his dream at Bethel and his departure from Haran to return toward Canaan. His mother bore him there, and her place in the brief record of his early life shows she had great influence in forming his character. She gave him counsel and training during his first twelve or fifteen years.
That birth falls within Jacob's checkered and unsatisfactory experiences, marked by selfish plotting and by the suffering that followed such plotting. In those experiences God's providence brings retribution sooner or later. It belongs also to Jacob's polygamous family life, which plainly violates the marriage institution established for man before the fall. Yet that violation does not destroy the sacred character of marriage, just as violating the Sabbath would not destroy the sacred character of the Sabbath.
The history of that polygamous family proves that polygamy brings very great unhappiness into every family where it enters. Polygamy was never anything but evil and wrong, even though it was allowed through the whole Old Testament period. It was tolerated because of hardness of heart, while the true standard remains the original order of marriage in Eden.
Joseph was born among the sons given to Jacob while Jacob lived in the land of the children of the East, where he served Laban fourteen years for his two daughters. That birth stands in the interval between the morning after his dream at Bethel and his departure from Haran to return toward Canaan. His mother bore him there, and her place in the brief record of his early life shows she had great influence in forming his character. She gave him counsel and training during his first twelve or fifteen years.
That birth falls within Jacob's checkered and unsatisfactory experiences, marked by selfish plotting and by the suffering that followed such plotting. In those experiences God's providence brings retribution sooner or later. It belongs also to Jacob's polygamous family life, which plainly violates the marriage institution established for man before the fall. Yet that violation does not destroy the sacred character of marriage, just as violating the Sabbath would not destroy the sacred character of the Sabbath.
The history of that polygamous family proves that polygamy brings very great unhappiness into every family where it enters. Polygamy was never anything but evil and wrong, even though it was allowed through the whole Old Testament period. It was tolerated because of hardness of heart, while the true standard remains the original order of marriage in Eden.