Genesis 37:23
And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stript Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colours that was on him; And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stript Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colours that was on him;
At Dothan Joseph came to his brethren glad and joyful that his long search had at last succeeded, only to be met with scorn and abuse and terrifying fierceness of looks from his angry brothers. It was treatment such as he had never received before. His angry brothers met him with hostility in the cruel act that separated him from his home.
The coat stripped from him was the coat of many colors, the special garment marking his father's love for him. That garment had stirred his brothers' envy and created hatred against him.
They seized him immediately and stripped the coat from him with taunting remarks, hostile taunts, insulting words, and threats that made clear they intended him harm. The act expressed the envy and lack of pity controlling them. It cruelly separated him from his home amid his desperate appeals and their insulting words, making the betrayal deeply distressing to him.
He was entirely in their power and helpless in the hands of infuriated men whose hearts were insensible to pity and whose ears were deaf to anguish, so his entreaties to spare his life and his desperate appeals could not protect him. He expected they would kill him at once. His mind ran back to his home and his father and the blessing received at parting, and he anticipated the sorrow his father would feel at his death and the guilt of his murderers. Yet the eye of God was upon him, and his cries of distress reached God's throne.
The stripping belonged to his unjust persecution and humiliation despite his virtuous character and strength of purpose. It belonged to his brothers' rejection of him and selling him into slavery in an attempt to prevent his rise. His suffering for doing right did not mean God had abandoned him, for God overruled the humiliation so that Joseph came to rule over his brothers and save his family, and later gave him signal victories. The brothers' wrongdoing remains guilty even though God brought good from it.
As Joseph was stripped of his special coat by his own brethren, Jesus was stripped by His executioners who cast lots for His seamless coat. The rejection and suffering Joseph endured from his own prefigured the rejection, death, and suffering Christ endured from His own. The likeness is of one who came to his own and lived righteous and self-denying, yet was rejected and despised by his own because his righteousness rebukes corruption. As with Joseph, the enemies' crime was not made less guilty by God's overruling of events to make Christ the Redeemer of mankind.