Cat Blue

Jo Penn August 09, 2026 6 0

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Genesis 37: 1-4, 12-28 (NIV-UK)

1 Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan.

2 This is the account of Jacob’s family line.

Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them.

3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made an ornate robe for him. 4 When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.

12 Now his brothers had gone to graze their father’s flocks near Shechem, 13 and Israel said to Joseph, ‘As you know, your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem. Come, I am going to send you to them.’

‘Very well,’ he replied.

14 So he said to him, ‘Go and see if all is well with your brothers and with the flocks, and bring word back to me.’ Then he sent him off from the Valley of Hebron.

When Joseph arrived at Shechem, 15 a man found him wandering around in the fields and asked him, ‘What are you looking for?’

16 He replied, ‘I’m looking for my brothers. Can you tell me where they are grazing their flocks?’

17 ‘They have moved on from here,’ the man answered. ‘I heard them say, “Let’s go to Dothan.”’

So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near Dothan. 18 But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.

19 ‘Here comes that dreamer!’ they said to each other. 20 ‘Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.’

21 When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. ‘Let’s not take his life,’ he said. 22 ‘Don’t shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him.’ Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father.

23 So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe – the ornate robe he was wearing – 24 and they took him and threw him into the cistern. The cistern was empty; there was no water in it.

25 As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt.

26 Judah said to his brothers, ‘What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? 27 Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.’ His brothers agreed.

28 So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels[a] of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt.

I once attended a summer festival workshop where the gathered group were asked to identify something in their outfit that encapsulated something about who they were. That day I was wearing a blue enamel cat badge on my cardigan, which I pointed to as my answer. The cat symbol spoke of my love of animals. Cats also have an ‘observer’ stance which is part of how I deal with being amongst a large group of people.

When preparing to attend a recent important meeting, I noticed that I was especially careful to choose clothes I felt confident in, to wear jewelry gifted to me by friends and family. These physical symbols of their love greatly helped me to courageously enter the room and contribute to the discussions.

In today’s Bible passage, Jacob awards his son Joseph an ornamented robe to physically represent his favouritism to the wider family. This robe (along with the ‘delusions of grandeur’ dreams of stars and sheaves) provoke anger and violence in the hearts of the Joseph’s brothers.

The wearing of this coat whilst on an errand to find his brothers seems to show that Joseph accepted his position of the ‘special one’ in his Father’s eyes. His gifting for dreams and their interpretations would be used to save his family from death by famine, and be the means through which his family became the established nation of Israel.

The special robe was not a cruel joke to provoke fratricide but had a deeper symbol of the ‘Saviour’ role that Joseph would play. Joseph later said to his brothers, ‘You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good.’ (See Genesis 50:20)

Joseph’s story of riches to rags to riches reminds me of the prodigal son parable in Luke 15, and also of Psalm 23:5:

‘You prepare a table for me

In the presence of my enemies.

You anoint my head with oil.

My cup overflows.’

Prayer for acceptance:

God, our Father,

You have a unique calling for each of us.

May I not be jealous of the callings given to others

but instead choose to wholeheartedly play my part in Your Kingdom’s story. Amen