Adam Clarke's Bible Commentary Verse 3. A coat of many colours.] µysp tntk kethoneth passim, a coat made up of stripes of differently coloured cloth. Similar to this was the toga praetexta of the Roman youth, which was white, striped or fringed with purple; this they wore till they were seventeen years of age, when they changed it for the toga virilis, or toga pura, which was all white. Such vestures as clothing of distinction are worn all over Persia, India, and China to the present day. It is no wonder that his brethren should envy him, when his father had thus made him such a distinguished object of his partial love. We have already seen some of the evils produced by this unwarrantable conduct of parents in preferring one child to all the rest. The old fable of the ape and her favourite cub, which she hugged to death through kindness, was directed against such foolish parental fondnesses as these.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 1-4 - In Joseph's history we see something of Christ, who was first humble and then exalted. It also shows the lot of Christians, who must throug many tribulations enter into the kingdom. It is a history that has non like it, for displaying the various workings of the human mind, bot good and bad, and the singular providence of God in making use of the for fulfilling his purposes. Though Joseph was his father's darling yet he was not bred up in idleness. Those do not truly love their children, who do not use them to business, and labour, and hardships The fondling of children is with good reason called the spoiling of them. Those who are trained up to do nothing, are likely to be good for nothing. But Jacob made known his love, by dressing Joseph finer tha the rest of his children. It is wrong for parents to make a differenc between one child and another, unless there is great cause for it, by the children's dutifulness, or undutifulness. When parents make difference, children soon notice it, and it leads to quarrels in families. Jacob's sons did that, when they were from under his eye which they durst not have done at home with him; but Joseph gave his father an account of their ill conduct, that he might restrain them Not as a tale-bearer, to sow discord, but as a faithful brother.
Original Hebrew וישׂראל3478 אהב157 את853 יוסף3130 מכל3605 בניו1121 כי3588 בן1121 זקנים2208 הוא1931 לו ועשׂה6213 לו כתנת3801 פסים׃6446
