Genesis 37:2

2. Seventeen years old Or, according to the Hebrew idiom, a son of seventeen years . The historian (according to his usual custom noticed in the earlier parts of Genesis) goes back a little, and commences his new section at a point previous to Isaac’s death . Comp . Genesis 35:27, note .

The lad was with the sons Hebrews, and he a lad, with the sons of Bilhah . Some understand this to mean that he was a lad along with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah; that is, he was nearer their age than the ages of the sons of Leah, and hence fed the flocks along with them . Others construe the words with the sons of Bilhah, etc . , with feeding the flock, and understand that, as he was too young to be trusted alone, he fed the flock in company with these older brothers; perhaps, says Newhall, “because the sons of the concubines agreed with him better than did the sons of Leah . ” But a strict rendering of the whole verse is best made by throwing the words and he a lad in parenthesis, and construing the words sons of Bilhah, etc . , as appositional and epexegetical of his brethren, thus: Joseph, a son of seventeen years, was (in the habit of) shepherding his brethren in the flock, ( and he a mere lad,) even the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, wives of his father . That is, Joseph, when only seventeen, a mere boy, was in the habit of taking care of his brothers as if he were their shepherd; especially did he thus attend to the sons of the concubines . This seems to have been his first offence . The next was, his reporting to his father what was said of them; then his father’s partiality, shown in the costly garment, and, finally, his various dreams .

Their evil report Rather, “ an evil report concerning them, which he had heard from the inhabitants in the neighbourhood of the pasture ground, (Knobel, Lewis,) not their evil report, as A.V., which would require the article with the adjective; not any definite crime, not evil words which his brethren had said about him (Kimchi;) the phrase is purposely indefinite, and refers to a floating rumour which affected the character of his brethren.” (Delitzsch.) Newhall.