3Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons, because he was the son of his old age; and he made him a varicolored tunic.
4His brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers; and so they hated him and could not speak to him on friendly terms.
5Then Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more.
Family dysfunction permeates many stories in the Bible. In this story, the obvious partiality Jacob had towards Joseph started a chain of events that led to his brothers hating Joseph and plotting his murder! Joseph didn't help the situation with his tattling, dream stories and sporting his flashy multicolored coat from Dad. What is amazing is that God was working all along with these imperfect people. The dreams were from God and set the stage for future events as we will see in the next chapters. In addition, Joseph could have easily been killed by his own brothers, but God protected Joseph and the brothers from that fate. God had plans and worked His plans through it all in spite of what mischief the people were doing.