Fathers and Adult Sons: Jacob and Joseph: From Long Grief to Lasting Grace

Ken Kalis
5 days ago
4 min read

Jacob gives Joseip a coat of many colors.

I too was a favorite young son of my father's old age.

This blessing alienated me with my brothers.
My vanity and ambition took me away to a far country.
But God restored me to my father for his last days.

My father's love shaped me and led me to live for Him.

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Last week, we looked at Jacob as a father to many sons—grown men shaped by rivalry, resentment, and unresolved wounds. His household was large, complex, and often painful. Some relationships ended in open conflict; others seemed to fade into silence. We closed with an unfinished question: can a fractured family, marked by favoritism and regret, ever be healed?

This week, we follow one of those unfinished threads. The story of Joseph stretches across decades of loss and longing, and it brings us—unexpectedly—to restoration. No other father in Scripture walks such a long road with an adult son, nor discovers so late that God has been quietly at work all along.

Jacob's Favored Son

Joseph is born to Jacob in his old age, the first son of Rachel, the wife Jacob loved above all others. From the beginning, Joseph is set apart—by his father’s affection and by God’s early dealings with him. His dreams speak of authority and purpose, though neither he nor his father yet understands their cost.

Jacob’s favoritism is unmistakable. The coat he gives Joseph is not merely clothing; it is a public declaration. In a family already strained by rivalry, it becomes a spark. Jacob, who once deceived his own father, fails to see how his partiality places Joseph in danger.

A Father’s Long Grief

When Joseph’s brothers sell him into slavery and deceive Jacob into believing he is dead, Jacob is shattered.

“I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning.” (Genesis 37:35)

This is not brief sorrow. For more than twenty years, Jacob lives with unresolved grief. The man who once grasped for blessing now believes blessing has been taken from him.

Joseph is gone, and Jacob assumes that God’s favor has gone with him. Yet the story is not over.

God’s Hidden Work

While Jacob mourns, God is shaping Joseph through suffering. Slave, prisoner, forgotten servant—each descent prepares him for responsibility he does not yet imagine.

What his brothers intended for evil, God is turning toward good.

Jacob, meanwhile, continues his life as a father of adult sons marked by fear and loss.

Benjamin, Rachel's second child, becomes his last comfort, and Jacob clings to him with anxious love. He cannot bear another separation. His fatherhood is defined by what he has lost—and what he fears losing again.

Reunion Beyond Hope

Famine forces Jacob’s sons to Egypt, and the impossible becomes real. Joseph is alive. More than alive—he is exalted.

When Jacob and Joseph are reunited, there is no rebuke, no settling of accounts. There is only gratitude.

“Now let me die, since I have seen thy face, because thou art yet alive.” (Genesis 46:30)

Jacob’s long years of grief give way to quiet peace. In Egypt, his final season is marked not by striving but by blessing.

A Father Changed

In his last days, Jacob blesses Joseph’s sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, crossing his hands to give the greater blessing to the younger. Once again, God overturns human expectation—and Jacob accepts it without protest.

The schemer has learned trust.

Jacob’s final blessing of Joseph is rich and generous, spoken by a man who now sees that God’s purposes outlast grief, failure, and time itself.

Fathers and Adult Sons

The story of Jacob and Joseph reminds us that broken chapters are not final chapters. Long silences may hide God’s deepest work. A father’s mistakes do not cancel God’s promises, and a son’s suffering may become the means of salvation for many.

This story also points us forward—to the greater Son who was rejected by His own, suffered unjustly, and was exalted to save those who betrayed Him. In Joseph, we glimpse a mercy that finds its fullness in Jesus Christ.

Closing Prayer

Lord God, teach us to trust You in the long years when we do not understand Your ways. Heal the wounds between fathers and sons, and help us to believe that You are still at work, even when hope seems delayed. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Discussion Questions

How does Jacob’s long grief shape his later faith?
In what ways does Joseph model forgiveness toward his family?
What encouragement does this story offer to parents of adult children they cannot protect or control?

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Farther along we’ll know all about it,

Farther along we’ll understand why;

Cheer up, don't worry, live in the sunshine,

We’ll understand it all by and by.

2 When death has come and taken our loved ones,

It leaves our home so lonely and drear;

Then do we wonder why others prosper,

Living so wicked year after year. [Refrain]

3 Faithful till death said our loving Master,

A few more days to labor and wait;

Toils of the road will then seem as nothing,