Genesis 37:2 - 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.
Maybe I shouldn't wonder about this one, but I do. What was in the bad report? These guys are out in the fields watching sheep -- trying to keep the wild animals and thieves away and rescuing the sheep from their stupid selves. How much trouble can you get into doing that? Apparently enough, if you work at it.
I don't want to speculate too much on what could have been in the bad report. Maybe it was just that the brothers were picking on Joseph. After all, "they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him."
I wonder if Joseph trumped up the charges against his brothers in return. Perhaps (humanly speaking) what the brothers were saying or doing wasn't all that bad, and Joseph blew it out of proportion, knowing that Dad was sure to believe him.
What I really should be wondering about is what Dad did after hearing the bad report. Did he check it out? Did he take it at face value? Did he punish anyone? (These sons are generally in their 20s and 30s though.) Did he at least reprimand anyone who had done wrong? In other words, I wonder if he was trying to be a good father in this particular instance. I know how tough that can be at times.
I believe the answer to what the "bad report" contained is found in the second half of Genesis 49:6
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