generations] (Chap. 5. 1. &36. 1.) That is, the story of such things as came to him, and his family with reference unto the generation, or catalogue of his Issue set down before, Chap. 35. with the interposition of the generations of Esau, Chap. 36. to shew by way of comparison the different condition of Gods Church, and children, and of the families of the wicked. seventeene yeares old] Some Popish Translators say, sixteene yeares old, a manifest swerving from the Hebrew Text, and with it fron the Greek Seventy; from which some eminent Papists pretend a secret instinct of the Spirit in the Authour of that Translation, which is a glosse more corrupt then their Text; for if Joseph were seventeen, he was sixteen in truth of story though not of interpretation; but it can be no way true that Gods Spirit would correct in a Translation that which it had dictated in the Originall. with the sonnes of Bilhah, and] The sonnes of the handmaids, (it seemeth) were sorted together, and with them Joseph, because his mother Rachel was now dead, and he envyed perhaps by Leah, for his mothers sake; and by her sonnes, because he was the darling of his father; therefore Jacob for preservation of peace divided (as it is probable) both his women, children, and cattell into two companies; in the one was Leah, her sixe children, and a great part of his flock with them; in the other the handmaids, their children and Joseph with them; where Jacob might expect more safetie, because there lesse envie would follow the love of his father, or the preeminence which that might produce on Josephs behalfe. his fathers wives] Not properly so called, for Bilhah, Chap. 35. vers. 22. is called a concubine; yet they above others might be called wives, because their sonnes shared in the inheritance in the Land of Canaan with the sonnes of Rachel and Leah who were wives in a proper sense. See the difference betwixt a wife and a concubine, in Annot. on Chap. 22. vers. 24. their evill report] Which is thought to be some injurious usage or carriage towards Joseph; yet it may be besides that the sonnes of Bilhah and Zilpah mis-behaved themselves, and raised an ill report upon the family of Jacob by their criminall conversation, which if it were such as some have imagined, was most abominable, Joseph observing it with dislike acquaints his father with it, that by him they may be reclaimed from their evill courses; wherein he doth the office of a good sonne, and brother, to his father, and brethren, and acquitteth his own soule from all guilt that might have been contracted by his silence.