He favored him no less than Isaac did Esau. Jacob's respite is shattered by a repetition of the behavior pattern he had witnessed in his childhood. Not Reuben, his first born, but Joseph, his eleventh son, receives from him the gift of an ornamented tunic, the sign of future leadership. We are stunned at the obtuseness and inevitability of it all. Again we feel the tension between the divine and human levels of the narrative.
Individual freedom is restricted by divine intention.
Jacob's foible is the catalyst which brings about the sale of Joseph into Egyptian servitude and the eventual relocation of his entire family. Yet the Torah is not without empathy for Reuben. Furthermore, to his credit, he did not join his brothers as they feasted after their dastardly act, perhaps within earshot of Joseph's cries, though his absence denied him the chance to thwart Judah's proposal to sell him to a caravan of traders heading for Egypt. When Reuben did return some time later to discover that Joseph was gone, he tore his clothes in grief and rebuked his brothers. Clearly the Torah preserved the record of this non-event to single Reuben out as a man worthy of leadership.