The Bible: Commentary and Controversy

So Jacob settled again in the land of Canaan, where his father had lived as a foreigner. When his son Joseph was 17, he worked for his half brothers, Bilhah and Zilpah, tending flocks, and reported to Jacob some of the bad things his half brothers were doing.

Now, Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other children because he was born to him in his old age. So one day he made Joseph a beautiful coat and gave it to him, which made his brothers jealous and angry.

Joseph then described a dream he had in which his brothers bundles were bowing to his in obeisance, which angered them even more. Then he described another dream in which the sun, the moon, and the stars were bowing to him. I can imagine the effect this dream had on his brothers, and anyone else he told it to.

So his brothers plotted against him.

One day Jacob tells Joseph to join his brothers in the field, see how they’re doing, and report back to him. His brothers see him coming and decide to kill him. They will throw him in one of the pits in the area and say an evil beast devoured him. Reuben, in order to keep Joseph alive so he might rescue him later, tells the brothers not to harm Joseph, but just to put him in the empty pit without laying a hand on him. Which the brothers do, first stripping him of his splendid coat.

As they then sit down to have lunch, they see a caravan of Ishmaelite traders coming toward them and decide, instead of killing Joseph, to sell him, which they do, for 20 pieces of silver. And the traders took him to Egypt.

The brothers then killed a goat, dipped Joseph’s coat in it, and sent it home to their father. Jacob recognized it immediately and assumed that Joseph had been killed by a wild beast. Dressing himself in sackcloth, he mourned for his lost son, saying “I will go to my grave mourning for him.”

When the traders arrived in Egypt, they sold Joseph to Potiphar, captain of the palace guard under Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, who is so pleased with him he makes Joseph his personal attendant. Everything goes along swimmingly until Potiphar’s wife falsely accuses Joseph of trying to rape her, and Joseph is thrown into prison.

Because God is watching over him, however, Joseph succeeds in all things, and before long the prison warden makes him his favorite, putting him in charge of the other prisoners and everything that happens in the prison. Some time later, two of his prison mates, the chief cup bearer and the chief baker, who have been incarcerated for offending Pharaoh, tell Joseph of dreams they have had. God interprets them through Joseph, giving the two dreamers a vision of their futures: one is to get his position back as cup bearer, the other is to be impaled.

Both dreams eventually come true.

Some time later, Pharaoh has two dreams, which no one can analyze. The cup bearer remembers Joseph from  prison, and Pharaoh brings him in to tell him what the dreams mean.

Joseph says they mean seven years of bounty for Egypt, then seven years of famine. He tells Pharaoh to put the best man available in charge of preparations for the seven years of famine. Pharaoh chooses Joseph, making him second in command over all of Egypt, and gives him Asenath, daughter of Potiphera, for his wife, with whom he has two sons.

So during the seven years of bounty, Joseph takes one-fifth of all the crops produced in Egypt, and stores it in Pharaoh’s warehouse.

During the next seven years, he trades food from the Pharaoh’s warehouses to the Egyptian people for their possessions, their livestock, and their lands, basically giving Pharaoh ownership of the entire country and all its contents.

During that time, Jacob sends the rest of his sons, excepting Benjamin, to Egypt to buy food. They meet with Joseph, who recognizes them, but they don’t recognize him. He makes life tough for them before he reveals himself as their brother, and they all hug and give thanks. Pharaoh tells Joseph to bring them all from Canaan to live in the land of Goshen, “the very best land in Egypt,” and showers them with gifts.

At age one hundred and forty-seven Jacob dies, asking Joseph to bury him with his ancestors. As he lies dying, he tells Joseph God wants him to go to Canaan to take back “the land of your ancestors, plus an extra portion of the land that I took from the Amorites with my sword and bow.”

Then he prophesies for each of his twelve sons, blessing each one with an appropriate message, and dies. And thus the twelve tribes of Israel are born and named. Years later, at the age of one hundred and ten, Joseph died, was embalmed by the Egyptians, and placed in a coffin in Egypt.