Joseph

Rachel’s Son

Joseph was the son of Jacob and Rachel. Rachel had not been able to have children. Then “God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her, and opened her womb.” She named the boy Joseph, saying, “May the LORD add another son to me” (Gen 30:22–24).

The Coat and the Dreams

At seventeen, Joseph was “feeding the flock with his brothers” (Gen 37:2). “Israel loved Joseph more than all his children,” and made him a tunic of many colors; when his brothers saw it, “they hated him, and couldn’t speak peaceably to him” (Gen 37:3–4). Joseph had two dreams — his brothers’ sheaves, then the sun, moon and stars — bowing down to him. He told them, and “his brothers envied him, but his father kept this saying in mind” (Gen 37:5–11).

Later Jacob sent Joseph to check on his brothers, who were out with the flocks far from home. They threw him into a pit, and then “sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver” (Gen 37:28). They dipped his tunic in blood and sent it to their father, and Jacob “refused to be comforted” (Gen 37:31–35). Joseph was taken to Egypt and sold “to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh’s, the captain of the guard” (Gen 37:36).

Potiphar’s House and Prison

In Egypt, “the LORD was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man,” and his master put all that he had into his hand (Gen 39:2–4). Day after day his master’s wife asked him to lie with her. Joseph refused: “How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” (Gen 39:9–10). One day she caught him by his garment; he left it in her hand and ran. She used the garment to accuse him falsely to her husband, and his master “put him into the prison” (Gen 39:12–20). Then the text says: “But the LORD was with Joseph, and showed kindness to him, and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison” (Gen 39:21).

Forgotten

Pharaoh’s chief cupbearer and chief baker were put in the same prison, and each had a dream. Joseph said, “Don’t interpretations belong to God?” and explained their dreams (Gen 40:8). He asked the cupbearer to “make mention of me to Pharaoh, and bring me out of this house” (Gen 40:14). But once the cupbearer was restored, he “didn’t remember Joseph, but forgot him” (Gen 40:23).

Overnight

“At the end of two full years, Pharaoh dreamed,” and no one could explain the dreams. Only then did the cupbearer remember Joseph (Gen 41:1, 8–13). Joseph was brought out of prison and told Pharaoh, “It isn’t in me. God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace” (Gen 41:16). He explained the seven years of plenty and the seven years of famine, and Pharaoh said, “Behold, I have set you over all the land of Egypt” (Gen 41:41). The text records: “Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh king of Egypt” (Gen 41:46).

Pharaoh gave him an Egyptian name, and gave him “Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera priest of On as a wife” (Gen 41:45) — Potiphera, not the Potiphar of chapter 39. Joseph named his firstborn Manasseh, because “God has made me forget all my toil, and all my father’s house,” and his second son Ephraim, because “God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction” (Gen 41:51–52).

His Brothers Come

The famine spread everywhere, and “all countries came into Egypt, to Joseph, to buy grain” (Gen 41:57). Joseph’s ten brothers came too, and “bowed themselves down to him with their faces to the earth” (Gen 42:6). “Joseph recognized his brothers, but they didn’t recognize him” (Gen 42:8). He spoke harshly to them, called them spies, kept Simeon, and told them to bring their youngest brother Benjamin (Gen 42:9–24). The brothers said to one another, “We are certainly guilty concerning our brother” (Gen 42:21). More than once the text records Joseph turning aside to weep (Gen 42:24; 43:30).

When Benjamin came, Joseph had his silver cup put in Benjamin’s sack and said he would keep Benjamin as a slave. Judah — the brother who had once proposed selling Joseph — now pleaded with him: “please let your servant stay instead of the boy, my lord’s slave; and let the boy go up with his brothers” (Gen 44:33).

Brothers Again, and Down to Egypt

Joseph could hold back no longer. “He wept aloud,” and said to his brothers, “I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into Egypt” (Gen 45:2, 4). He also said, “God sent me before you to preserve life” (Gen 45:5). When Jacob heard that his son was alive, he said, “Joseph my son is still alive. I will go and see him before I die” (Gen 45:28). God spoke to Jacob in the night: “I will go down with you into Egypt” (Gen 46:4). Joseph went to Goshen to meet his father, “and fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while” (Gen 46:29). As Pharaoh had commanded, Joseph gave his family a place “in the best of the land,” and provided food for them all (Gen 47:11–12).

After His Father’s Death

Before Jacob died, he claimed Joseph’s two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, as his own (Gen 48:5), and blessed his sons, saying, “Joseph is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine by a spring” (Gen 49:22). When Jacob died, “Joseph fell on his father’s face, wept on him, and kissed him” (Gen 49:33; 50:1).

After their father’s death, the brothers were afraid Joseph would pay them back, and sent word asking for forgiveness; “Joseph wept when they spoke to him” (Gen 50:15–17). He told them, “Don’t be afraid, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to save many people alive” (Gen 50:19–20). And he said, “I will provide for you and your little ones” (Gen 50:21).

Joseph’s Bones

“Joseph lived one hundred ten years” (Gen 50:22). Before he died, he told his brothers, “God will surely visit you, and bring you up out of this land,” and he had the children of Israel swear to carry his bones up from Egypt (Gen 50:24–25). He died, “and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt” (Gen 50:26).

Later, at the exodus, “Moses took the bones of Joseph with him” (Exod 13:19), and Israel “buried the bones of Joseph … in Shechem” (Josh 24:32). The New Testament book of Hebrews says: “By faith Joseph, when his end was near, made mention of the departure of the children of Israel, and gave instructions concerning his bones” (Heb 11:22).