Annoying Little Brother Sold as a Slave

Jacob arrived back in the land of Canaan and settled there with his family, his tribesmen and his herds in this land where his father before him had lived as an alien. Jacob had a son named Joseph, his youngest child, now seventeen years old.  Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other children because Jacob was the son of his old age, and so he had made a special robe for Joseph that had sleeves.  Joseph worked with his older brothers in the pastures and helped them tend his father's flock of sheep and goats.

One day Joseph reported to his father that his brothers were lazy and not doing a good job caring for the sheep.  The brothers hated Joseph and talked rudely to him because he was his father's favorite and because he had gotten them into trouble with their father.  Joseph made their hatred even worse when he told them about a dream he had in which he and his brothers were harvesting grain and tying it into bundles (called sheaves). Joseph's sheaf stood upright and his brother's sheaves bowed down to Joseph's sheaf.  The brothers found their little brother annoying and insolent because the dream implied that Joseph was going to rule over them.  They hated him because of his dreams.

Joseph continued to annoy his brothers with his dreams of ruling over them.  Joseph had another dream and told it to his brothers:  “In my dream the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me."  When he told the dream to his father and his brothers, his father became angry and rebuked him, and said to him, "What kind of insolent dream did you have?  Do you think that I and your mother and your brothers will take orders from you and bow to the ground before you as your servants?"

Joseph's brothers continued to be jealous of him and quite angry.  One day soon after his brothers had taken the flocks to pastures near Shechem, Jacob said to Joseph, "Your brothers are pasturing the flock at Shechem.  I want you to go check on them and see if they need anything, and come back here and let me know." 

So Joseph left the valley of Hebron and went Shechem,  where a man found him wandering around in the fields and asked him, "What are you looking for?"

"I am looking for my brothers," he said; "tell me, please, where they are pasturing the flock."

The man said, "They have gone away here.  I heard them say they were going to Dothan."

So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan.  They saw him coming from a distance and before he got close to them they conspired to kill him.  They said to one another, "Here comes the dreamer.  Let's kill him and throw him into one of the pits.  Then we will tell our father that a wild animal attacked and killed him.  So now the dreamer will get what he deserves!”

When Reuben heard his brothers talk of killing Joseph, he objected strongly and got his brothers to abandon the idea.  Reuben said to his brothers, "Let us not take his life. We must not shed his blood. Let's just throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but let's not hurt him." Reuben planned to come back later and rescue Joseph and take him home to his father.

When Joseph caught up to his brothers, they stripped him of his long robe with sleeves and threw him into a deep dry pit. Then they sat down to eat.  While they were eating they saw a caravan of Midianite merchants coming from Gilead, with their camels carrying trade goods and aromatic spices on their way to trade in Egypt.

Judah waited until Reuben had gone off for awhile, then he said to his brothers, "I have an idea.  There is no profit in killing our brother but we could make this situation profitable to us. Let's sell him to the Midianites.  We don't need to hurt him or kill him—he is our brother, our own flesh." And his brothers agreed.

The brothers then lifted Joseph out of the pit and sold him to the Midianites for twenty pieces of silver, and the Midianites then went on their way and took Joseph to Egypt.

When Reuben returned to the pit and saw that Joseph was not in the pit, he tore his clothes in rage and anger. He returned to his brothers, and said, "The boy is gone and I am responsible for him.  What can I do?"

Then the brothers took Joseph's robe, slaughtered a goat, and dipped the robe in the blood. They took the long robe with sleeves to their father and they said, "We found this robe on the trail.  Is this your son Joseph's robe?”

Jacob recognized it and said, "Yes, it is my son's robe! A wild animal must have devoured him.  No doubt Joseph was torn to pieces."  Then Jacob ripped his clothes and put on rough burlap as underwear, and mourned for his son for many days.  His sons and daughters tried to comfort him but he refused to be comforted, and said, "No, I shall go down to the underworld of the dead still mourning my son."

Meanwhile the Midianites had arrived in Egypt and sold Joseph to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh's high officials, the captain of Pharaoh's palace guard.

Joseph was put to work in Potiphar's household, and he did a good job and was successful at whatever he did.  Potiphar soon noticed Joseph's success at whatever he did and attributed it to the fact that Joseph's god, the Lord Yahweh, was helping him so Potiphar made Joseph the overseer of his house and put him in charge of all that he had. With Joseph in charge Potiphar didn't have to worry about anything—except for the food that he ate.

Joseph was a handsome man and women noticed him.  Potiphar's wife was attracted to Joseph and said to him one day, "I want you to sleep with me." Joseph refused.  He told her, "Look, lady, with me in charge my master has no concern about anything in the house and he has put everything that he owns in my hands.  He trusts me.  No one has more authority in this house than I do.  Potiphar has not kept anything from me except you, because you are his wife.  How could I do this great offense against him and against my god the Lord Yahweh?”  

Day after day she kept asking Joseph to sleep with her.  He continued to refuse.  One day when he entered the house to do his work, as he did every day, there was no one else home but Potiphar's wife.  She grabbed him by his clothes and again asked Joseph to sleep with her.  He refused again and ran out of the house, but she was still holding on to his clothes, and his clothing came off as he ran outside. 

When the wife saw that she was still holding his garment in her hand and Joseph had fled outside without his cloak, she called out to the members of her household and said to them, "Look what just happened.  My husband  has brought a Hebrew into our house to insult us! He just came in to my house and tried to rape me, and I screamed.  When I refused him and screamed, he left his clothes in my hands and fled outside."

She kept Joseph's clothes with her until Potiphar came home, and she told Potiphar the same story she had already told members of the household.  She told Potiphar, "That Hebrew servant you brought into our house tried to rape me, but as soon as I screamed, he left his clothes beside me and ran away."

When Potiphar heard the story his wife told him he became enraged.  He had Joseph arrested and put him into the same prison where the Pharaoh's prisoners were confined and there he remained.   

The Lord Yahweh continued to support Joseph while he was in prison and caused the chief jailer to like and trust him, so the chief jailer made Joseph a “trusty” and put him in charge of all the prisoners.  The chief jailer knew his reputation and had confidence in Joseph and did not worry about what was going on in the prison.  The Lord Yahweh made everything that Joseph did work out well.

 

The story reflects (a) ongoing tension and conflict between the tribes (sons) of Jacob (Israel) that were closely related and eventually formed the Kingdom of Israel, and (b) the historical fact that a series of nomadic tribes (collectively known as the Habiru, from which we get the word Hebrew) settled in the delta area of Egypt during this period and many had worked their way into leadership positions.