Hebrew Folk Tales and Legends

While Joseph was in prison in Egypt allegedly for sexual assault against the wife of his master, two high officials of the Pharaoh's household, his wine steward and his chief baker, got into serious trouble with the Pharaoh of Egypt and he had them put into the same prison where Joseph was confined.  The captain of the guard put Joseph in charge of these two new prisoners, who were locked up in the prison with long sentences. One night both the wine steward and the baker had dreams that troubled them.   When Joseph saw them in the morning, he noticed that they were troubled, so he asked them, "Why are you so upset today?" They replied, "We have had dreams and no one can tell us what they mean." Joseph said to them, "Dreams come from the gods and so does their interpretation.   Please tell me your dreams. I will see if I can tell what they mean." First the wine steward told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, "In my dream there was a vine...

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 u...