Joseph (Genesis)

• 1. Introduction

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  Joseph, the dream interpreter of the Book of Genesis, carries a name that the Bible itself explains in two different ways. In one verse, his mother Rachel says that God has taken away her reproach, which echoes a Hebrew root meaning to gather, remove or take away. In the very next verse she says the LORD shall add to her another son, which echoes a different root meaning to add. Both explanations sit side by side, and the text never chooses between them.

  Genesis presents Joseph as the eleventh son of the patriarch Jacob and the founder of the Tribe of Joseph. His story also serves as an explanation for why the Israelites came to live in Egypt. It follows a favourite son whose own brothers turn against him, and a family whose survival ends up depending on the very land that swallowed him.

  This documentary asks how a boy so envied by his brothers could one day be the person they depended on for bread. It asks what rabbis, Christian writers, Muslim tradition and Bahá'í writings each made of him. And it asks when, and by whom, the story was written down.

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• 2. Sheaves, Stars, And A Cistern

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  At seventeen, Joseph told his brothers about two dreams, and the telling set a plot in motion. In the first, bundles of grain gathered by his brothers bowed down to his own bundle. In the second, the Sun, the Moon and eleven stars bowed to him. The Sun stood for his father, the Moon for his mother, and the stars for his brothers.

  Joseph already stood apart from the household in Canaan. He was Rachel's firstborn and lived alongside ten half-brothers, one full brother, and at least one half-sister. His father preferred him over all the others and gave him a "long coat of many colors". Dreams that implied his own supremacy angered the brothers, and they began to plan his death.

  The plot unfolds in Genesis 37, in the portion called Vayeshev, and it is set at Dothan. Most of the brothers wanted Joseph dead. Reuben suggested throwing him into an empty cistern instead, because he secretly meant to rescue him later. The others did not know this, and they agreed.

  While Joseph was held in the cistern, the brothers noticed a camel caravan carrying spices and perfumes to Egypt. They sold him to those merchants. Then they painted goat's blood on his coat and showed it to Jacob, who concluded that his son was dead.

  Joseph was now headed to a land where a captain of Pharaoh's guard would soon buy him.

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• 3. From Prison To Palace

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  Potiphar, the captain of Pharaoh's guard, bought Joseph in Egypt, and Genesis 39 follows his rise inside that house. Joseph became Potiphar's servant and then the superintendent of the household. Potiphar's wife, later called Zulaykha, tried to seduce him, and he refused. Angry that he ran from her, she accused him falsely of rape so that he would be imprisoned.

  Prison did not end his usefulness. The warden put Joseph in charge of the other prisoners. Then Pharaoh's chief cup-bearer and chief baker, both of whom had offended the king, were thrown in, and each had a dream. Joseph asked to hear them.

  The cup-bearer dreamed of a budding vine with three branches. Its blossoms became grapes, which he squeezed into Pharaoh's cup and placed in Pharaoh's hand. Joseph read this as a return to office within three days. The baker dreamed of three baskets of bread for Pharaoh with birds eating from them. Joseph foretold that the baker would be hanged within three days and his flesh eaten by birds.

  Joseph asked the cup-bearer to mention him to Pharaoh. The cup-bearer, restored to his post, forgot.

  After two more years, Pharaoh himself dreamed of seven lean cows devouring seven fat cows, and of seven withered ears of grain devouring seven fat ears. His advisers could not explain either dream. At that point the cup-bearer remembered Joseph, and Joseph was summoned. He interpreted the dreams as seven years of abundance followed by seven years of famine, and he advised storing surplus grain.

  Zaphnath-Paaneah was the name Joseph received when he became Vizier. He was also given Asenath, the daughter of Potipherah, priest of On, as his wife. During the years of abundance, he made sure the storehouses were full and that all produce was weighed. In the sixth year, Asenath bore him two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim.

  When the famine came, it was so severe that people from surrounding nations travelled to Egypt to buy bread. The narrative says they went straight to Joseph or were directed to him, even by Pharaoh himself. As a last resort, every inhabitant of Egypt except the priestly class sold their property to him for seed, and then sold themselves as slaves. Joseph decreed that because people would now farm on government property, a fifth of the produce belonged to Pharaoh. That rule lasted until the days of Moses.

  In the second year of the famine, travellers from Canaan reached Joseph, and they were his own half brothers.

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• 4. The Silver Cup

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  Joseph was in his late 30s when his half brothers came before the Vizier, and they did not recognise him. He recognised them. He refused to speak to them in Hebrew and accused them of being spies. When they mentioned a younger brother at home, he demanded that the brother be brought as proof of their honesty. That brother was Benjamin, his full brother.

  Joseph kept the men in prison for three days. On the third day he repeated his demand. The brothers talked among themselves in Hebrew about the wrong they had done to Joseph, and he understood every word. He stepped away because emotion overwhelmed him. When he returned, he bound Simeon as a hostage and sent the rest home to Canaan with grain. Unknown to them, he had put their money back inside their sacks.

  Back home, Jacob was distraught at the thought of losing Joseph, Simeon and, potentially, Benjamin. Only after the grain ran out did he agree to another trip. Reuben and Judah's persistence finally persuaded him to let Benjamin go, out of fear of Egyptian retribution.

  At Joseph's house, a steward received the brothers. They were afraid the returned money would be used to enslave them, so they confessed it at once. The steward calmed them and brought out Simeon. When Joseph saw Benjamin, he was overcome but hid it. He withdrew to his chambers and wept, then ordered a meal. Egyptians considered it loathsome to dine with Hebrews, so the sons of Israel were served at a separate table.

  That night Joseph set a trap. He had the brothers' donkeys loaded with food and with their money, and he ordered his silver cup placed in Benjamin's sack. In the morning the steward overtook them, searched the sacks, and found the cup exactly where it had been planted. The brothers agreed to be escorted back. Joseph announced that the man with the cup would become his slave.

  Judah answered by pleading that Benjamin go home to his father and that he himself stay as a slave in Benjamin's place. The Vizier broke down in tears. He sent the Egyptian men out of the house and told the Hebrews who he was. He wept so loudly that the Egyptian household heard him outside, while his brothers stood frozen and speechless.

  He told them not to be afraid, because what they had meant for evil, God had meant for good. He ordered them to bring their father and entire household to live in the province of Goshen, since five more years of famine remained. For the journey he gave them Egyptian wagons, new garments, silver money, and twenty additional donkeys carrying provisions.

  Then he readied his chariot to meet his father in Goshen.

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• 5. Blessing And Bones

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  A household of seventy, with all its livestock, set out for Egypt under Jacob, who is also called Israel. Judah went ahead to ask where the caravan should unload, and they were directed into Goshen. More than twenty years had passed since Joseph last saw his father. They embraced and wept together for a long time, and Jacob said: "Now let me die, since I have seen your face, because you are still alive."

  The family then met Pharaoh in person. Pharaoh suggested that if any qualified men were in the household, they could choose a chief herdsman to oversee Egyptian livestock. Because Pharaoh held Joseph in such high regard, meeting Joseph's father was an honour, and Israel blessed the king.

  Seventeen years later, Jacob was 147 years old, bedridden and nearly blind. The household had acquired many possessions and multiplied through even the worst of the famine. Israel begged Joseph not to bury him in Egypt but to carry him to Canaan to lie with his forefathers, and Joseph swore to do it.

  Joseph then brought his two sons to his father's bedside. Israel declared Ephraim and Manasseh his own heirs, on a par with Reuben and Simeon. He laid his left hand on the eldest, Manasseh, and his right on the younger, Ephraim. Joseph, displeased, switched his father's hands. Israel refused, saying "but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he." Israel himself had stood in the same position as a younger brother to the firstborn Esau.

  Joseph also received a larger portion of Canaanite land than his brothers, land his father said he had fought for against the Amorites. Israel then called all twelve sons and prophesied blessings or curses over each, in order of their ages. To Joseph he said: "Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well."

  After his prophecies, Israel died. Egyptians and family together mourned him for seventy days, and Joseph had the body embalmed, a process that took forty days. Joseph led Pharaoh's servants and the elders of Israel and Egypt beyond the Jordan River. At Atad they observed seven days of mourning. The grief was so loud that local Canaanites remarked, "This is a deep mourning of the Egyptians," and they named the spot Abel Mizraim. Joseph buried his father in the cave of Machpelah, which Abraham had bought from the Hittites.

  With Jacob gone, the brothers feared that Joseph would now take revenge. He wept when they spoke, told them that God had meant it all to save lives, and comforted them. Their ties were reconciled.

  Joseph himself lived to 110 and saw his great-grandchildren. Before he died, he made the children of Israel swear that they would take his bones with them when they left Egypt. His body was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt. When the Exodus came, Moses carried the bones out.

  They were buried at Shechem, in a parcel of land Jacob had bought from the sons of Hamor. Tradition identifies the site as Joseph's Tomb. Joshua later allocated Shechem to the Tribe of Ephraim, one of the tribes of the House of Joseph.

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• 6. Rabbinic Questions

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  Maimonides, in the Jewish tradition, found divine design even in a villager from Shechem whom Joseph asked about his brothers' whereabouts. He called that stranger a divine messenger working behind the scenes. In the midrash, the whole sequence of favouritism, envy and sale was God's means of getting Joseph into Egypt so that he could save his tribes.

  A midrash poses an odd question: how many times was Joseph sold? Genesis 37 uses five different Hebrew names for five groups involved in the transaction. They are the brothers, the Ishmaelites, the Midianite traders, the Medanites, and the Egyptians. Rabbi Judah counted four sales, from brothers to Ishmaelites, to Midianite traders, to Medanites, and finally into Egypt. Rav Huna added a fifth, when the Egyptians sold him to Potiphar. The discussion appears in Genesis Rabbah 84:22.

  Potiphar's wife receives her own commentary. According to the Midrash, Joseph would have been executed at once on her charge. Abravanel explains that she had accused other servants of the same crime before. Potiphar believed Joseph incapable of it and asked Pharaoh to spare his life. Even so, punishment could not be avoided, because of her class status and the limited public knowledge of her scheme.

  Legends of the Jews gives her the name Zuleikha. In that account, as she tempted Joseph, God appeared to him holding the foundation of the earth, called Eben Shetiyah. God warned that he would destroy the world if Joseph touched her.

  The silver cup also drew two readings. One holds that Joseph planted it to test whether his brothers would risk danger to save Benjamin, since Benjamin shared Rachel as a mother and the brothers had betrayed Joseph at seventeen. An alternative tradition claims that Joseph, the dreamer who predicted the future, practised divination with the cup, as the steward charged and as Joseph himself claimed in Genesis.

  Another Talmudic story says Joseph was buried in the Nile, because provinces disputed which would hold his tomb. An ancient holy woman named Serach led Moses to the spot, and by a miracle he raised the sarcophagus and took it with him at the Exodus.

  Jewish tradition also names Joseph as the ancestor of a second Messiah called Mashiach ben Yosef. That figure will wage war against the forces of evil beside Mashiach ben David and die in combat with the enemies of God and Israel.

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• 7. Readings Across Faiths

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  Hebrews 11:22 in the New Testament cites Joseph as an example of faith, and several churches keep days for him. The Armenian Apostolic Church commemorates him among the Holy Forefathers on the 26th of July. The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod marks him as a patriarch on the 31st of March. In the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Eastern Catholic Churches of the Byzantine Rite, he is called "Joseph the all-comely", a phrase pointing to the beauty of his spiritual life as well as his appearance. Icons sometimes show him wearing the nemes headdress of an Egyptian vizier.

  In the patristic period, Christian writers often read his life as a typological precursor to Christ. John Chrysostom said that Joseph's suffering was "a type of things to come". Caesarius of Arles took the coat to represent the diverse nations who would follow Christ. Ambrose of Milan read the standing sheaf as prefiguring the resurrection.

  Even John Calvin, sometimes called the father of modern grammatico-historical exegesis, wrote that "in the person of Joseph, a lively image of Christ is presented." Some Christian authors trace this reading to the speech of Stephen in Acts 7:9-15, and note links between the Greek Genesis account and the Parable of the Wicked Tenants and the Parable of the Prodigal Son. One odd claim comes from Gregory of Tours, who said Joseph built the pyramids and that they served as granaries.

  In Islam, Joseph is Yusuf, a prophet named in Quran 6:84. A whole chapter is devoted to him, the only instance in the Quran where one chapter tells the complete story of a person. The Quran calls it the best of stories. Tradition says Muhammad once remarked that "One half of all the beauty God apportioned for mankind went to Joseph and his mother; the other one half went to the rest of mankind."

  The Quranic version differs from Genesis in memorable ways. The brothers ask Jacob, called Yaqub, to let Joseph go with them. Joseph is thrown into a well and taken as a slave by a passing caravan. When the brothers claim a wolf ate him, Jacob responds with patience. Later, the brothers return from Egypt without Benjamin because the king's measuring cup was found in his bag, and Jacob weeps until he loses his sight.

  In the Quran, Joseph reveals himself during that second return to Egypt, forgives his brothers, and sends his garment. When it is cast on Jacob's face, it heals the old man's eyes. The family then migrates to Egypt, and they prostrate before Joseph, fulfilling his boyhood dream.

  The Bahá'í writings use Joseph as a metaphor. In the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, Bahá'u'lláh mentions the sweet-smelling savour of a garment, and in the Four Valleys he mentions the fragrance of a garment blowing from the Egypt of Baha. Commentaries read the garment as recognising a manifestation of God. In the Qayyumu'l-Asma', the Báb calls Bahá'u'lláh the true Joseph and foretells his suffering at the hands of his brother, Mírzá Yahyá.

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• 8. Dating And Retelling

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  In 1970, Donald B. Redford argued that the Joseph story took shape between the 7th century BCE and the third quarter of the 5th century BCE. By the early 1990s, most modern scholars agreed it was a Wisdom novella by a single author, reaching its present form in the 5th century BCE at the earliest. Soggin raised the possibility of a first or early second century BCE date.

  Scholars still disagree. Some argue the core could reach back to a 2nd millennium BCE setting. Others see a Persian period diaspora novella told from the viewpoint of Judeans living in Egypt. Thomas Römer proposes that the original narrative can be dated to the late Persian period, with a few passages fitting better in a Greek, Ptolemaic context, though most of those belong to later revisions.

  The narrative runs on dreams. Joseph begins as a dreamer, and that gift lands him in trouble when envy drives his brothers to sell him. He then proves himself with prisoners' dreams before interpreting the dreams of Pharaoh, who makes him second-in-command in Genesis 41:41. Many regard the climax as the moment of Genesis 45:3, when he reveals his identity to his brothers.

  The story has been retold for centuries. In the 13th century, the Cistercian monk Jean de Limoges wrote Somnium morale Pharaonis, a collection of fictional letters exchanged between Pharaoh, Joseph and others about the interpretation of Pharaoh's dream. George Frideric Handel composed the oratorio Joseph and his Brethren in 1743. In 1914, Richard Strauss wrote Josephslegende for the Ballets Russes.

  Thomas Mann spent 1933-1943 on Joseph and His Brothers, a four-novel omnibus. He identified Joseph with Osarseph, a figure known from Josephus, and the pharaoh with Akhenaten. The musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, follows the story through Genesis chapter 46 and became a film in 1999.

  Screen versions multiplied. The 1995 Turner Network Television film Joseph starred Ben Kingsley as Potiphar, Lesley Ann Warren as Potiphar's wife, Paul Mercurio as Joseph and Martin Landau as Jacob. In 2000, DreamWorks Animation released Joseph: King of Dreams, with Ben Affleck voicing Joseph. The 2003 VeggieTales video The Ballad of Little Joe sets the tale in an American Western. Iran produced the popular series Prophet Joseph in 2008-2009, directed by Farajollah Salahshoor and based on the Quran.

  Brazil's RecordTV broadcast José do Egito from the 30th of January to the 9th of October 2013, with Ângelo Paes Leme as the adult Joseph. Its telenovela Gênesis later covered the whole book of Genesis and gave the last of its seven phases to Joseph.

  In 2019, Stephen Mitchell published Joseph and the Way of Forgiveness, a novel in the form of a midrash that dwells on the thoughts and beliefs of a flawed Joseph.

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