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The Dreamer and the Pit · Behind the Bible Verse: The Stories and History Behind Scripture

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  This is a story about a boy of seventeen whose father loved him too openly, and
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  about brothers who decided his dreams were reason enough to be rid of him.
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  Behind the Bible Verse. This is made with the assistance of AI.
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  Our reading is from the book of Genesis, chapter thirty-seven, verses one to
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  twenty, in the World English Bible, British Edition.
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  Jacob lived in the land of his father’s travels, in the land of Canaan.
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  This is the history of the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years
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  old, was feeding the flock with his brothers. He was a boy with the sons of
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  Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives. Joseph brought an evil report of them to
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  their father. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the
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  son of his old age, and he made him a tunic of many colours.
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  His brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, and they
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  hated him, and couldn’t speak peaceably to him.
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  Joseph dreamt a dream, and he told it to his brothers, and they hated him all the
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  more. He said to them, “Please hear this dream which I have dreamt: for behold, we
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  were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf arose and also stood
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  upright; and behold, your sheaves came around, and bowed down to my sheaf.”
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  His brothers asked him, “Will you indeed reign over us?
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  Will you indeed have dominion over us?” They hated him all the more for his dreams
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  and for his words. He dreamt yet another dream, and told it to his brothers, and
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  said, “Behold, I have dreamt yet another dream: and behold, the sun and the moon
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  and eleven stars bowed down to me.” He told it to his father and to his brothers.
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  His father rebuked him, and said to him, “What is this dream that you have dreamt?
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  Will I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves down to the
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  earth before you?” His brothers envied him, but his father kept this saying in
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  mind.
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  His brothers went to feed their father’s flock in Shechem.
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  Israel said to Joseph, “Aren’t your brothers feeding the flock in Shechem?
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  Come, and I will send you to them.” He said to him, “Here I am.”
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  He said to him, “Go now, see whether it is well with your brothers, and well with the
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  flock; and bring me word again.” So he sent him out of the valley of Hebron, and
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  he came to Shechem. A certain man found him, and behold, he was wandering in the
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  field. The man asked him, “What are you looking for?”
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  He said, “I am looking for my brothers. Tell me, please, where they are feeding
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  the flock.”
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  The man said, “They have left here, for I heard them say, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.’
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  ”
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  Joseph went after his brothers, and found them in Dothan.
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  They saw him afar off, and before he came near to them, they conspired against him
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  to kill him. They said to one another, “Behold, this dreamer comes.
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  Come now therefore, and let’s kill him, and cast him into one of the pits, and we
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  will say, ‘An evil animal has devoured him.’ We will see what will become of his
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  dreams.”
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  So the reading leaves them there. The brothers have seen him coming across the
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  fields, and they have already decided what story they will tell.
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  An evil animal has devoured him. Then we'll see what becomes of his dreams.
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  The chapter doesn't stop there, and neither will we.
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  But it helps to know the ground we've just crossed.
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  Jacob, also called Israel, is an old man by now, back in the land of Canaan.
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  He sends Joseph from the valley of Hebron to Shechem, to see if his brothers and the
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  flocks are well. The brothers have already moved on.
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  A stranger in a field points Joseph further, to Dothan.
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  The story is a walk north, from a father's tent to a place where the father can't see
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  what happens.
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  Now the coat, because English readers argue about it, and they should.
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  The Hebrew phrase is ketonet passim. This translation says "a tunic of many
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  colours," which is the old and famous reading, the one behind the King James
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  Bible. Other translations say a long robe with sleeves.
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  The word is rare, and scholars and older commentators don't settle it.
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  Stripes, embroidery, colour, a garment that reached the wrists and ankles: all of
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  these have been offered. What the story needs you to see is simpler.
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  It is a gift that marks one son out from the rest, and it is not a working
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  shepherd's coat. The brothers see it, and they hate him, and they can't even speak
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  peaceably to him.
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  Then the dreams. Sheaves in a field, bowing to his sheaf.
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  Sun, moon, and eleven stars, bowing to him. He tells both dreams out loud.
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  The story doesn't say anyone asked. His brothers hear a threat.
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  His father rebukes him, and then, the text says, keeps the saying in mind.
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  Jacob is offended and he is also paying attention.
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  Both can be true.
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  It's worth sitting with the hatred before the violence, because the violence is
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  about to get very practical. They are not only jealous of a coat.
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  They are tired of a brother who reports on them, and who dreams of them bowing.
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  In a family where the father's love is this uneven, the younger son's dreams
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  sound like a future already decided.
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  Reuben, the eldest, hears the plan to kill him and tries to bend it.
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  Don't take his life, he says. Throw him into a pit out in the wilderness, and
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  don't harm him. The text adds that Reuben means to come back and return Joseph to
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  their father. So Joseph arrives, and they strip off the tunic, and they throw him
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  into the pit. The pit is empty. There is no water in it.
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  And then they sit down to eat.
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  That meal is one of the coldest details in the book.
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  Their brother is in a hole in the ground, and they are having bread.
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  A caravan comes into sight, Ishmaelites from Gilead, camels loaded with spices,
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  balm, and myrrh, on the way down to Egypt. Judah speaks up.
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  What profit is there in killing him and covering the blood?
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  Sell him. He is our brother, our flesh. They listen.
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  Then the chapter uses a second name. Midianite merchants pass by, lift Joseph
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  out of the pit, and sell him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver.
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  The merchants take him to Egypt.
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  Read that slowly if you know the story well, because the names don't line up in a
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  neat way. Ishmaelites in one sentence, Midianites in the next, and at the end of
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  the chapter it is the Midianites who sell him in Egypt to Potiphar.
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  The text uses both names and doesn't explain the difference.
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  Readers have discussed it for a long time. I won't flatten it into one smooth
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  account. What is clear is the price, and the direction.
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  Twenty pieces of silver, and the road to Egypt.
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  Reuben comes back to the pit and Joseph is gone. He tears his clothes.
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  "The child is no more," he says, "and I, where will I go?"
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  The others have a plan for their father. They kill a male goat, dip the tunic in
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  the blood, and bring it home. Examine it, they say.
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  See if it is your son's. Jacob recognises it at once.
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  An evil animal has devoured him. Joseph is without doubt torn in pieces.
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  He tears his own clothes, puts on sackcloth, and mourns for many days.
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  His children try to comfort him. He refuses. He says he will go down to Sheol,
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  mourning for his son. A note in this translation says Sheol is the place of the
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  dead. His father weeps for him. And the chapter's last line is already in Egypt.
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  Joseph has been sold to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's, the captain of the
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  guard.
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  The family thinks they have ended the dreams. They have only moved them.
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  In Potiphar's house, the text says, the LORD is with Joseph, and everything in his
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  hands prospers. Potiphar puts him over the household and stops worrying about
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  anything except the food he eats. Then Potiphar's wife looks at Joseph and says,
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  "Lie with me." He refuses. His master has put everything into his hand, he says, and
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  has kept back nothing but her. "How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin
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  against God?" She keeps at him. One day, when the house is empty, she catches his
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  garment and he runs, leaving it in her hand. She tells the men of the house, and
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  then her husband, a different story. Potiphar's anger burns, and he puts Joseph
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  in the prison where the king's prisoners are kept.
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  Even there, the story says, the LORD is with him. The keeper of the prison puts
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  the other prisoners into Joseph's care. Two of them, the king's cupbearer and the
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  king's baker, have dreams. Joseph interprets them.
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  The cupbearer will be restored. The baker will die.
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  Both things happen. Joseph asks the cupbearer to remember him, and to mention
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  him to Pharaoh. The cupbearer forgets.
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  Two full years pass. That phrase is the opening of chapter forty-one.
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  Then Pharaoh dreams, and no one in Egypt can tell him what the dreams mean.
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  Seven fat cattle, seven thin ones. Seven good heads of grain, seven blasted by
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  the east wind. The cupbearer finally remembers the young Hebrew in the prison.
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  Joseph is brought up, and he is careful about the credit.
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  The interpretation, he says, belongs to God. The dreams are one dream.
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  Seven years of plenty are coming, and seven years of famine after them.
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  Pharaoh should find a wise man and store the grain.
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  Pharaoh's answer is to choose Joseph. "Can we find such a one as this, a man in whom
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  is the Spirit of God?" He puts Joseph over his house and over all the land of Egypt.
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  Only the throne will be greater. He gives Joseph his signet ring, fine linen, a
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  gold chain, and the second chariot. They cry before him, "Bow the knee!"
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  He gives him an Egyptian name, Zaphenath-Paneah, and a wife, Asenath,
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  daughter of Potiphera, priest of On. Joseph is thirty years old when he stands
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  before Pharaoh.
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  Before the famine he has two sons. He names the first Manasseh, saying God has
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  made him forget his toil and his father's house. The second he names Ephraim, saying
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  God has made him fruitful in the land of his affliction.
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  This translation's notes say the names sound like those Hebrew words.
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  Forgetfulness, and fruit. Hold both. He has not actually forgotten.
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  The rest of the story is about to prove it.
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  The famine comes, and it reaches Canaan. Jacob sends ten sons to Egypt to buy
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  grain. He keeps Benjamin at home, Rachel's other son, the only full brother Joseph
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  has left, because he is afraid harm will come to him.
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  The brothers bow to the governor of Egypt. They don't recognise him.
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  He recognises them, and he remembers the dreams. He speaks to them through an
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  interpreter, and accuses them of being spies. Then he turns away and weeps, where
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  they can't see it. He keeps Simeon and sends the rest home with grain, and with
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  their money hidden back in the sacks.
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  They have to come again, and this time with Benjamin.
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  Judah is the one who persuades their father. He says he will be collateral for
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  the boy. If he doesn't bring Benjamin back, he will bear the blame forever.
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  So they return. Joseph sees Benjamin and has to leave the room to weep.
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  At the meal he sends portions from his own table, and Benjamin's portion is five
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  times anyone else's. They drink and are merry with him.
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  It is almost a reunion. It isn't one yet.
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  Joseph has his silver cup hidden in Benjamin's sack.
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  The brothers are stopped on the road. The cup is found.
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  They tear their clothes and go back. And Judah, who once said "sell him," now
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  stands in front of the man he still thinks is an Egyptian and offers himself.
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  He had become collateral for the boy. Let me stay as a slave, he says, and let the
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  boy go home. Their father's life, he says, is bound up in the boy's life.
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  That is the turn. Not a dream coming true in front of a crowd.
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  A brother offering his own freedom for the youngest.
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  Joseph can't hold the disguise after that.
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  He sends everyone else out of the room and weeps so loudly that the Egyptians hear
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  it, and the house of Pharaoh hears it. "I am Joseph!
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  Does my father still live?" His brothers can't answer.
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  They are terrified. He asks them to come near. "I am Joseph, your brother, whom you
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  sold into Egypt. Now don't be grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that you sold me
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  here, for God sent me before you to preserve life."
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  There are five years of famine still to come, he says.
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  God has made him a father to Pharaoh, lord of all his house, and ruler over all the
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  land of Egypt. Hurry, he says. Bring our father. You shall live in the land of
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  Goshen, near me, and I will provide. He falls on Benjamin's neck and weeps, and
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  kisses all his brothers. After that, the text says, his brothers talked with him.
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  Jacob comes down. The family settles. Years pass. Jacob dies.
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  And then the old fear wakes up, which is how you know the story is being honest.
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  The brothers say, it may be that Joseph will hate us now, and pay us back.
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  They send a message, claiming it was their father's wish that Joseph forgive them.
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  They fall down before him and call themselves his servants.
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  The dreams of bowing sheaves have come true in the saddest way.
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  Joseph weeps. "Don't be afraid," he says, "for am I in the place of God?
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  As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to save many people
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  alive." He comforts them and promises to provide for them and their children.
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  People read this ending in more than one way, and I won't choose for you.
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  In Jewish practice the story sits inside the Torah, the first five books, read in
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  course through the year. In Christian reading, some have treated Joseph as a
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  pattern of suffering and then being raised up, and have drawn lines toward Jesus.
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  Others stay with the family itself: favouritism, cruelty, a lie that lasts for
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  years, and a forgiveness that doesn't pretend the evil was small.
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  Joseph does not say they meant well. He says they meant evil, and that God brought
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  good out of it anyway. Those are different sentences.
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  Notice who he refuses to be. They are ready to be his slaves.
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  He will not take God's place as their judge. The boy they put in a pit is now
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  the most powerful man they have ever met, and he uses that power to feed them.
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  So here's a question to sit with, and there's no right answer to it.
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  When the people who hurt you are finally in your power, what do you want to do with
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  that moment?
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  Thanks for listening to Behind the Bible Verse. Scripture readings are from the
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  World English Bible, British Edition, which is in the public domain.
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  Every episode is checked against the text and the historical record.