Genesis 37-40

Tree of Life Version

Parashat Vayeshev

Joseph, Favored Son

37 Now Jacob dwelled in the land where his father had sojourned, in the land of Canaan. ² These are the genealogies of Jacob.

When Joseph was 17 years old (he was a youth), he was shepherding the flocks with his brothers—with the sons of his father’s wives Bilhah and Zilpah. Joseph brought back a bad report about them to their father.

³ Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his other sons because he was the son of his old age. So he had made him a long-sleeved tunic. ⁴ When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak to him in shalom.

⁵ Then Joseph dreamed a dream and told his brothers—and they hated him even more. ⁶ He said to them, “Please listen to this dream I dreamed. ⁷ There we were binding sheaves in the middle of the field. All of a sudden, my sheaf arose and stood upright. And behold, your sheaves gathered around and bowed down to my sheaf.”

⁸ “Will you truly be a king over us?” his brothers said to him. “Will you really rule over us?” So they hated him even more because of his dreams and because of his words.

⁹ But then he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers, saying, “I have just dreamed another dream. Suddenly, there was the sun and the moon and the eleven stars bowing down to me!” ¹⁰ He told it to his father as well as his brothers.

Then his father rebuked him and said to him, “What’s this dream you dreamed? Will we really come—your mother and I with your brothers—to bow down to the ground to you?” ¹¹ So his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the speech in mind.

Joseph Betrayed

¹² Then his brothers went to graze their father’s flocks at Shechem. ¹³ Israel said to Joseph, “Aren’t your brothers grazing the flocks in Shechem? Come, let me send you to them.”

“Here I am,” he said to him.

¹⁴ Then he said to him, “Go now, and check on the welfare of your brothers and the welfare of the flocks and bring word back to me.”

So he sent him from the valley of Hebron and he went to Shechem. ¹⁵ A man found him there, wandering in the field, and the man asked him, “What are you looking for?”

¹⁶ “I’m looking for my brothers,” he said. “Please tell me where they’re grazing.”

¹⁷ The man said, “They moved on from here. For I heard them saying, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.’” So Joseph went after his brothers and found them in Dothan.

¹⁸ Now they saw him from a distance. Before he was close to them they plotted together against him in order to kill him. ¹⁹ They said to one another, “Here comes the master of dreams! ²⁰ Come on now! Let’s kill him and throw him into one of those pits, so we can say that an evil animal devoured him. Then let’s see what becomes of his dreams.”

²¹ But Reuben heard and rescued him out of their hands, saying, “We must not beat him to death.” ²² In order to rescue him from their hand and to return him to his father, Reuben said to them, “Don’t shed blood! Throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him!”

²³ So as soon as Joseph came up to his brothers they stripped Joseph of his tunic (the long sleeved tunic that he had on). ²⁴ Then they took him and threw him into the pit. (Now the pit was empty, with no water in it.)

²⁵ Then they sat down to eat bread. When they looked up, behold, there was a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels carrying gum, balsam, and myrrh—going to bring them down to Egypt.

²⁶ Then Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is there if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? Come on! ²⁷ Let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites. Let’s not lay our hand on him—since he’s our brother, our own flesh.” His brothers listened to him. ²⁸ When some men, Midianite merchants, passed by, they dragged Joseph up and out of the pit and they sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for 20 pieces of silver, and they brought Joseph to Egypt. ²⁹ When Reuben returned to the pit and saw that Joseph was not in the pit, he tore his clothes. ³⁰ Then he returned to his brothers and said, “The boy is gone! And I—where should I go?”

³¹ So they took Joseph’s tunic, slaughtered a billy goat, and they dipped the tunic into the blood. ³² Then they sent the long-sleeved tunic, and it was brought to their father, and they said, “We found this. Do you recognize whether or not it is your son’s tunic?”

³³ He did recognize it and said, “My son’s tunic! An evil animal has devoured him! Joseph must be torn to pieces!” ³⁴ Jacob tore his clothing and put on sackcloth and mourned for his son many days. ³⁵ All his sons got up along with all his daughters to console him, but he refused to be comforted. He said, “For I will go down to Sheol to my son, mourning.” So his father kept weeping for him.

³⁶ Meanwhile the Midianites sold him into Egypt, to Potiphar an official of Pharaoh, the commander of the bodyguards.

Judah and Tamar

38 About that time Judah went down from his brothers and he camped near an Adullamite man, whose name was Hirah. ² There Judah saw the daughter of a Canaanite man whose name was Shua, and he took her as wife and slept with her. ³ Then she became pregnant and gave birth to a son, and he named him Er. ⁴ She became pregnant again and gave birth to a son, and she named him Onan. ⁵ She gave birth to yet another son and she called him Shelah. He was in Chezib when she gave birth to him.

⁶ Then Judah got a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. ⁷ But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was evil in Adonai’s eyes, so Adonai put him to death. ⁸ Then Judah said to Onan, go to your brother’s wife to perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her, and raise up a seed for your brother. ⁹ But Onan knew that the seed would not be his. So every time he went to his brother’s wife he would destroy it on the ground so as not to provide a seed for his brother. ¹⁰ What he did was evil in Adonai’s eyes, so He put him to death also.

¹¹ Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, “Stay as a widow in your father’s house until my son Shelah grows up,” because he thought, “Otherwise he too might die, like his brothers.” So Tamar went and stayed in her father’s house.

¹² Now the days became many, and Shua’s daughter, Judah’s wife, died. After Judah consoled himself, he went up to Timnah to his sheepshearers, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite. ¹³ Then Tamar was told, “Look! Your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his flocks.” ¹⁴ And she removed her widow’s clothes from herself, covered herself with a veil, wrapped herself, and sat by the entrance to the springs on the way to Timnah (for she saw that Shelah had grown up and she had not been given to him as a wife).

¹⁵ When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute because she had covered her face. ¹⁶ So he turned aside to her along the way and said, “Please let me sleep with you” (for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law).

“What,” she asked, “will you give me to sleep with me?”

¹⁷ “I will send you a young goat from the flock,” he said,

“Provided you give a pledge until you send it,” she said.

¹⁸ “What kind of pledge shall I give you?” he asked.

“Your seal, and your cord, and your staff in your hand,” she said. So he gave them to her and he slept with her, and she got pregnant by him. ¹⁹ After she got up and left, she removed her veil from herself and put on her widow’s clothes.

²⁰ When Judah sent the young goat by the hand of his friend the Adullamite to take back the pledge from the woman’s hand, he could not find her. ²¹ He asked the men of her area saying, “Where is the cult prostitute? She was at the springs along the way.”

But they said, “There hasn’t been a cult prostitute here.”

²² So he returned to Judah and said, “I couldn’t find her, and the people of that place also said, ‘There hasn’t been a cult prostitute here.’”

²³ Then Judah said, “Let her take them for herself, or we’ll be held in contempt. Behold, I did send this young goat, but you couldn’t find her.”

²⁴ About three months later, Judah was told, “Your daughter-in-law Tamar has been a prostitute—look, she’s even pregnant by prostitution.”

“Bring her out!” Judah said, “and let her be burned.”

²⁵ As she was being brought out, she sent word to her father-in-law saying, “I’m pregnant by the man to whom these things belong.” Then she said, “Do you recognize whose these are—the seal, the cords and the staff?”

²⁶ Then Judah recognized them and said, “She is more righteous than I, since I didn’t give her to my son Shelah.” He was not intimate with her again.

²⁷ Now when it was time for her to give birth, behold there were twins in her womb. ²⁸ While she was giving birth, one stuck out his hand, and the midwife took a scarlet thread and tied it to his hand saying, “This one came out first.” ²⁹ But as he was pulling his hand back in, behold, his brother came out. So she said, “How you have broken through! The breach is because of you.” And he named him Perez. ³⁰ Afterward his brother, on whose hand was the scarlet thread, came out. And he named him Zerah.

Joseph Succeeds in Adversity

39 Now Joseph had been brought down to Egypt. Potiphar, an official of Pharaoh, commander of the bodyguards, bought him from the hand of the Ishmaelites, who had brought him down there. ² But Adonai was with Joseph. So he became a successful man in the house of his master, the Egyptian. ³ His master saw that Adonai was with him and that Adonai made everything he set his hand to successful. ⁴ Joseph found favor in his eyes, so he served him as a personal servant and he made him an overseer over his household; everything that was his he entrusted into his hand. ⁵ From the time that he made him an overseer in his house and over everything that belonged to him, Adonai blessed the Egyptian’s house because of Joseph; Adonai’s blessing was on everything that belonged to him, in the house and in the field. ⁶ So he released everything he owned into Joseph’s hand. With him in charge, he did not think about anything except the food he ate.

Now Joseph was handsome in form and handsome in appearance.

⁷ Now after these things, the master’s wife lifted up her eyes at Joseph and said, “Come, lie down with me!”

⁸ But he refused. “Look,” he said to his master’s wife, “my master doesn’t think about anything in the house with me in charge, and everything that belongs to him he’s entrusted into my hand. ⁹ No one in this house is greater than I, and he has withheld nothing from me—except you, because you are his wife. So how could I commit this great evil and sin against God?”

¹⁰ So whenever she spoke to Joseph, day after day, he did not listen to her invitation to lie down beside her, to be with her. ¹¹ Now on one such day, he came into the house to do his work, and none of the people of the house were there in the house. ¹² Then she grabbed him by his garment saying, “Come, lie with me!” But he left his garment in her hand, fled and went outside. ¹³ When she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and fled outside, ¹⁴ she screamed to the men of her house and said to them, “Look! Someone brought a Hebrew man to us to fool with us. He approached me to lie with me so I screamed out loud. ¹⁵ When he heard me raise my voice and scream, he left his garment with me, fled and went outside.”

¹⁶ Then she kept the garment with her until his master came home. ¹⁷ She spoke the same words to him saying, “The Hebrew slave that you brought us approached me to fool with me. ¹⁸ When I raised my voiced and screamed, he left his garment with me and fled outside.”

¹⁹ Now when his master heard the words his wife spoke to him saying, “Such are the things your slave did to me,” his anger burned. ²⁰ Then Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined. So there he was, in the prison.

²¹ But Adonai was with Joseph and extended kindness to him and gave him favor in the eyes of the commander of the prison. ²² The commander of the prison entrusted into Joseph’s hand all the prisoners who were in the prison, so that everything that was done there, he was responsible for it. ²³ The commander of the prison did not concern himself with anything at all under his care, because Adonai was with him, and Adonai made whatever he did successful.

Interpreter of Dreams

40 Now it was after these things that the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt offended their master, the king of Egypt. ² Pharaoh was angry with his two officials, with the chief of the cupbearers and with the chief of the bakers. ³ So he put them in custody of the house of the commander of the bodyguards—in the prison, the place where Joseph was confined. ⁴ The commander of the bodyguards assigned Joseph to be with them and served them as their personal servant. They were in custody for some time.

⁵ Then the two of them each dreamed a dream on the same night. The dream of each man—the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were confined in the prison—each had its own interpretation. ⁶ When Joseph came to them in the morning, he observed them, and there they were, looking miserable. ⁷ So he asked Pharaoh’s officials who were with him in the custody of the house of his master saying, “Why are your faces so sad today?”

⁸ They said to him, “We dreamed a dream and there is no one to interpret it.”

Then Joseph said to them, “Don’t interpretations belong to God? Please tell me.”

⁹ So the chief of the cupbearers told his dream to Joseph, saying to him, “In my dream, suddenly, there was a vine in front of me. ¹⁰ On the vine were three branches, and as it was budding, its blossoms came out, its clusters ripened into grapes. ¹¹ Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand and I took the grapes, pressed them into Pharaoh’s cup and put the cup in Pharaoh’s palm.”

¹² “This is its interpretation,” Joseph said to him. “The three branches: they are three days. ¹³ In another three days, Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your position. Then you’ll put Pharaoh’s cup in his hand just as you used to do before when you were his cupbearer. ¹⁴ But if you remember me, that I was with you, when it goes well with you, please show me kindness and mention me to Pharaoh and get me out of this house. ¹⁵ For I was forcibly kidnapped from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing at all that they should put me in this pit.”

¹⁶ When the chief of the bakers saw that the interpretation was good, he said to Joseph, “I also was in my dream. Expectantly, there were three baskets of white bread on my head. ¹⁷ In the top basket was food for Pharaoh—all kinds of baked goods. But the birds were eating them from the basket on my head.”

¹⁸ Then Joseph answered and said, “This is its interpretation. The three baskets: they are three days. ¹⁹ In another three days Pharaoh will lift up your head—off of you—and will hang you on a tree. Then the birds will eat your flesh off of you.”

²⁰ Then it happened on the third day—Pharaoh’s birthday—that he held a banquet for all his servants. He lifted up the head of the chief of the cupbearers and the head of the chief of the bakers among his servants. ²¹ He restored the chief of the cupbearers as his cupbearer, and he put the cup on the palm of Pharaoh’s hand. ²² But the chief of the bakers he hung. It was just as Joseph had interpreted for them. ²³ Yet the chief of the cupbearers did not remember Joseph—indeed, he forgot him.