COME AS A CHILD LESSON 91 JOSEPH IS BETRAYED

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

So Jacob/Israel was living out his mature years in the land of Canaan where Isaac had lived before him.  Jacob/Israel had two sons by Rachel that he loved very much.  There was Benjamin whom she died giving birth to; he was the youngest son.  The oldest son was Joseph.  The name Joseph means "he will add."  Joseph was the eleventh and favored son of Israel.

When Joseph was seventeen he was tending the flocks with his brothers (the ones born to Leigh, Bilhah and Zilpah) and he brought their father a bad report of them.  Israel always listened to Joseph and Benjamin, his youngest two sons born in his old age from his beloved deceased wife Rachel.  Israel favored these two sons above all the others.  He was always giving them special gifts.  

One day Israel gave Joseph a very ornate robe that made the other brother’s envious.  They became so jealous of Israel’s love for Joseph that they hated Joseph and never had one kind word for him again. 

One day Joseph had a dream that they all were binding sheaves of grain out in the field.  Suddenly Joseph’s sheaves rose and stood upright and all the other’s sheaves bowed down to Joseph’s sheaves.  When Joseph told this dream to his brothers they hated him even more.  They scoffed at him and asked if he intended to rule over them? 

Then Joseph had another dream and again he told it to his brothers.  In this dream the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to Joseph.  The brothers hated him even more.  Joseph told the dream to his father and his father rebuked him this time.  Israel said to the young Joseph; “What is this dream you had?  Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?”  Afterwards Israel wondered at the meaning of the dream. 

A few days later Joseph’s brothers went to graze their father’s flocks near Shechem and Israel said to Joseph, “As you know, your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem.  Come, I am going to send you to them.”

“Very well.”  Joseph replied.  So Israel said to Joseph; “Go and see if all is well with your brothers and with the flocks and bring word back to me.”  So Joseph left from the Valley of Hebron and headed toward Shechem.  When he arrived at Shechem a man found him wandering around in the fields and asked him what he was looking for.  Joseph replied that he was looking for his brothers and asked the man if he could tell him where they were grazing their flocks.  The man answered Joseph that they had moved on from there.  He said he had heard them say “Let’s go to Dothan.” 

So Joseph went to Dothan and found them.  They saw him coming in the distance and before he reached them they plotted to kill Joseph.   They said “Here comes that dreamer!  Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him.  Then we will see what comes of his dreams.”

When the oldest brother, Ruben heard this, he tried to rescue Joseph from their hands.  “Let’s not take his life,” he said.  “Don’t shed any blood.  Throw him into this cistern here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him.”  Reuben was hopeful he could come back and rescue Joseph and take him back to their father.     

So as soon as Joseph approached they stripped him of his robe and they took him and threw him into the cistern.  The cistern was empty; there was no water in it. 

The brother’s then stopped to eat lunch and as they sat there eating they saw a caravan approaching.  The men in the caravan were Ishmaelites coming from Gilead.  Their camels were loaded down with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt.   

Judah had an idea for his brothers to consider.  He said “What will we gain if we kill out brother and cover up his blood?  Let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.”  The other brothers agreed with him.  So when the Midianite merchants came by , his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who then took Joseph to Egypt. 

Ruben had been away tending to something else when they sold Joseph.  He came back to the cistern hoping to save him and take him home.  When he saw that he was not there he was terribly upset.  He went back to his brothers and said, “The boy isn’t there!  Where can I turn now?”    

Then they all got Joseph’s robe, slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in the blood.  They took the ornate robe back to their father and said, “We found this.  Examine it to see whether it is your son’s robe.”

Israel recognized the robe right away and exclaimed that it belonged to Joseph.  He thought some ferocious animal had devoured him and imagined that Joseph had been torn to pieces. 

Terribly upset, Israel tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and mourned for his son for many, many days.  All of his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted.  “No,” he said, “I will continue to mourn until I join my son in the grave.  So Joseph’s father wept for him. 

Meanwhile, the Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials.  Potiphar was the Captain of The Guard.