“Joseph’s Dreams”

 

One of Jacob’s twelve son’s was named Joseph. He was the youngest in the family, except for Benjamin.

When Joseph was seventeen years old, he went out into the fields one day to help his ten older brothers who were taking care of the sheep and the goats. But while he was there he saw his brothers do something they should not have done. That night when he got home, he told his father. This was a good thing to do, for then his father could talk to his brothers about it, so that they would not do it again. But of course his brothers were angry with him for telling on them.

Joseph was his father’s favorite son, so his father gave him a present of a beautiful coat. But this made his brothers jealous. From then on they couldn’t seem to find one good thing to say about him!

One night Joseph had a strange dream, and the next morning he told his family about it.

“In my dream,” He said, “all of us were out in the field tying bundles of grain stalks. Then your bundles stood around mine and bowed to it!”

This dream made his brothers even angrier. They thought Joseph was saying that they should bow to him as though he was their king.

“Do you think you are better than we are?” they demanded.

Then Joseph had another dream. This time he dreamed that the sun, the moon, and the eleven stars all bowed to him. His eleven brothers knew that he was talking about them when he talked about the eleven stars bowing to him; and the sun and moon must mean their father and mother.

This made them even angrier than ever.

When he told his father about the dream, his father scolded him.

“Do you think your mother and brothers and I are going to bow to you? He asked. “Don’t be foolish!

Soon after this his brothers took their fathers flocks to Shechem to find pastures for them there. Shechem was a long way off. It took several days to walk there with the sheep.

Not long afterwards Jacob said to Joseph, “Go and find your brothers and see how they are getting along  and how the sheep are.”  So Joseph went to find them.

But his brothers weren’t at Shechem. He was wandering around the fields looking for them when he met a man who told him, “Your are at Dothan. I heard them say they was going there.” So Joseph went on to Dothan.

When his brothers saw him coming, they began talking to each other about killing him.

“Here comes that dreamer,” they said,. “Come on, let’s kill him and throw him into the well, and will say some wild animal has eaten him. Then will see what happens to his dreams!”

When Joseph’s brother Reuben heard them talking like that, he didn’t like it at all. He wanted to save Joseph, so he persuaded his brothers to put Joseph into the well without hurting him. Reuben planned to come back after the others had gone to take Joseph out and get him home to his father again.

Joseph came, and they grabbed him and took away his beautiful coat and put him into a well that did not have any water in it.

Then they sat down to eat their lunches. Just then they saw some men coming along on camels: these men were taking things to the country of Egypt to sell. When Joseph’s brother Judah saw them, he said, “Lets sell Joseph to them! We’ll get rid of him and get some money too.”

The other brothers thought this was a good idea, so they pulled Joseph out of the well and sold him for twenty pieces of silver. The merchants put him on a camel and took him far away to the land of Egypt.

Reuben had not been there when Joseph was sold. When he came back to the well to get Joseph out and send him home, he was very sad.

“Joseph is gone,” he exclaimed.

“Oh, what shall I do?

The brothers killed a young goat and dripped Joseph’s coat in the blood.

They brought the coat to their father and told him they had found it on the ground.

“Is it Joseph’s coat? They asked.

“Jacob knew it was and began to cry. “Yes, “He said, “It is Joseph’s coat; a wild animal must have eaten him.

“Joseph is dead.”

Then Jacob tore his clothing and dressed himself in sackcloth. Sackcloth is a dark, scratchy kind of cloth that people used to wear to show their sadness. Jacob said he would mourn for his boy all the rest of his life.

Questions:

What did Jacob give Joseph to wear?

What did Joseph dream about?

What did Josephs brothers do to him? Why?

What did they tell their father had happened?