Life of Jacob | Full-Bible-Timeline When Jacob calls his wives to him in Gen thirty-one only Leah and Rachel are named. Before he died, he made the children of Israel swear that when they left the land of Egypt they would take his bones with them, and on his death his body was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt. Finally, after 20 years of marriage, they were blessed with twin boys, Jacob and Esau. Jacob lived in the land of his father's sojournings, in the land of Canaan. Joseph prospered in Potiphar's household and was eventually made head of the servants. Many of these amplifications have been borrowed by rabbinical tradition. Answer (1 of 13): There are thirteen persons in the Bible who bear the name Joseph. "Give me children, or I shall die," she says to Jacob (Genesis 30:1). According to Josephus, Reuben tied a cord around Joseph and let him down gently into the pit. The genealogy of Jesus in the New Testament traces Jesus' ancestry lineally, from Abraham to David, and then from David to Jesus. [50] He thus charged his sons to go and inquire about Joseph and his brother and despair not of God's mercy. Abravanel explains that she had accused other servants of the same crime in the past. He then gave his blessing upon all of his sons, and the blessing he gave to Joseph was the greatest of all: Joseph's sons Ephraim and Manasseh multiplied to become two separate tribes of Israel. [c] Thereafter the guilty brothers painted goat's blood on Joseph's coat and showed it to Jacob, who therefore believed Joseph had died (Genesis 37:1235). But Judah pleaded for Benjamin, offering himself as a slave instead. [28] Impressed with Joseph's interpretations, Pharaoh appoints him as second-in-command (Gen 41:41). Jacob is between 130 and 147 years old. Who are the two concubines who have children with Jacob? The sons by . Jacob's wife, were Joseph and Benjamin. Joseph was called into his father's house and Israel pleaded with his son that he not be buried in Egypt. Could Paul have been saying that the husband and wife need to be one (Hebrew echad) instead of limiting a man to one wife? They betrayed him by. He is the favourite son of the patriarch Jacob, and his jealous brothers sell him into slavery in Egypt, where he eventually ends up incarcerated. Required fields are marked *, nine = 27 .hide-if-no-js { How many kids did Mary have? In Jewish tradition, Joseph was the progenitor of the northern tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, named for his two sons. After this, his brothers plotted against him and would have killed him had not his brother Reuben intervened. Jacob had 12 sons, at Hebron. (7-14) Genesis 29:17. When they met, they embraced each other and wept together for quite a while. 'ewe') was a Biblical figure, the favorite of Jacob's two wives, and the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, two of the twelve progenitors of the . Joseph or Yosef (Hebrew: , Arabic: , Yusuf; "The Lord increases") is a major figure in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). (Genesis 47:2731), Later, Joseph came to visit his father having with him his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. Who was the wife of Joseph son of Jacob? He persuaded them to throw Joseph into a pit and secretly planned to rescue him later. After they mentioned a younger brother at home, the Vizier (Joseph) demanded that he be brought to Egypt as a demonstration of their veracity. Later we read, "His . The next two instances of dream interpretation establish his reputation as a great interpreter of dreams; first, he begins in a low place, interpreting the dreams of prisoners. . Even though I never watched either Big Love or Sister Wives, I knew about people who lived like this and I will bet that anyone who lives in certain parts of certain western states can tell you the same thing. After bearing Judah, Leah stopped bearing children for a . Indeed, he blessed Joseph's sons before all the rest. It was the first successful production in the career of Andrew Lloyd Webber. ), and as recently as the reign of Pharaoh Merneptah about 1200 B.C.E. Modern critics have made various estimates of the historical worth of these narratives of Joseph. Joseph was 11th of 12 sons of a wealthy nomad Jacob and his second wife Rachel. The Hebrew word translated as "tender" means "soft, delicate, or lovely.". Thank you. So they immediately informed the steward of what had transpired. Why Were the Sons of Jacob Chosen to Be the 12 Tribes of Israel? He then sent them away with grain, retaining Simeon as a hostage (Gen. 42:1-25), while ordering them not to return without Benjamin, the only one of his brothers born of Joseph's own mother, Rachel. In Egypt, Joseph's character was antithetical to that of all the other slaves. Indeed the name Potiphar may even be a version of Merenptah's name (Poti = Ptah, Phar = Pharaoh). Designed by Elegant Themes | Powered by WordPress, Judgment in Context: Honor, Shame, and the Command to Judge Not., Confessions of a Former Torah Terrorist Pt II. the time has come for the Israelites to be rescued from their oppressors; come up and do not cause us any further delay!" 4. 20 And to Joseph in the land of Egypt were born Manasseh and Ephraim, whom Asenath, the daughter of Poti-Pherah priest of On, bore to him. His death does not change the familys obligation towards her. Did Jacob wait more than seven years to marry Rachel? Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. Joseph had good reasons not to have an affair with Potiphar's wife: he did not want to abuse his master's trust; he believed in the sanctity of marriage; and . I had no idea about what dyadic social identity was all about, or concubinage, and although I did understand the importance of political marriages (Solomon did NOT need that many alliances, just sayin) I was way too caught up in idea that black Mormons (not meaning color, but it was just what they were called in my neck of the woods) represented a sort of an ideal Biblical model for what was going on in ancient times. How many children did Jacob have? Joseph was then summoned. Habakkuk 3:7, in a paralellism (a literary device where something is said twice, slightly differently, in such a way as to equate two concepts), says this of Cushan. Old and nearly blind, Jacob is overwhelmed with joy, saying: "I never expected to see your face again, and now God has allowed me to see your children too" (Gen 48:11). She became angry and told lies about him, so he was put in jail. Unbeknownst to them, Joseph had also returned their money to their money sacks (Genesis 42:128). Shechem was in the land which was allocated by Joshua to the Tribe of Ephraim, one of the tribes of the House of Joseph, after the conquest of Canaan. Is Polygamy Really Biblical? 119a; comp. According to Legend of the Jews, the name of Potiphar's wife is Zuleikha and when she was enticing Joseph to give up to her sinful passion, God appeared unto him, holding the foundation of earth (Eben Shetiyah), that He would destroy the world if Joseph touched her. Jacob's daughters, like too many Bible women, often go unnamed, are mentioned only in passing, or both. [15] Both men had dreams, and Joseph, being able to interpret dreams, asked to hear them. When Rachel did not have any children, she became upset. arose that night, and took his two wives, his two maidservants1 and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. They were directed into the province of Goshen and Joseph readied his chariot to meet his father there. Because the Pharaoh had such a high regard for Joseph, practically making him his equal,[23] it had been an honor to meet his father. 15 So Jacob went down to Egypt; and he died, he and our fathers. [44] In the Quran the brothers ask Jacob ("Yaqub") to let Joseph go with them. 2. The brothers then dipped Joseph's coat in goat's blood and, returning home, showed it to their father, who concluded that Joseph had been torn apart by a wild beast. Angered by his running away from her, she made a false accusation of rape, and thus assured his imprisonment[d] (Genesis 39:120). [6], The Bible offers two explanations of the name Ysf: first it is compared to the Hebrew root (-s-p), meaning "to gather, remove, take away":[7] "And she conceived, and bore a son; and said, God hath taken away my reproach" (Genesis 30:23);[8] Ysf is then identified with the similar root (y-s-p), meaning "to add":[9] "And she called his name Joseph; and said, The LORD shall add to me another son." For Jacob however, a time came when his parents urged him to leave Canaan . To Joseph, he gave a portion more of Canaanite property than he had to his other sons; land that he fought for against the Amorites. When the famine came which Pharoah had dreampt of, and Joseph had predicted, Joseph's father, brothers, and their families, settled in Egypt where there was food. However Jacob gave the greater blessing to the younger Ephraim, Moses, before he died, gave a similar blessing to the house of Joseph, which he called, Jospeh had great faith in God. (Genesis 50:1521), Joseph lived to the age of 110, living to see his great-grandchildren. 17:1; 1 Ne. As the reputed ancestor of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, he is regarded by some as altogether legendary or even mythical by some critics. The baker's dream was about three baskets full of bread for the Pharaoh, and birds were eating the bread out of those baskets. (Gen. 28:3, 4) This explains why Jacob when nearly 100 years old did everything in his power to obtain God's blessing; he even wrestled with a materialized angel. It was after this that Isaac married Rebekah and Abraham took Keturah as a wife (possibly a concubine) (see Genesis 24 and 25:1). Families desperately needed heirs, and the dyadic social identity of a woman depended on her being not only a wife, but also a mother it simply didnt matter if your husband loved you best, if you had no children Rachel knew that (so did Sarah, Rebekah, Hannah and Elizabeth). In the Yahwist version Joseph is sold to Ismaelites, while in the Elohist (E) narrative it is Midianites who buy him. He received the same name as two great prophets, one past and one future: Joseph of Egypt and the Prophet Joseph Smith. In his father's house, Joseph is the favored son: "Israel (another name for Jacob) loved Joseph more than all his sons since he was a child of his old age" (Genesis 37:3). In the Kitb-i-Aqdas, Bah'u'llh states that "from my laws, the sweet-smelling savour of my garment can be smelled" and, in the Four Valleys, states that "the fragrance of his garment blowing from the Egypt of Baha," referring to Joseph. Why did Jacob go to paddan? Of all the sons, Joseph was preferred by his father, who gave him a "long coat of many colors". The Priestly source adds some statistics and gives a list of the people who went down to Egypt, while a later editor has supplied details to make the accounts appear as one, such as Joseph's subterfuge of sending the brothers back to Canaan first to get Benjamin, and later to get Jacob. How many years overall did he work for Laban? : > 1. Here, Potiphar's wife (called Zuleika in later tradition) tried to seduce Joseph, which he refused. I have written six books on the ancient Near Eastern and First Century context of Scripture, including a family curriculum series.