Joseph was one of the twelve sons of Jacob and, according to the Bible, his father’s favorite. When José was seventeen years old, his father gave him a colorful tunic. His brothers already resented him because José told his father about the bad things they did. The tunic came to increase the rancor in them.
Like little, Joseph had a special gift: God revealed to him through dreams things that would happen in the future.
Joseph’s Prophetic Dreams
We find the biblical story about Joseph in the book of Genesis (chapter 30:22-24; chapters 37 and 39-50).
In his youth, José had two dreams related to him and his family and decided to count them. In his first dream he saw himself in the field together with his brothers tying sheaves (bundles of branches). Suddenly, his sheaf stood up very straight while the sheaves of his brothers bowed in front of theirs.
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In the second dream, Joseph saw the sun, the moon, and eleven stars – representing his parents and brothers – bowing down to him. As expected, neither of the two dreams sat well with his brothers. Anger and envy grew in their hearts so they began plotting to get rid of Joseph. His father, however, reflected on those dreams.
The reality is that both dreams came from God and spoke of something that came to be fulfilled over the years. After enduring many sorrows and injustices, José became someone very important and his whole family had to bow down before him.
Joseph the dreamer, sold as a slave
On one occasion, Joseph’s brothers were in another place herding the sheep. Jacob, the father, sent Joseph to see if his brothers and his flock were okay. When the brothers saw José the dreamer – as they called him – from afar, dressed in his colored tunic, they began to hatch a plan. They wanted to get rid of him (Genesis 37:12-36)!
The original idea was quite macabre which reveals the condition of the heart of some of his brothers:
They said to each other: Here comes that dreamer. Now the time has come. We’re going to kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns, and say he was eaten by a wild animal. And let’s see how his dreams end!
(Genesis 37:19-20)
However, Rubén – the older brother – was opposed to their harming José. He proposed that they throw him into a cistern and leave him there. Actually, his plan was to come later to rescue his brother and bring him back home, alive.
But the plan took an unexpected turn when the other brothers saw a caravan of Midianite merchants heading for Egypt. Judah, one of the brothers, suggested not to kill Joseph, but to sell him and they did so. That was how Joseph found himself sold into slavery and on his way to Egypt.
The brothers took Joseph’s colored tunic and soaked it with goat’s blood. When they got home, they made his father, Jacob, believe that Joseph had been eaten by a wild animal.
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For their part, when the Midianites arrived in Egypt, they sold Joseph a second time. There it was bought by a pharaoh’s official and captain of the guard named Potiphar.
José started working for him and everything he did went well, something that did not go unnoticed. For this reason, Potiphar decided to appoint Joseph as steward of his house and manager of his estate.
For Joseph’s sake, the Lord blessed the house of the Egyptian Potiphar from the moment he put Joseph in charge of his house and all his possessions. The blessing of the Lord spread over everything the Egyptian had, both in the house and in the field.
(Genesis 39:5)
The house prospered and everyone was happy. The one thing Potiphar did not share with Joseph was, obviously, his wife. Unfortunately, Potiphar’s wife wanted to seduce Joseph and that’s where the problems began. José did not give in to the harassment and she resented it.
One day, when everyone who worked in the house was in another place, the woman took the opportunity to approach José and grab him by his clothes. He ran away because he feared God and because he did not want to cause Potiphar grief. Running away he left his cloak in the woman’s hands.
She, piqued, decided to tell the story in her own way. She called the house servants screaming and showed them Joseph’s cloak saying that he had tried to take advantage of her. When her husband arrived, she told him the same story and he, enraged, had Joseph thrown into the jail where the king’s prisoners were kept.
José, the interpreter of dreams
The Bible says in Genesis 39:20b-21 that “even in prison the Lord was with him and did not stop showing his love for him.” José easily gained the trust of the prison guard and he put him in charge of all the prisoners and everything that was done there.
Since the Lord was with Joseph and made everything he did prosper, the prison guard did not worry about anything he left in his hands.
(Genesis 39:23)
Once again, just as it had happened with Potiphar, Joseph saw how God gave him grace in the eyes of the person in charge.
After a while, Pharaoh got angry with two of his officials, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker. He sent them to prison, to the same jail where Joseph was. One night both the butler and the baker had a dream.
In the morning, José noticed that they were a little restless and asked what was wrong. They confessed to him that they had had two dreams and that they could not find anyone who could tell them what they meant. Joseph answered them full of confidence in God:
Is it not God who gives the interpretation? Jose asked. Why don’t they tell me what they dreamed?
(Genesis 40:8b)
The dream of the chief cupbearer
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The first to relate his dream was the chief cupbearer. He saw in his dream a vine with three branches that began to blossom and produced grapes. He saw himself holding Pharaoh’s cup, squeezing grapes before handing the cup to his boss. Joseph told him that the dream meant that in three days the cupbearer would be pardoned and would return to his previous job as cupbearer to Pharaoh.
José took the opportunity to ask the chief cupbearer that when he returned to work, he would remember him. His wish was that she intercede for him before the pharaoh. Perhaps then Pharaoh would show mercy upon realizing that he had been unfair to Joseph and allow him to get out of jail.
The dream of the head of the bakers
When the chief baker saw that the interpretation for the cupbearer was positive, he was filled with courage and told Joseph about his dream. In the dream, he had seen himself with three baskets of bread on his head. There was a large assortment of pastries in the top basket, but the birds would come and eat what was in the baskets.
Joseph told him that in three days Pharaoh would have him beheaded by hanging him from a tree. The birds would come and devour his body. After three days it happened just as Joseph had said: the chief cupbearer went back to work, but the chief baker was hanged.
pharaoh’s dreams
Two years went by. José was already thirty years old and remained a prisoner. One night, Pharaoh had two dreams. In the first he was standing by the Nile River. Suddenly he saw seven fat and beautiful cows that came out of the river and began to graze. Behind them came seven other cows that were very skinny and ugly and these ate the first ones. But even so they did not get fat or look stronger.
In the second dream Pharaoh saw seven large and beautiful ears of wheat coming out of a stalk. Behind them sprouted seven very thin and burned spikes. Just as he had seen in the dream of the cows, the seven thin ears ate the larger ones, but they remained just as thin and burned.
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The pharaoh got up worried and sent for all the magicians and wise men of Egypt, but none managed to interpret his dreams. It was at that moment that the king’s cupbearer remembered Joseph. She told Pharaoh how Joseph had correctly interpreted his and the baker’s dream two years earlier. Pharaoh sent for Joseph and they went to look for him in prison.
Joseph interprets the dreams of the pharaoh
Joseph shaved, groomed himself well, and appeared before Pharaoh. He told him that he had found out that José interpreted dreams. Once more, just as he had faced the butler and the baker, Joseph gave glory to God.
It is not I who can do it, answered Joseph, but it is God who will give Pharaoh a favorable answer.
(Genesis 41:16)
Pharaoh told Joseph his dreams and he interpreted them. Joseph said that the two dreams meant the same thing and that the fact that he dreamed twice showed that God was determined to carry out what he announced.
Seven years of great abundance would come to Egypt, but these would be followed by seven years of scarcity and famine. They would be of such magnitude that people would not even remember all the abundance they had enjoyed in the previous years.
Joseph had the courage to advise Pharaoh. He told him that he should find a wise and competent person who would be in charge of administering Egypt well.. The purpose would be to use the available resources wisely and accumulate enough for the lean years to come. Joseph gave very wise advice to Pharaoh and he replied:
Can we find such a person, in whom the spirit of God rests?
Then he said to Joseph: Since God has revealed all this to you, there is no one more competent and wiser than you. You will be in charge of my palace, and all my people will obey your orders. Only I will have more authority than you, because I am the king.
(Genesis 41:39-40)
Joseph, Governor of Egypt
That is how Joseph went from being in jail unjustly to being the governor of Egypt. Pharaoh gave Joseph a new name, Zafenat Panea, and gave him a wife, a woman named Asenath, the daughter of a priest.
Joseph began to work diligently for Pharaoh. During the seven years of plenty he managed to amass more than enough food for everyone. The shortage began and it did not only affect Egypt, it spread throughout all the nations, but the people of Egypt were prepared.
Gradually, people from all over the world began to come to Egypt for the purpose of buying food. Ten of Joseph’s brothers were among those who came from other countries and regions of the world in search of food. In the end, they did prostrate themselves before José asking for his favor and food, just as José had dreamed of when he was only seventeen years old.
Joseph’s brothers in Egypt
Joseph recognized his brothers, but he didn’t say anything and they didn’t realize it was Joseph. He asked them some questions to get more information about his father and Benjamin, the younger brother. José also tried to understand the state of his brothers’ hearts.
First he accused them of being spies. They defended themselves, but he said no…