Joseph and the Colorful Coat
Genesis 37 to 45
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Joseph had eleven brothers.
His father gave him a beautiful coat.
He did not give one to anybody else.
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Joseph was the eleventh of twelve brothers and his father Jacob loved him best, which is a hard thing in any family. Jacob had a coat made for him, a long one with sleeves, in every color there was. Joseph wore it everywhere. His brothers watched him wearing it, and something went sour in them.
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His brothers were jealous.
They sold him to traders going to Egypt.
He was a very long way from home.
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One day out in the fields, their jealousy boiled over. When a train of traders came past on their way to Egypt, the brothers sold their own brother to them, and off he went, down the long road out of the country. Then they told their father he was gone. Joseph was on his own, in a place where he did not even speak the language.
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In Egypt things went wrong, and then wrong again.
Joseph ended up in prison.
And he had not done anything.
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In Egypt Joseph worked hard and did well, and then he was accused of something he had not done and thrown into prison. He was there a long time. He could have gone bitter in there, and plenty would have. He did not. He kept being useful to the people around him, year after year, in a prison cell.
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The king had a dream nobody could explain.
Joseph explained it.
Seven good years, then seven hungry ones.
Store the food now, he said.
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Then the king of Egypt had a strange dream that none of his wise men could make sense of, and somebody remembered Joseph. They brought him up out of the prison and God helped him understand it. Seven years of good harvests are coming, he told the king, and then seven years of famine. Build storehouses now, while there is plenty.
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The king put Joseph in charge of the whole country.
The hungry years came, just as he said.
And Egypt had food, because Joseph had saved it.
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The king was so impressed that he put Joseph in charge of all of it, second only to himself. For seven years Joseph filled the storehouses. Then the rains failed and the crops failed, exactly as he had said, and while everywhere else went hungry, Egypt had grain, because one man had been listening.
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Then his brothers came, looking for food.
They did not know him. He knew them.
I am Joseph, he said. And he forgave them.
Then he hugged them, and everybody cried.
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And one day his own brothers arrived from far away, hungry, asking to buy grain. They did not recognize the great Egyptian official in front of them. He knew them straight away. And when he finally said it, I am Joseph, your brother, they were terrified. But he was crying. Do not be afraid, he told them. You meant it for harm, but God brought good out of it. Then he put his arms round every one of them.
