The Story of Joseph
Joseph’s brothers decide they have had enough of their rival in their father’s affections.
Bronze Age ?3000 – ?1050 BC
Joseph’s brothers decide they have had enough of their rival in their father’s affections.
Bronze Age ?3000 – ?1050 BC
The story of Joseph’s remarkable rise to power in Egypt began very unpromisingly, when his brothers tired of listening to his dreams of future glory.
JOSEPH was the favourite among the twelve sons of Jacob, and the others resented it.
They resented the coat of many colours which Jacob had given him, and above all they resented Joseph’s recurrent dreams in which they bowed low before him.
Some of his brothers wanted to murder Joseph, and tell Jacob that his favourite had been savaged by wild animals, but Reuben, hoping to smuggle Joseph safely home later, persuaded them to be content with stripping Joseph of his coat of many colours, and bundling him into a dry pit. However, when Reuben crept back to the pit to rescue his brother, he found him gone. Judah and the rest had sold him to a passing camel-train of merchants bound for Egypt, for a handful of silver.
The brothers now fell back on their original plan, smearing goat’s blood on that wretched coat, and telling the heartbroken Jacob that they rather thought Joseph had been killed by some wild animal.
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Why did Joseph’s brothers plot to murder him?
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
Joseph was Jacob’s favourite. Joseph’s brothers were envious.