Joseph Essay, Research Paper

Background

Joseph had a lot of different cultures in his life. His family structure was partly good and partly bad. His father loved him so much his other

step-mothers brought Jacob bad news about him. His brothers hated him

because he would brag about his dreams. Then Joseph warned the Pharaoh

about the seven years of famine in Egypt. Then while completing his drem

Joseph told him about the seven years of drought. Then became the

Pharaohs right hand man. Then Joseph consulted the pharaoh about the

hardships they are going to have after the drought so that they would save

up all of the food.

According to the Microsoft Encarta is this, the background

information about Genisius which I will be talking about. Genesis tells of

the beginning of the world, from God’s creation of heaven and earth

to the death of Joesph, the 11th son of the Hebrew patriarch. The

book falls into two unequal parts. The first part (chapters 1-11) is

concerned with the primeval history of humankind; it contains stories

about the first man and the first woman, the first murderer, the flood

that God sent to destroy the world’s wickedness, and the

confounding of the speech and scattering abroad of later people. It

also contains the first covenant made by God with humanity through

Noah(9:9-17). The second part (chapters 12-50) is mainly an account

of the lives of the Hebrew patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

According to the Holy Bible of The New Amerivan Bible the

setting in this story was in three cities. One of the cities was in Cannan

Where the family lives. The second place was a city in Egypt where he was

slaved and where he was the Pharaoh s right hand man. The thrid place

was Goshan where Joseph s family lived. There were different parts of the

stories whicj took plave in different cities.

One of the haracters in this story was Joseph who is the topic of our story.

Bilhah, Zilpah, Leah, and Rachel who were Jacob s wives. Jacon had

twelve sons in his marriges. Leah had six of the children, Bilhah and

Zilpah had for who are slaves, and Rachel had Joseph and Benjamin.

These are people who were all part of the story of Joseph. The time this

took place was five or six B.C.

The begginning of this story was when God said to Jacob to build a

altar and to settle there. Then God said to purify yourselves and put on

fresh cloths. He built a altar in the land called Cannan and named the altar

Bethal. When Jacob and his wife departed Bethal, Rachel was beginning to

into labor and was in great disstress. When she gave birth she called the

baby Ben-oni which Jacob called hin Benjamin. After she gae birth to

Benjamin she died and Jacob buried her on the way to Ephrath. Then

Jacob s father died and his sons Jacob and Esau buried her.

Joseph lived with his family in Cannan. When Joseph was

seventeen years old he attended flocks with his other brothers. Since Jacob

loved him so much, all of the brothers were jealous and hated him. While

in the flocks Joseph told his brothers about the dreams and they thought he

was crazy. So when he went back with his brothers on the field and told

them another dream and then his brothers couldn t stand it anymore.

Since the brothers couldn t take it anymore they plotted to kill him.

When he came to his brothers they stripped his coat and threw him in a

cistern . Then Judah asked why that why should we kill our brother?

There is nothing to be gained. So they sold them to the Ishmaelites for

twenty pieces of silver. Reuben came by to see if Joseph was in the box but

he wasn t because some Midianite traders passed by and saw him and

pulled out of the cistern and took him to Egypt. Then Reuben took his coat

and dipped it in goats blood and sent it to Jacob. The Midiante took him to

Egypt and sold him to the Potipher, the Pharaoh chief steward and courtier.

Then he was put in the Egyptian s master house as the personal

attendant. Since Joseph was good looking and the master s wife wanted

him to lie with her but he wouldn t do it. Joseph wouldn t lie with her so

she screamed, My husband brought in a Hebrew slave to make sport of

us. Then the master threw him in jail where the royal prisoners where

confined. The Lord was with Joseph and he was assigned by the jail chief

that he was to be put charge of the jailers.

While in the jail, the Pharaoh threw his Cupbearer and Baker in jail

because he was disgusted in them. The courtiers both had dreams that

night. The next morning while Joseph was walking around and he saw that

the two men looked disturbed. They said they had dreams but no one can

interpret them for us. Then Joseph said tell them to me. They did and told

them their dreams and told what they meant. Later when the Pharaoh got

them out of jail they told him about Joseph and him interpreting their

dreams they had.

The Pharaoh got Joseph out of jail and told him to interpret the

dream he had that night. He did and told him that there will be seven years

of famine and seven years of drought. After that, the Pharaoh made him his

right hand man. He was in charge of the food in Egypt.

Then Jacob s son s with the exception of Joseph went to get a

emergency refill of grain. Joseph s brothers knelt before him. He ask them

where they came from and why. They answered him and said the

information and Joseph said that they were spies. Joseph knew who they

were right away but he had to conceal his face and make his voice stern.

Then Joseph put them in jail and said to them bring evidence of why you

aren t spies. You will leave one of your brothers behind. They went to get

Benjamin and convince Jacob to bring him back unharmed. They came

back and Joseph gave them a big meal to eat before there journey home.

While finishing their meal Joseph told the stewards to fill the bags of grain

and put his silver cup in Benjamin bag. After they left, the stewards went

to go get the brothers for stealing his cup. They checked each bag and

found it in Benjamin and brought them back to the city. Joseph caught up

with them and couldn t resist and broke down and showed who he really

was. Then he went to the Pharaoh and asked him if he could send his

family on a piece of land nearby of where Joseph lived. The pharaoh told

Joseph to pick the land and then pharaoh talked to Jacob and asked him

how old he was and he said one hundred ant thirty. Then Joseph moved his

family to the land and stocked them with food for the family.

Joseph s land policy started to change when the food source started

to get low. Since the severe famine was in affect people spent all of their

money buying food from Joseph. When they ran out of food they gave him

livestock. Then after awhile they lost their livestock and was selling their

land. After awhile they lost all of their land and was then reduced to

slavery. Then the priests didn t have to sell their land do to their fixed

allowance.

Before Jacob died he told Joseph that he wanted to be buried with

his other ancestors. He wanted to be buried somewhere out of Egypt. Then

Joseph swore under oath that we would do this for him. Then Jacob said

his testament to his twelve tribes. Jacob died when he was one hundred

and forty seven years old. The Egyptians mourned him for seventy days.

Then Joseph mourned so much after his loss. He went to the Pharaoh and

said to him that I promised my dad that I would bury him out of Egypt with

his other ancestors and he granted it.

When Jacob died the brothers were fearful of him. They thought

that he might have revenge on him. So the brothers wanted to be slaves for

him. So then Joseph said that I am not going to do anything to you and I

will care for your family. They never worried since that time.

Then came the death of Joseph. He said to the brothers that God

will take care of you. Then he said that if God takes care of you bring my

bones up from the burial ground. Joseph died at the age of one hundred and

ten. He was embalmed and laid in a coffin in Egypt.

Then after the story of Joseph came the book of Exodus. It tells the

sons of Israel and the first generation of Jacob. Then a new king came to

Egypt and new nothing about what was going on. Then the king said to the

house wives if they have a boy you kill him if you have a girl you can keep

her. Midwives feared God so he built up families. Then the Pharaoh

demanded the housewives to throw the baby boys to be thrown in the river.

Application

We can learn that we should never do things that god will come back

at us for. We should always go by the commandments and never do break

them. We shall never try to kill or sell our people. We should always do

good instead of bad things. Something will come back and haunt you if you

do something wrong.

The wisdom of this story that we use today would be that things that

you did awhile ago and lie about it will appear later on in your life. You

should always do good things in your life. That we do things that we would

regret later on in our lives. We would do things like kill a person but don t

know that he is still alive and that then something will happen. Then we

always take that our food source is poor and the people back then they sold

land and livestock and even slavery so they could have food.

I learned that I should never, first of all, kill somebody. I should

always take for garnet that I have food on my table. We will always have a

food supply somehow somewhere. I will always make myself do the right

thing in life. I will always forgive somebody because I will think of Joseph

and how he forgave his brothers.